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^HE BisHOis Committed to the Tower.— An Episode in the Kevolution of 1688, [See 



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)K OF 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES 



OF 



HISTORY. 



A BOOK OF 



Wi^moxnhU gavjs ^nA ^otuhU gui^wts. 



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JVITJI NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. 




NEW YORK: 

W. H. STELLE & COMPANY, 

697 BROADWAY 



COPYRIGHI , l5S3. 

By H. C. SAKDIFER. 



32 103. 



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PREFACE. 




HE popular narratives embodied in this volume are brief but 

complete descriptions of the most important events in the history 

of our own and other countries in later times. No hard and fast 

line has been followed in the arrangement of these sketches, which 

are of uniform length and of a most catholic character. 

The Epochs of History include many stirring scenes and peace- 
ful records. The successes of arms, the records of political events, the 
triumphs of industry in the lives of warriors and statesmen of modern 
times, will be found faithfully recorded and picturesquely treated. Each 
event has been treated completely in connection with its causes and its 
consequences, the long succession of word-pictures being studied from 
separate standpoints, until the best combination of the collected series has 
been attained. 

Thus it will be perceived that the Editor has not arrived at producing 
a volume of history of any particular period, nor has he followed any 
sequence of events, while each episode will be found linked with its pre- 
decessors and followers by an almost imperceptible thread of narrative, 
which completes the value of the collection. From Free Trade to the 
Temperance Movement — from the Forty-five to the struggle in the Crimea 
— from the Elizabethan Age to the era of Penny Newspapers and the 



ii PREFACE. 

Penny Post, the various events of European and American history will 
be easily traced amid the varied episodes narrated in this volume. 

The usefulness of such a work as this can scarcely be over-estimated 
as a book of reference and a historical record of most of the great events 
in the history of the civilized world in later times. Written in a cheerful 
narrative form, with careful references to recognized authorities, and without 
any of the dry character of mere historical compilation, the Epochs and 
Episodes which follow will, in their collected form, no doubt find favour 
with the public. 

The illustrations and portraits have been carefully selected, so as to 
add to the attraction and usefulness of the volume. 

The Editor. 




CONTENTS 



PAGE 

FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION . . • i 

A Field-Night in the Commons— Important Question — 
Rumoured change of Policy— Repeated Surprises— 
A Lion in the Path— Protection in Englaiid — The Corn 
Laws and their Introduction— Remonstrances of the 
People ; How Received — Protection to British Sailors 
and Shipping: How it Worked— Scarcity and its 
Effects — First Efforts against the Corn Laws — Esta- 
blishment of the Anti-Corn-Law League— The Free 
Traders in and out of Parliament— The Penny Post 
an Auxiliary- to Free Trade — A Pair of Friends — 
Richard Cobden and his Career — IMr. John Bright — 
The Melbourne Government : Its Apathy and its Fall — 
Erection of the Free Trade Hall in iNIanchester — In- 
dications of Change — The Queen's Speech of 1841 and 
its Forecast — Sir Robert Peel — Lord George Bentinck 
and the " Stable jNIind " — Peel's Reservation of 
Freedom of Action concerning the Corn Laws — Lord 
John Russell— Enlarged Operations of the League ; 
The first Free Trade Bazaar ; Its Brilliant Success — 
Deputations of Free Traders to Parliament ; — The 
Question pressed upon the House of Commons — Cob- 
den's Appeal to the Prime Minister — Dismay of the 
Protectionists — The Heat of the Battle — Zeal and 
Activity of the League— Important Recruits to the 
Free Trade Ranks — The Condition of the British 
Labourer — Remedies Proposed — Mr. Bright's De- 
scription of the Peasant's Lot — The Irish Famine — 
Triumph of Free Trade — Famine forcing Peel's Hand 
• — Summary and Conclusion. " 



THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS 

The Crusaders in Sight of Jerusalem— Cruelties In- 
flicted on Pilgrims to the Holy Land— Appeal of 
Peter the Hermit — Europe Roused to a Crusade — 
Capture of Antioch and Massacre by the Crusaders — 
Siege and Storming of Jerusalem — Horrible Slaughter 
by Godfrey of Bouillon and his Followers — Wor- 
shipping in the Church of the Sepulchre — The Latin 
Kingdom — Origin of the Hospitallers and Templars — 
The Knighthood of the Temple of Solomon — Insti- 
tution of the Order of the Knights Templars, and 
Rules drawn up by Bernard — Visit of the First Grand 
Master to England — Rapid development and Enor- 
mous Possessions of the Order — Battles in Palestine — 
Noureddin and Saladin — The Last Crusade — The 
Siege of Acre — Persecutions in England and France 
— Tortures and Executions — Heroic Conduct of the 
Knights — Horrible Accusations — Suppression of the 
Order and Confiscation of the Possessions. 



INDIA'S AGONY 

A Terrible Example — The "Company's" India; Con- 
quest and Misrule — Shaking the Pagoda-tree — 
Mutinies of the Last Century — A Danger Disre- 
garded — Sir Charles Napier's Opinion — A Policy of 
Annexation — The First Outbreak — The Greased 
Cartridges — Meerut — Delhi and the Great Mogul — 
Spread of the Mutiny — Prompt Action of Lord Can- 
ning — The Two Lawrences and Outram — Mean Meer 
— General Anson — Successive Commander.s — Delhi 
Retaken — Hodson and the Family of the Mogul — 
Nana Sahib of Bithoor — Cawnpore — The Massacre 
on the Ganges — The Turn of the Tide — Vengeance 
of Nana Sahib — Struggle in Oudh — Havelock and 
Outram — Lucknow — Sir Colin Campbell — Slaughter 
of the Rebels — " Lucknow" Kavanagh — Final Throes 
of the Mutiny — Bareilly — Transfer of India to the 
English Government — End of theEast India Company. 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND ... 49 

A Typical Life — A Cambridge Fellow — Black Joan— Re- 
sult of a Supper Party— An Aged Martyr— Origin of 
the Revolution- Langland and the Lollards — Burning 
of Cobham— Printing Press— Dean Colet— The New 
Learning — The Christian Brethren— Squire Tracy's 
Will— Passion and Pope— Wolsey's Fall and Prophecy 
— Its Progress— Henry's Divorce — A Married Priest as 
Archbishop— Sir Thomas More— England governed 
by a Blacksmith's Son— A Memorable Parliament — 
Head of the English Church— The Black Book— Fall 
of the IMonasteries— Captain Cobbler — Pilgrimage of 
Grace— John Frith, the Genuine Martyr— The First 
English Confessions of Faith— English Bible in the 
Churches — Whip of Six Strings — Martyrdom of 
Lambert and Anne Askevv' — Progress of Edward's 
Reign— Book of Common Prayer— Catholic Reaction 
—The Inquisition— Sir John Cheke— Ihe Martyrs- 
Rogers, Hooper, Latimer, etc. — Smithfield — Protes- 
tant Recovery — Cecil and Parker— Catholic Attempts 
— The I'hirty-nine Articles. 

OUT IN THE FORTY-FIVE 65 

The Stuarts at St. Germains and in Italy— The "Old 
Pretender " in Italy — His Matrimonial Difficulties — 
"My Dear Clementina "—The so-called Prince of 
Wales and Duke of York — Their Love of Music- 
Prince Charles Edward at the Siege of Gaeta— French 
Encouragement to an Expedition — Collection of a 
Force at Dunkirk — The Condition of the Scottish 
Highlands — Paying for Peace — The Clan Act- 
Jacobite Agents — Departure of the Prince for France, 
and Narrow Escape— In Hiding at Gravelines — The 
Expedition to Scotland— Reception by the Highlan- 
ders — Personal Influence — "Bonnie Prince Charlie" 
—At Athol, Linlithgow, and Holyrood— The Battle 
of Prestonpans — Over the Border — To Derby and 
Back Again — Fatal Culloden — The " Butcher Cum- 
berland " — A Fugitive — Flora Macdonald— liscape to 
France — Incognito Visits to England — Death at 
Florence. 



•WILKES AND LIBERTY 

A Great Diplomatist and an Important Meeting — John 
Wilkes, the Best-abused Public Man of his Time- 
State of Affairs at the Death of George II.— The New 
King ; His Ideas of Royal Prerogative— A King's 
Favourite ; A Singular Prime Minister — A Lesson to 
Royalty— The Minister and his Novel Policy — A 
Government Press — The Biitou and the Auditor — 
Wilkes and his Early Career ; The Medmenham 
Uonks- The North Briton; The Famous Forty-fifth 
Num.ber— General Warrant— Wilkes committed to 
the Tower— Liberation of Wilkes; His First Triumph 
-Churchill— Lord Temple— Successful Actions — 
Personal Animosity of the King; Prosecution for a 
Profligate Book — Culprit and Accusers— '_' Jemmy 
Twitcher"- A Duel— Expulsion from Parliament — 
Public Agitation — Rockingham Administration — 
Middlesex Elections- Wilkes a Popular Hero— Perse- 
cution and its Consequences— Important Question- 
Freedom of Election— Release of Wilkes— His Return 
and Triumphs— His Last Years— Conclusion. 

THROUGH SLAUGHTER TO A THRONE . . 

An Important Day— The President's Ride through Paris 
—A Delusion Dispelled— At the Elyse'e— Who was 
responsible for the CouJ> d' Etat'i—'Vhe Strasburg 
Enterprise— The Bologne Expedition and its Conse- 
quences—Escape from Ham— Residence in London ; 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Return to Paris in 1848 — Louis Napoleon, President 
— The Oath — " The Nephew of his Uncle " — Bidding 
for Popularity — De Morn}-, Maupas, Persigny, Fleury, 
St. Arnaud — Preparations for Striking the Blow ; the 
Army — The Proclamation of December 2nd — Seizure 
of Political Chiefs — The Army in Paris — Forcible 
Closing of the Assembly— Arrest of Members — Closing 
of the High Court of Justice — The Assembly carried 
away Captive — State of Paris ; Discouragement ; 
Committee of Resistance — Failure of the Struggle — 
Proceedings of the Government — The Cavalry Charge 
— The Massacre on the Boulevards — Details — Slaugh- 
ter of Non-Combatants — Success of the Coup d' Etat 
— Plebiscite — Testimony of an Impartial Witness — 
Public Feeling in England. 



METHODISM 

Great Movements and Reaction — England under 
George II. — Pioneers of the Revival — The Holy Club 
at O.xford— George Whitfield's Early Daj^s— Whit- 
field becomes a Preacher — Whitfield in London — The 
Countess of Huntingdon — The Wesleys — The Wes- 
leys become Itinerants — Spread of Methodism, Lay 
Preachers, Provincial Mobs — Illustrious Allies — 
Ireland, Scotland, Wales — Methodist Denominations 
-^General Results — Conclusion. 

FROM ALMA TO SEBASTOPOL .... 

Russia in 1852 — The Emperor Nicholas ; His Power 
and Prosperity — The Czar and Sir Hamilton Seymour 
— Taking an Observation — Montenegro — The Czar's 
Protectorate — Mentschikoff's Mission — War between 
Russia and Turkey — Anglo-French Alliance for the 
Protection of the Porte — Omar Pasha and Oltenitza 
— Sinope — Commencement of the Crimean War — The 
Allied Forces and their Commanders : Raglan, St. 
Arnaud, Dundas, Lyons — Defeat of Russians on the 
Danube — Silistria and Giurgevo — The English, 
French, and Turkish Armies at Gallipoli and Varna 
■ — Invasion of the Crimea — Landing at Eupatoria — 
March towards Sebastopol — The Battle of the Alma 
— March upon Balaclava — First Attack on Sebastopol 
— Battle of Balaclava — Charge of the Light Brigade — 
Newspaper Correspondents — Mr. Russell of "The 
Times" — Battle of Inkermann — Soldiership and 
Generalship — A Terrible Winter — An unexpected 
Event — The Baltic Fleet — Bomarsund and Hango — 
The Black Sea Fleet — Yenikale — Operations of 1855 
— The iSth of June — Renewed Efforts, and Fall of 
Sebastopol — Conclusion. 



THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE 145 

How the Bubble Rose — The South Sea Company — The 
Bait held out — John Law in France — The Mississippi 
Scheme — E.xcitement in Paris — Excesses and Specu- 
lations — Failure of the Mississippi Scheme — Fate of 
Law — Reverses — Plan to Pay the English National 
Debt — The Bank and the South Sea Company — ■ 
Passing of the Bill — The Race for Wealth — A Cloud 
of Bubbles — The South Sea Scheme in cxcelsis — The 
Beginning of the End — Fraud — A Falling off — Ruin 
and Retribution — Nemesis. 

WHAT CAME OF A "NO POPERY" CRY . 161 

A Vast Meeting in St. George's Fields — Lord George 
Gordon — Other " Trojans " — Catholic Relief Bill, 
1778 — The London Protestant Association — Coach- 
maker's Hall— The Mob in Palace Yard ; Their 
Behaviour — Peers and Bishops Assaulted — Scenes in 
the Commons — Goi'don Threatened — Friday Night — 
Chapels Attacked — Saturday's Grim Repose — Proba- 
ble Influence of the Weather—Sunday — Riot in 
Moorfields — Monday — Three Divisions of the Mob 
— Savile House Gutted — Edmund Burke the States- 
man — Tuesday — Scenes at the House — "Jemmy 
Twitcher " — Burning of Newgate — Richard Hyde 
and Barnaby Rud.Lje — BLirning of Mansfield's House 
— Clerkenwell Prison — Black Wednesday— Flight of 
Catholics — Dr. Johnson's Stroll — Langdale's Dis- 
tillery I'nnied — The Prisons Fired— Attacks on the 
Bank — London under Martial Law— Edward Dennis 
alias Jack Ketch — Thursday — After the Carnival — 
Trial of Lord George Gordon. 



SCOTLAND'S SORROW 177 

A Troublous Period — King David and Edward Balliol 
— The Douglas Family — Accession of the Stuarts ; 
Chevy Chase — James I., the Royal Poet — James II. ; 
A Turbulent Vassal— James III.; Archibald Bell-the- 
Cat— James IV. ; Happy Auspices Unfulfilled— The 
Barton Family — A Gallant Fight — Causes of Quarrel 
between England and Scotland — Vigorous Measures 
of the Scottish King — A Mediajval Story — Hov/ 
James IV. prepared for War — Obstinacy of the 
King; The War Continued — The Opponent of 
James — Position of the Armies — Letter of Surrey to 
King James— The Plan of the Battle— The Battle of 
Floclden — The Decisive Moment ; Death of the 
King — Disastrous Nature of the Defeat — Alexander 
Stewart, Archbishop of St. Andrews ; Scotland's Day 
of Sorrow — Conclusion. 



THE PENNY NEWSPAPER . . . . : 

The Most Wonderful Pennyworth in the World — How 
did our Ancestors Exist when Newspapers were Few? 
— London News in the Country Parts — The Father of 
English Journalism — Nathaniel Butter Laughed at 
by Ben Jonson and Fletcher — Royalist and Parlia- 
mentary "Mercuries" — Origin of the Z<?«ifi7« Gazette 
— Addison Reproving Newsmongery — An Unintended 
Prediction — Present Number of Local Papers — Im- 
position of a Stamp Duty— The Oldest Existing 
Journals— Birth and Growth of the Tijttcs—A. Taxed 
and Dear Press — A Time of Poverty and Discontent 
— Defying and Evading the Law — Carpenter and 
Hetherington — Prosecutions and Imprisonments — 
"Pelhara" to the Rescue — A Suggestion of Cheap 
Postage— Parliamentary Work — Mr. Ewart, Mr. Mil- 
ner, Mr. Gibson, and the Select Committee — Resolute 
Attacks on " the Ta.xes on Knowledge " — Opposition 
to the Publication of the Stamp Returns — Chambers' 
Historical Newspaper, and Dickens's Household 
Narrative — The Railway Mania and Mushroom 
Journalism — Total Abolition of the Imposts — First 
Appearance of the Daily Telegraph — The Penny and 
Halfpenny Pre.ss. 



FROM ELBA TO WATERLOO .... 

Napoleon I. becomes Ruler of Elba — Description of the 
Island — A great King and a Small Empire — Activity 
and Prosperity in the Island — The Emperor's Plans 
of Improvement — Want of Good Faith towards him — 
His Pension — Errors of the Bourbon Government in 
France — Demands of the Emigres — Priestcraft and 
Intolerance — The Emperor's Return to France — 
Flight of the Imperial Eagle to Paris and the Tuil- 
eries — The Government and the Army — Attachment 
of the Troops to Napoleon — Flight of the Bourbons — 
Plan of the Campaign of 1815 — The Duke of Wel- 
lington and Marshal Blucher — Active Operations — 
The Historical Ball at Brussels — Battles of Ligny and 
and Quatre Bras— Retreat and New Position South 
of Waterloo — The Great Battle — Incidents of the Day 
— A Defensive Position — The Issue of the Conflict — 
End of the Vanquished Conqueror's Career. 



SCOTLAND'S GREAT VICTORY . . . . , 

Introduction — Britons, English, Picts, Scots. — Scotland, 
Edinburgh— A Glance at the early Scottish Kings — 
The English Connection begins — Want of Unity of 
Races in Scotland — Wars with England, Battle of the 
Standard — The King of Scotland becomes the King 
of England's Vassal — Progress in Wealth — A Heavy 
Trouble begins — The Trouble Thickens — England the 
Arbitrator — Humiliation — Scotland Arises, but is 
Trampled down — Wallace to the Rescue — Still Un- 
conquered— Robert Bruce— King Edward's Vow of 
Vengeance — The Avenger laid low — Adventures of 
the Fugitives, etc. — Brighter Days begin — King 
Edward II. — Frivolity takes the place of Fierceness 
— The Siege of Stirling Castle— A Battle imminent- 
Site of ihe Hatlle— The B.attle— Flight of King Ed- 
ward — Braces Nobleness in Triumph— Results of the 
Battle. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

THE PENNY POST -241 

The Old Posts and Posting— Ancient Carriers— His- 
torical Sketch of the Penny Post of London— 1 he 
Postboy considered— Dangers of "Riders" — The 
Cross-Post instituted— Ralph Allen— Mr. Palmer and 
Mail Coaches— The Old Mail to Bath — Rowland 
Hill : His Investigations ; His Pamphlet upon Postal 
Reform— Up-hill Work— Suggestions for Reform- 
Reception of Mr. Hill's Scheme— Parliamentary Op- 
position-Efforts in Hill's favour— Evidence on behalf 
of the Scheme produced— Results of the Committee s 
Enquiry— The Postal Reform Bill Passed— Guarded 
Proceedings— The Grand Result— Sir Rowland HiU 
— Post Office Work— Some Curious Facts — The 
Parcel Post — Conclusion. 



PAGE 
Giraldus Cambrensis and his Opinion of Women — A 
Papal Bull — Flight of King Dermot to England— 
Strongbow and other Soldiers of Fortune — Siege of 
We.xford — A Kingly Cannibal — Normans and Natives 
— Massacre and Marriage — King Roderic and the 
Invaders — Strongbow, King of Lemster — King Henry 
interferes— A Royal Visit — "More Irish than the 
Irish" — Appeal to the Bruces of Scotland — The 
Statutes of Kilkenny — Poyning's Law and " the 
Pale" — Rule of the Tudors — Terrible Condition of 
the Native Irish — Absenteeism— Projects for Reform- 
ing the Irish Church — A Reign of Terror— The Plan- 
tation of Ulster — The Irish Society of London — The 
Curse of Cromwell— Boy ne Water and the Siege of 
Limerick— The Treaty of Limerick— A Policy of 
Oppression. 



HAMPDEN AND SHIPMONEY • ■ 257 

A Momentous Question — English Liberty in the Olden 
Time — The Parliament and its Power— Henry IV. 
and Parliamentary Privileges— Tudors and Stuarts : 
Their Attitude towards the Parliament and People- 
Henry VIII. and the Contributions— Queen Eliza- 
beth : Her Dependence on the People— James L— A 
New State of Things— Charles I. working out his 
Father's Theory- -John Hampden, Member for 
Wendover — The Despotic Period — An Arbitrary 
Government — The "Thorough" and Ship Money 
— The Trial of the Question— The Collapse of 
"Thorough"— The Short Parliament— The Long 
Parliament — Breaking out of the Civil War— Death 
of Hampden — Conclusion. 

FROM THE BLACK HOLE TO PLASSEY . . 273 

A Memorial of a Great Event — India under Aurungzebe 
and hi:% Successors — The East India Companies and 
their Rivalries — The Dutch in India ; their Arrogance 
— England and France in the Carnatic — Dupleix and 
his Schemes of Dominion — Robert Clive — The De- 
fence of Arcot — Supremacy of the British in Hindostan 
— Suraj-ud-Dowlah and the English in Calcutta — 
Capture of Calcutta — The Massacre of the Black Hole 
— Mr. Holwell's Account of the Transaction — The 
Expedition from Madras ; Victory and Revenge — 
The Conspiracy to dethrone the Suba ; Omichund 
and his Treachery — " Diamond cut Diamond ; " 
Clive's Device — Opinions of Mill and Macaulay on 
his Conduct — The War against the Nabob ; Clive in 
Command — Question of risking a General Engage- 
ment — The Battle of Plassey and its Consequences — 
Meer Jafifier, Ruler of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar — 
Pecuniary Transactions of Clive with Meer Jaffier — 
Further Victories — Rewards and Honours ; Return 
of Clive to England — The Company's Rule in India ; 
Grievances and Calamities- " Ringing the Changes 
on Soubahs" — Meer Cossim and his Successors — 
Further Proceedings of the Company — Clive's Third 
Visit to India — How he applied the Remedy — The 
Result — Conclusion. 



CffiSARISM IN ROME : 

A Roman Holiday — The Ides of March — Regal Rome — 
Republican Rome — The Commencement of a Memo- 
rable Epoch — The Oppressions of the Aristocracy — 
Cato the Censor — Tiberius Gracchus and his Law for 
the Amelioration of the Condition of the People — Caius 
Gracchus — The Story of Jugurtha — Mariiis, Sulla, 
and the Social War — The Mithridatic War and the 
First Civil War — The Roman Reign of Terror- 
Julius Caesar— The Second Civil War — The Catiline 
Conspiracy — The Greatest Crisis in the History of 
Rome — The First Triumvirate — The Contest between 
Caisar and Pompey — Cffisar crosses the Rubicon — 
The Beginning of the End — Caesar's Laws and Policy 
— The Second Triumvirate — Proscriptions and Assas- 
sinations—Augustus Emperor — Influence of Cxsarism 
on the World. 

STRONGBOW AND KING DERMOT . . 

The Land of Continual War — The Holy Angel's Com- 
munication and St. Bridget — The Native Kings of 
Ireland — Hungry Looks from England — Henry the 
Second's Scheme, and Appeal to the Pope — The Irish 
Church — King Dermot and the Lady Devorgoil — 



FEDERALS AND CONFEDERATES . . . 

The Missouri Compromise — John Brown — The Breach 
I — Mutterings of the Storm — Fort Sumter — Bull Run 
I — Progress of the War — Numerous Battles— The 
! Trent Affair- Campaign of 1862— Capture of New 

Orleans — The Merriinac and the l\Io7iitoi The 

Struggle at Shiloh— Fighting in 1863 and 1S64— On 
the Chickahominy — Lee in Virginia — Great Losses^ 
Conclusion of the Civil War. 

THE REFORM BILL OF 1832 .... 

Popular Expression of National Feeling — John Gilpin 
and his Runaway Horse " Reform"— Political Cele- 
brities of 1831— Early Reform of the Representation 
— The Long Parliament — Cromwell — Clarendon's 
Opinion — Motion for Reform in 1745— The Elder Pitt 
on Reform — Rotten Boroughs and Pocket Boroughs ; 
Seats held as Family Property— The Younger Pitt ; 
his Efforts for Reform— Opposition of Burke and 
Others — The Friends of the People and Charles Grey 
— Their Petition in 1793 — Hard Facts temperately put 
— The French Revolution and its Effects— Long Delay 
of Reform Measures— After the War ; Reform Agita- 
tion ; its Supporters and Opponents — Government 
Coercion — The Peterloo Massacre — Lord John 
Russell's Reform Proposition in i8ig — Lord Castle- 
reagh — George Canning — The Wellington Adminis- 
tration; Catholic Emancipation; Changes — Sir Robert 
Peel and his Influence — A New Reign and a New 
Ministry; New Prospects of Reform -— Lord _ John 
Russell introduces the Bill ; its Provisions, Disfran- 
chisement, Enfranchisement, and Redistribution — 
Various Speeches — Second Reading and Explanations 
— Dissolution and General Election — Reintroduction 
of the Reform Bill— Battle Royal — The Bill passes the 
Commons — Debate in the Lords — The Bill rejected — 
General Excitement — Birmingham Meeting — Bristol 
Riots — The Bill again in the Commons — Battle in the 
Lords — Resignation of the Ministry — Return of Lord 
Grey — The Bill passed — Conclusion. 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE 3S3 

Death of Queen Mary — Proclamation in London — 
Elizabeth, at Hatfield, receives the Intelligence of her 
Accession to the Crown — Political and Doctrinal 
Protestantism — I'he Learned Ladies of the Time — 
"Now all the Youth of England are afire" — The 
Maritime Supremacy and Wealth of Spain — Condition 
of England— A poor Aristocracy and a Moneyed 
Middle Class — An Impoverished E.xchequer and De- 
based Coinage — Cecil and Gresham to the Rescue — 
Ecclesiastical Changes — Papal Bishops lose their Sees 
— Social Condition of the People — Rogues, Vaga- 
bonds, and Sturdy Beggars— The Gallows in " Merrie 
England" — Mercantile P2nterprise — Maritime Adven- 
tures — Drake sails round the World, and brings home 
Treasure— Seeking a North-West Passage— Trade 
with India— Shattering the Great Armada— Splendid 
Literary Development— Shakespeare the Mirror "of 
the Age and Body of the Time." 

THE FIGHT AT FONTENOY 3^9 

European Affairs — Maria Theresa — Frederick the 
Second of Prussia— The Beginning of the War of 
Succession—Battle of MoUwitz — Affairs in England 
— State of Europe— Progress of the War— The British 
Cabinet— The King in Germany— Battle of Dettingen 



CONTENTS. 



—Defeat of the French— Incidents of the Battle- 
Marshal Saxe and the Invasion of England— The 
Campaign of 1744 — The English Alliance — The 
Campaign in Flanders — The Siege of Tournai — Battle 
of Fontenoy— British Bravery— The French Repulsed 
—English Hard Pressed— Defection of the Dutch 
Troops— The Result— Foreign Opinions of the Fight 
at Fontenoy — Conclusion. 

THE MUTINIES AT SPITHEAD AND THE NORE 385 

A Woman's Love— Digging up the Body of a Mutineer 
—The Panics of 1797— The Glory of the English 
Fleet— First Unheeded Murmurs of the Tars— Black 
Dick, the Sailor's Friend— Outbreak at Spithead— 
The Yard Ropes— Splendid Temper of the Mutineers 
—Their Tale of Woe— The Jolly Tar a Centurjr Ago 
— The Sweets of Liberty— The Press-gang — The 
Admiralty at Portsmouth — Dangerous Higgling of 
the Commissioners — The Bloody f lag hoisted — The 
Settlement— Fresh Outbreak at St. Helen's— Another 
Blunder— The First Bloodshed — Triumph of the Sea- 
men and the Sailor's Friend — The Rising at the Nore 
— Frolics of the Delegates— Proposal of the Mutineers 
— Escape of the Clyde — Blockade of the Thames^ 
Piracy of the Mutineers— Some more Barbarities — 
Hanging Pitt — Parker's Washerwoman — Break up of 
the Mutiny— Terrific Scenes in the Fleet— The Last 
of "President" Parker. 

BRITISH CHARTERS OF LIBERTY . .401 

The Barons and their Dependents — Royalty and the 
Barons- -The early Charter of William and Henry I. 
— Constitutions of Clarendon — The Assize of North- 
ampton — King John and the Barons — The Conference 
at St. Albans— The INleeting in the Temple— The 
Tryst at Runymede — Magna Charta — Its Clauses 
explained — Rage of John — The Confirmations of the 
Charter — Parliamentary Influence — Petition of Right 
— Charles and the Parliament — The Revolution — 
William and Mary— Bill of Rights— Declaration of 
Rights— The Act of Settlement — Modern Measures 
— 'The Chartists — The Kennington Scare — Conclusion. 



PLAGUE AND FIRE 

The Seeds of Death— The First "Victims— Former 
Plagues — The Portent of the Blazing Star-— Spread of 
the Plague during May — The Prescription of the 
College of Physicians — The Quacks — Increase of 
Mortality during June — Multitudes leave the Town 
— The Lord Mayor's Regulations — The Dreadful 
Days of July— The Plague Pits — The Horrors of 
August — The Death-fires of September — The Pest- 
houses — Abatement of the Plague — The Number of 
Deaths— What was the Plague?— Fire I Fire I— No 
Water to be Obtained — Efforts to Preserve Property 
— A Walk through the Ruins — The Rebuilding of the 
City. 



THE SICILIAN VESPERS 

National Outbreaks and their Effects — The " Roman 
Empire" of the Cermans — Italy in the Middle Ages— 
Her Municipal Institutions — The Hohenstauffen Em- 
perors and the Popes — (nielphsand Ghibelines — Sicily 
under the Saracen and the Norman Rule — Frederick 
Barbaro.ssa and his Successors — Policy of the Popes 
— Supremacy of Rome — Manfred the Suabian Hero ; 
and Conradin the Last of the Hohenstauffen — Papal 
design to establish a King in Sicily — Charles of Anjou 
and Manfred — Battle of Benevento — Conradin's im- 
va.sion of Italy — Tagliacozzo — Death of Conradin — 
Vengeance of Charles of Anjou — Feudal Oppressions 
Condition of Sicily and Apulia — Peter of Aragon and 
John of Procida — The Massacre of March 31st, 1282 
—Its Results — Conclusion. 



FROM TORBAY TO ST. JAMES'S .449 

Torbay — An ICventful Week-James's Early Designs — 
His First Parliament Revenge on Titus Oates — The 
Insurrections in the North .-md West ; The Battle of 
Scdgemoor— The " Bloody Assizes"- Persecution of 
the Nonconformists— The Dispensing Power — J'rial 
of Sir Edward Hales — James coerces the Universities 



—The First Declaration of Indulgence— The Child of 
Prayer— The Second Declaration of Indulgence — The 
Prayer of the Prelates — The Trial of the Seven 
Bishops — For Parliament and Protestantism — 
William enters Exeter; Marches on Salisbury — 
Defections from James— The King escapes, is cap- 
tured, and again flies — William enters St. James's 
Palace — Conclusion. 



A DARK DEED OF CRUELTY . . . .465 

Battle of Killiecrankie — The Chief of Glencoe— Fall of 
Dundee — King James's Gift of Brandy — Tarbat and 
Dalrymple — The Burning Questions of Scotland — 
Estimate of Highland Loyalty — Treachery of the 
Aborigines — Letters of Fire and Sword — Projected 
Massacre by James VI. — Tarbat's Golden Bait — The 
Earl of Breadalbane — A Pious Colonel — Loses his 
Patience — Castle of Achallader — A Strange Armistice 
Glencoe's Quarrel — Brutalities of his Clan — Friends 
of Rob Roy — Dalrymple's Objects in "rooting out" 
the Thieves — The Roj'al Indemnity — Dalrj'mple's 
'' Mauling Scheme" — Maclan of Glencoe takes the 
Oath — Military Preparations — Dalrymple's Letters — 
The Campbells in Glencoe — Merry-makings in the 
Glen — Orders of the Officers — Maclan Slain — Details 
of the Massacre. 



THE VENGEANCE OF '89 481 

The Mud-Town — The Merovingian Kings — the Carlo- 
vingians — The Capets — Paris under the Capets — The 
House of Valois — Troubles in the Jacquerie — Foun- 
dation of the Bastille — Growth of the Bastille — The 
Bourbon Kings — The Bastille and the Absolute 
Monarchy — A Poet's Indignant Denunciation — An 
Escape from the Bastille — The Beginning of the 
Revolution — "To Arms!" — "To the Bastille!" — 
Taken — The Sequel. 

LONG LIVE THE BEGGARS . . . -497 

A Great Inheritance and an Unworthy Heir — CharlesV. , 
his Work and his Abdication — The Great Inheritance 
of Philip II. — Power and Importance of Spain in the 
i6th Century — The Netherlands, and how Charles 
and Philip ruled there — The Harshness of Charles V. 
in the Netherlands tempered by Policy — The Great 
Cities — Ghent and its Power — " Roland," the Bell of 
Ghent — Character of Philip II. — His System of Rule 
by Terror and Coercion — The Inquisition ; its Estab- 
lishment in Spain, and Development under Philip II. 
— William of Orange Nassau, the Liberator of his 
Country — Lamorel, Count Egmont — Margaret of 
Parma, the Regent of Flanders — Cardinal Granvella 
and his Influence — How William of Orange incurred 
the Hatred of Philip II. — Discontent in the Nether- 
lands — The Compromise and its Object — How the 
Great Petition was Presented to Margaret of Parma 
— "Long Live the Beggars! Vivent les Gueux !" — 
The Protestant Preachers and the Image Breakers 
— King Philip and his Councillors — Alva — The Storm 
bursts forth at last. 



GUY FAWKES 513 

A Scene in the Tower— Guy Fawkes— His Examina- 
tion and Hearing- The King's Questions— English 
Catholics— Origin of the Plot— The Family of Fawkes 
— Meeting in St. Clement's Danes— Vinegar House — 
The Mine— The Conspirators— Frank Tresham— The 
Warning— Check by the King— Checkmate— The 
Springing of the Mine— Arrest of Guy Fawkes— Run 
to Earth— The Executions— Search for the Priests- 
End of the Jesuits— Garnet's last Efforts— Conclusion. 

HAND IN HAND FOR ENGLAND . . . .529 
A Night of Suspense— England's Hour of Trial— The 
Growth of the Bitter Feelings between England and 
Spain— The Policy of the Vatican—" Singeing the 
King of Spain's Beard"— Drake's Expeditions at 
Cadiz and Corunna— Playing at Peace-making— Hand 
in Hand for England— I'he Spanish Scheme— The 
First Day's Fighting— The Fight off Portland; 
Plucking the Feathers of the Spaniards one by one— 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Correspondence between Medina Sidonia and Parma 
— The Fire-Ships — The Action off Gravelines — The 
Flight through the Straits — Home round the Orkneys ! 
— I'he Western Storms — The Return to Spain. 



BIBLE AND SWORD 

The Mad, Roaring Time — A happy Martyr — Nicodemus 
— The Cabbage-woman's Stool — The Covenants of 
1638 and 1643- Prince Charles swallows them — Char- 
acter of Archbishop Sharp — The Drunken Act — Sandy 
Peden's Farewell — Tricks on the new Curates — The 
greatest Drunkard of his Age — Lauderdale's shock 
Head— The Scots jNIile Act— A Martial Student of 
Quevedo — Spotting the Absentees — Four " Honest 
Men " — Turner in his Nightgown — Turning a Turner 
— The Fight at RuUion Green — The Torture of the 
Boots — Ephraim Macbriar at the Scaffold — The 
" Honest" Hangman of Irvine — The Forty Dumb 
Dogs — Cruelties of Dalziel — Act against Conventicles 
— The Highland Savages brought down —Appearance 
of "Bloody Clavers"— Magus Moor — Defeat of 
Claverhouse at Drumclog — His Horse pitchforked — 
Bothwell Bridge — A dreadful Shipwreck — The Came- 
ronians — Given over to Satan — The Killing Time — 
Execution of Women — The Wigtown Female Martyrs 
— The True Story of John Brown — Graham's own 
Confession. 



DOST MAHOMED AND AKBAR KHAN 



. 561 



An Impressive Warning — Cabul and its Rulers — Rus- 
sian Influence in Persia — General Apprehensions — 
Dost Mahomed, Khan of Cabul — Various Opinions 
concerning him — Lord Auckland, Governor-General 
of India ; His Policy — The Meeting with Shah Soojah 
— Rungeet Singh, the Ally of the English — 'I'he Army 
of the Indus — Shah Soojah restored to his Throne — 
The Entry into Candahar — Mistaken Notions of Shah 
Soojah's Popularity — The Advance to Ghuznee — Its 
Fall— Flight of Dost Mahomed — The Great Douran- 
nee Order distributed at Cabul — Gallant Struggles of 
Dost Mahomed — Battle of Purwan Durrah — Cabul 
in Insurrection- Dost Mahomed in India — Assassina- 
tion of Sir Alexander Burnes and his Brother — From 
Bad to Worse — The English Army beleaguered at 
Cabul — Consequences of the Insurrection — Akbar 
Khan and his Doings — Murderof Sir W. Macnaghten 
— Pitiable State cf the Army — The Retreat from Cabul 
— The Khyber Pass — Lord Auckland and Lord Ellen- 
borough — Revenge — The Advance into Afghanistan 
— Conclusion. 

THE MEN OF THE "MAYFLOWER" . .577 

The Departure from Delfthaven— AVho were the Puritans 
—Rise of the Party under Henry VIII., Mary, and 
Elizabeth— Commencement of the Puritan Exodus— 
■ Departure from England— The Voyage— Landing at 
Cape Cod — The First Sunday on Shore — "Welcome, 
Englishmen !"— The Colonists' First Summer— More 
Emigrants arrive— Disagreements with the Merchants 
—Continued Emigration of the Puritans— The Dor- 
chester Adventurers— Adoption of a Confession of 
Faith— Civil Laws passed— Roger Williams, one of 
the Noblest of the Pilgrim Fathers— Intolerance of 
the Puritans— Laws against Witchcraft— Progress of 
the Colonies. 

THE MASSACRE OF SCIO • • 593 

The Centuries ofTurkish Despotism— Origin and Fierce 
Tempeiof the Revolution— The Force of Wealth and 
Education— Secret Societies— Invasion of Hypsilantes 
—The Sacred Battalion— Noble End of the Patriot 
Georgaki— The Flag hoisted in the Morea— A Fight- 
ing Bishop— " Death to the Turks ! "—Bloodshed at 
Patras— Massacres by Greeks— Dreadful Scenes in 

Constantinople — Execution of the Patriarch A 

Canopy of Vultures— The " Hares" of the /Egean — 
First Cruise of the Greek Fleet— Timid Scio— Indi- 
vidual Sacrifice and National Aspiration Why Scio 

did not rise The Island overrun — The Harems and 

their Mastic — Despatch of a Turkish Force The 

Chiote Peasant and the Samians — Wretched Rivalry 
of the Patriots— The Vengeance of the Turk — " Fire 



Sword, Slavery"— Flight of the Samians— Dreadful 
Massacres, Ruin, and Universal Plunder by Asiatic 
Hordes— Slaughter of the Monks— The Slaves and 
Fugitives— Sailing of the Greek Fleet— The Ven- 
geance of Kanaris — The Fire-ships — Fate of two 
thousand Turks — Navarino and the Independence of 
Greece. 



JOHN OF LEYDEN AND THE ANABAPTISTS. 609 

Introduction—" Corruptio optimis pessima"— The Pea- 
sants' War — Rise of the Anabaptists — Luther's return 
to Wittenberg — Principles of the Anabaptists— John 
of Leyden— Arrival of Mattys and Bockelson in 
Miinster— Anabaptism triumphant — The City Be- 
leaguered—A Glimpse of City Life— John of Leyden 
Supreme— He is made King— The Progress of the 
Siege — A Failure — The King in Danger — Overthrow 
— The Execution — Retrospect. 

WHAT CAME OF THE BEGGARS' REVOLT . 623 

How Duke Alva superseded Margaret of Parma — Ar- 
rival of Alva in Brussels— General Apprehension of 
Evil — The Treacherous Calm — Arrest of Counts Eg- 
mont and Horn — Escape of Hoogstraten— Trial and 
Condemnation of the I'wo Counts — Egmont's Last 
Letter to the King — The Execution in the Market- 
place at Brussels — How Duke Alva ruled in the 
Netherlands— The Reign of Terror— The Council of 
Blood— Vargas and His Colleagues— Atrocities and 
Oppression — Departure of Margaret of Parma— Wil- 
liam of Orange, the Champion of Religious Liberty 
— His Defeat by Alva — The Duke's Insolence and 
Pride— The Statue — Taxation and Resistance — 
The Resignation of Alva— Renewal of the Contest— 
Beggarsof the Sea— Alva's Successors— The Struggle 
and the Triumph— Death of William the Silent- 
Conclusion. 



THE REIGN OF TERROR 641 

A History crowded into Two Years— From the loth of 
August, 1792, to the 9th of Thermidor, 1794— What 
followed the taking of the Bastille — Triumph of the 
Populace ; the Mob at Versailles— The King, the 
Queen, and the Veto— The National Assembly— Al- 
terations L'l the Laws— The Enemies of the Revolu- 
tion ; the King's Flight— The Cordeliers and the 
Jacobm Clubs— Detection and Ruin— Drouet and 
Varennes — The King's Return— Foreign Powers; 
The Beginning of a Long War— The Oath to the 
Constitution— Meeting of the Legislative Assembly- 
Events to the 10th of August— The Fall of the 
Monarchy— The 20th of June, 1792.— The Mob at 
the Tuileries— Down with the Veto — The Duke of 
Brunswick and his Manifesto — The Insurrection of 
the loth of August — Downfall of the Monarchy — 
The National Convention — France a Republic ; 
Transition to the Reign of Terror— The September 
Massacres— Trial and Execution of the King— The 
Fall of the Girondists— Dumouriez— The Terror at 
its height. 



GALLANT KING HARRY 657 

The Cause of the War— The Condition of France in 
1415— Henry's Preparations for War — More Attempts 
at Diplomacy — Traitors in Henry's Camp — Discovery 
and Punishment of the Conspirators — The Fleet sets 
Sail — The Siege of Harfleur — Gallant Defence of the 
French — Negotiations for the Surrender of the Town 
— The Fall of Harfleur and Ceremony of giving up 
the Keys — Continuance of the Campaign — The Pre- 
parations of the French for a great Battle — The De- 
fence of the Somme — Henry finally crosses the River 
— The Sight of the French on the Plains of Agincourt 
— The Night before the Battle — The Disposition of 
the opposing Forces — The Attack of the Archers — 
The Brilliant Charge of the Constable of France — 
Defeat of the First Division of the French — Forward 
Movement of the English— Defeat of the Second 
Division and Flight of the Third Division of the 
French — Incidents of the Battle — Henry's Return to 
England. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT ... .673 
"Adam's Ale " and Noah's Wine — Temperance of the 
Ancients — Old Testament Temperance — Temperance 
of Early Christians — Temperance in Later Ages — 
Spirits and Anti-Liquor Legislation — Anti-Spirit 
Movement, 1S29-32 — Development of "Teetotalism," 
1832-35 — Joseph Livesey's Teaching — The Rechabite 
Order, 1835 — Abstinent Temperance League, 1835-37 
— Ireland and Father Mathew, 183S-40 — Teetotal 
Life Insurance, 184c — Organization and Work, 
1841-49 — A Decade of Organization, 1850-60 — Sun- 
day Closing Association, 1861-63 — Permissive Bill and 
Local Option, from .864 — Temperance Public-houses, 
1867 — Establishment of Good Templary, 1868-72 — 
Medical Temperance Movement, from 1873 — 
Denominational Movements, 1873-80 — Auxiliary 
^Movements and Special Work, 1880-82 — Conclusion. 

THE ARREST OF THE FIVE MEMBERS . 689 

Flight of the Royal Family — A Gay Scene on the 
Thames — The People's Kings — Incompatibilitj^ of 
Temper between Charles and England — The Long 
Parliament — The Earl of Strafford sacrificed — The 
Queen threatened — Charles's Scottish Trip — King 
Pym — A Plague-rag in the House — Dreadful Mas- 
sacre in Ulster — What about the Army ? — Peep at 
the Inside of the House of Commons in 1641 — Some 
of the Leaders — The Grand Remonstrance — Eleven 
Years without a Parliament — The Policy of 
"Thorough" — Pillory and other Iniquities — What 
the Long Parliament had done already — The Great 
Debate — Bloodshed imminent between the Parties — 
What Mr. Oliver Cromwell had resolved on — Citizens 
fired on at Westminster — The Whitehall Guard — The 
Bishops sent to the Tower — The New Year opens, 
1642 — Impeachment of Pym and other Members — 
Their Chambers Sealed — The Action of the Houses 
— The Lord ]\Iayor gone to Bed — King marches into 
the Commons — The Birds Flown — Raising of the 
Royal Standard. 

THE NINTH OF THERMIDOR . . . .705 

Marat and Charlotte Corday — The Murder of Marat — 
The Effects of Marat's Death — The Law of the Sus- 
pected — The Fate of the Captive Queen — Progress of 
the "Terror" — How the Convention carried on the 
War — " Death to the Traitors ! " — " Woe to the Cities 
of the Vanquished ! " — The Republic on the Battle- 
field — The Fall of the Hcbertists — Danton and his 
Followers ; Their Struggle and their Extinction — The 
Darkest Period before the Dawn — The Ninth of Ther- 
midor — The End of the Terror and of the Terrorists. 



RIZZIO AND DARNLEY 721 

Return of Queen Mary from France— Weakness of the 
Scottish Sovereigns— Her First Mass — Sketch of 
Darnley's Early Life and Character — He kisses her 
Hand at Wemj'ss Castle— Unpopularity of the Marri- 
age — Flight of Murray and Other Nobles — The 
Career and Character of Rizzio — The Parties engaged 
in Plotting — The Judas Kiss — Murder of Rizzio — 
After the Murder— Darnley's Betrayal of the Bond— 
A Strange Supper and Talk— Midnight Flight of the 
Royal Couple — Darnley's Brutality — Queen's Con- 
tempt for Him — Rise of Bothwell — Some of His Ad- 
ventures — Mary's Visit to the Hermitage — Getting 
Rid of Darnley — The Croaking of the Raven — 
Darnley's Murder — The Queen's Complicity — Both- 
well's Sham Acquittal and Marriage with the Queen 
— His Flight from Scotland and Death in Draxholm 
Castle— His Fate. 



MAGELLAN'S GREAT VOYAGE . . . . ; 

The Sea of Pitchy Darkness — Former Discoveries — Fer- 
nando Magalhaens — His Services declined at Lisbon 
— Arrival at the Spanish Court — Agreement with 
the King — The Expedition Sets Sail — The Brazils — 
The Patagonians — Mutiny at San Julian — The Straits 
Discovered — The Pacific Entered — The Ladrone Is- 
lands — Disputes with the Islanders — Continuation of 
the Voyage — Manners and Customs of the Natives — 
Baptism and Conversion of the People — The Dispute 
at Malan — Death of Magellan — The Expedition Con- 
tinued — Arrival and Reception at Borneo — The Voy- 
age Home — Run into danger at Cape Verde Islands 
— Escape and Arrival in Spain — Conclusion. 



•WYATT'S INSURRECTION 753 

The National Dislike to the Spanish Marriage — An In- 
surrection proposed — Arrival of the Spanish Embassy 
— The Insurrectionists' Final Meeting — The Leaders 
Depart to Arouse the Country — Courtenay Fails to 
Meet the Carews — Their Discomfiture — Wyatt Raises 
his Standard of Rebellion and seizes the Ships in the 
Medway — Suffolk seeks refuge in a Hollow Tree ; 
is Finally Captured — W^'att's Fatal Delay — Marches 
to Deptford — Mary Addresses the Citizens of London 
in the Guildhall — Wyatt finds the Gates of London 
Bridge closed against him — Four Days of Armed 
Suspense — Marches to Kingston — Enters London — Is 
Defeated and Imprisoned — Mary's Vengeance — 
Wyatt is Executed— Philip comes at last, and the 
Marriage is Solemnized. 





Sir Robert Peel explaining His Free Trade Policy in the House of Commons. 

FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION: 

THE STORY OF THE ANTI-CORN-LAW LEAGUE. 

" I suspect that there are very few workmen or women who know how much they have gained by the change of policy- 
of this country that took place under the Government of Sir Robert Peel in the year 1846." — Mr. Bright at Rochdale, i88i- 



A Field-Night in the Commons— Important Question— Rumoured Change of Policy— Repeated Surprises— A Lion iia. 
the Path — Protection in England — The Corn Laws and their Introduction — Remonstrances of the People ; How 
Received — Protection to British Sailors and Shipping ; How it Worked — Scarcity and its Effects — First Efforts against, 
the Corn Laws— Establishment of the Anti-Corn-Law League— The Free Traders in and out of Parliament— The 
Penny Post an Auxiliary to Free Trade— A Pair of Friends— Richard Cobden and his Career— Mr. John Bright — 
The Melbourne Government ; Its Apathy and its Fall— Erection of the Free Trade Hall in Manchester— Indications- 
of Change — The Queen's Speech of 1841 and its Forecast— Sir Robert Peel— Lord George Bcntinck and the " Stable 
Mind "—Peel's Reservation of Freedom of Action concerning the Com Laws— Lord John Russell- Enlarged Operations 
of the League ; the First Free Trade Bazaar; Its Brilliant Success— Deputations of Free Traders to Parliament ; The 
Question pressed upon the House of Commons — Cobden's Appeal to the Prinie Minister — Dismay of the Protectionists 
— The Heat of the Battle— Zeal and Activity of the League— Important Recruits to the Free Trade Ranks— The C9n- 
dition of the British Labourer — Remedies Proposed — Mr. Bright's Description of the Peasant's Lot — The Irish Famine 
— Triumph of Free Trade — Famine forcing Peel's Hand — Summary and Conclusion. 



A Field-Ntght m the House of 
Commons. 

MONG tlie sights that a stranger in 
London or a provincial visitor deems 
himself fortunate to be privileged to 
witness, may be ranked as first in importance 
what is known as a field-day, or, more properly 
speaking, a field-night, in the House of Com- 
mons ; and the eagerness to view such a 




spectacle is increased by the fact that, like 
an eruption of Mount Vesuvius or Etna, it 
cannot be arranged for beforehand, but the 
visitor must trust to fortune, and thank the 
propitious Fates if they should find hint 
standing-room in Strangers' or Speaker's 
Gallery at such a fortunate moment ; for he- 
can then hardly fail to see and hear men and 
things that will give him food for reflection 
for many a day to come. 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Especially to be envied was the stranger 
who, by diplomacy or any other open or 
occult art, had been able to provide himself 
with the "open sesame" to the Strangers' 
Gallery, and, so provided, had succeeded in 
effecting an entrance to the House of Com- 

I mons, on the evening of the 22nd of January, 
1846/ For that was a field-night such as 

, had not been beheld since the struggle over 

j the first Reform Bill fourteen years before ; 

i and the House itself, hke the outside public, 
was on the tiptoe of expectation. It was not 
only that this was the first night of a new 
session, the Queen ha.ving that day — as was, 
indeed, Her Majesty's custom in that earlier 
period of her reign — opened Parliament in 
person. There were rumours in the air of 
an impending surprise, of an announcement 
to be made, from a high and influential 
quarter, that should thrill one section of the 
community with triumphant joy, while it 
paralysed another with indignant wonder ; 
and every seat in the House was taken, and 
even the standing-room was thickly occupied 
by honourable members, while the Speaker's 
and the Strangers' Gallery were filled to over- 
flowing ; and the one question that had 
l)een passed from mouth to mouth, during 
hours of expectancy, was, " What will he do ? " 
It was asked concerning the great statesman. 
Sir Robert Peel, First Lord of the Treasury, 
and consequently Prime Minister of the 
Tory Government then in power. 

An Important Question ; A Change of 
Policy Rumoured. 
About six weeks previously, on the 4th of 
December, the Times had suddenly come 
out with the announcement that at the 
meeting of Parliament the Prime Minister 
would propose the repeal of the Corn Laws ; 
and to the chorus of indignant denial set up 
by the Conservative, or as it was called the 
Tory press, had most expHcitly reiterated 
the statement on the 6th. "We adhere to 
our original announcement," wrote the lead- 
ing journal, " that Parliament will meet early 
ia January, and that a Repeal of the Corn 
i Laws will be proposed in one House by Sir 
\ Robert Peel, and in the other by the Duke 
•of Wellington." The very rumour of such 
a contingency had been enough to make 
: each particular hair on the country gentle- 
men's heads " to stand on end, like quills upon 
the fretful porcupine,'' and to bring about a 
split in the Cabinet, that had occasioned the 
PriiTie Minister to go down to Windsor and 
tender his resignation, which had, indeed, 
"been accepted, and Lord John Russell, whom 
the irony of fate often put up as an opponent 
to the great Sir Robert, had been commis- 
sioned to form a Ministry. But here, as on 
various other occasions, before and after- 
wards, Lord John had verified the assertion 



of the facetious Mr. Ptmch by proving too 
small for the place ; and failed signally to 
bring together a Cabinet that would act with 
him ; the point of difference being that 
"burning question," the repeal or retention 
of the Corn Laws. And as in the nursery 
rhyme the little dog laughed to see such 
sport, did the great organization that had 
been working incessantly for years to convert 
the country from the principles of Protection 
to those of Free Trade, watch the conflict 
between the statesmen, seeing in the strife 
the foreshadowing of its own ultimate 
triumph. It was the very crisis of a long 
and bitterly waged fight. 

So Sir Robert had returned to power, 
summoned back to his post by the com- 
mand of the Queen, and feeling, he de- 
clared, "like a man restored to life after 
his funeral service had been preached ; " — 
and a note of warning had been struck, 
much calculated to flutter the Volscians in 
the Protectionist camp, by a paragraph in 
Her Majesty's speech that seemed to indi- 
cate a turn of the tide in the direction of 
Free Trade. " I have had great satisfaction," 
so the words run, " in giving my assent to the 
measures which you have presented to me 
from time to time calculated to extend com- 
merce and to stimulate domestic skill and 
industry, by the repeal of prohibitive, and 
the relaxation of protective, duties. I recom- 
mend you to take into your early consideration 
whether the principle on which you have 
acted may not with advantage be yet more 
extensively applied." This sounded ominous, 
and had a flavour about it exceedingly dis- 
tasteful to the country party ; but still they 
kept up their spirits, while the formal business 
of proposing and seconding the address to 
the Crown, thanking Her Majesty for her 
gracious speech, was got through ; and then, 
amid breathless silence, and somewhat con- 
trary to the routine that on most occasions 
he was scrupulously exact in maintaining, 
the Prime Minister rose like a tower from 
his seat at Mr. Speaker's right hand, and the 
House listened in hushed expectation for the 
words that should verify the rumours that 
had been flying about so long, or set them 
at rest at once and for all, as the country 
gentlemen hoped, by a categorical denial. 

Such were the anticipations of that import- 
ant moment ; one of those that seem to 
entertain the concentrated interest of years, 
and are remembered ever after. 

An Unmitigated Surprise ; Triumph 
AND Discomfiture of Opposite Parties. 
On this occasion the measured and some- 
what old-fashioned oratory of the veteran chief 
was certainly not shortened. The speech was 
long and exhaustive, and bristling with figures 
and statistics ; but it was enough to convince 



FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 



even the most incredulous among the party 
who had looked upon Peel as the strong 
bulwark of Protection, that beneath the 
shadow of that fortress they could seek shelter 
no more. For he made it abundantly clear, 
even to their reluctant perception, that his 
opinions had undergone a change, gradual, 
but complete in its development, under the 
influence of the arguments that had been 
perseveringly brought before him ; and with 
lengthening faces they listened to an exposi- 
tion in favour of Free Trade from the eloquent 
lips of him whom they had deemed their 
champion against that, to them, utterly per- 
nicious doctrine ; and they gazed at each 
other with blank astonishment and dismay. 
They might almost have been pictured mur- 
muring to each other in the words of Lord 
Salisbury to Falconbridge in Shakespeare's 
King John : " What think you ? You have 
beheld — or have you read or heard ? or could 
you think ? or do you almost think, although 
you see that you do see? Could thought, 
without this object, form such another ? " and 
so they sat disconsolate. 

Another Surprise ; A Lion in the 
Path. 
The surprises of that eventful evening were 
not yet exhausted. When Lord John Russell 
had spoken a few words on his own account, 
there sprang up an honourable member, and, 
to the astonishment of the House, and the 
covert delight of many of the Tory repre- 
sentatives, began a speech bristling with 
sarcasm as a porcupine with quills, and full 
of the strongest invective against the Prime 
Minister. When Addison's Mr. Spectator 
paid that memorable visit to the Assizes with 
Sir Roger de Coverley, and the good knight 
made the famous oration that was to give him 
an appearance in the eyes of his guest and of 
the county, the country people were noticed 
by that acute observer to be penetrated with 
admiration that Sir Roger was not afraid " to 
speak before the judge." A similar feeling of 
admiration seems to have seized the country 
gentlemen on that January night for the 
member of their party who was not afraid to 
attack the Premier, for whom they still felt a 
lingering awe and admiration. No such feel- 
^ ing hampered the vituperative oratory of Mr. 
j Benjamin Disraeli, member for the county of 
' Bucks. He had been nine years in Parlia- 
) ment, had offered his services to more than 
f one party, and had been persistently cold- 
shouldered ; and now his opportunity was 
come, and, like a clever man, he took the tide 
at the flood, and it led him on to fortune ; 
for, reversing the order of Shakespeare's 
metaphor, until then the voyage of his Parlia- 
mentary life had to a certain extent been 
" bound in shallows and in miseries." He 
thundered against what he called the Prime 



Minister's inconsistency, and roundly accused 
him of having betrayed his followers. " I am 
not one of the converts," he cried ; " I am 
perhaps a member of a fallen party " (he had 
begun his parliamentary career as a Radical). 
''To the opinions I have expressed in this 
House in favour of Protection I still adhere. 
They sent me to this House, and if I had 
relinquished them, I should have relinquished 
my seat also." He drew a striking picture of 
the trust his party had reposed in Peel, and 
the pride and joy they had felt in seeing him 
raised to power in 1841. "Well do we re- 
member," he cried, "on this side of the 
House — not, perhaps, without a blush — the 
efforts we made to raise him to the bench 
where he now sits. Who does not remember 
the sacred cause of Protection, for which 
sovereigns were thwarted, Parliament dis- 
solved, and a nation taken in?" His per- 
sonal sarcasm against the Premier was most 
galling; and he made a great hit when he 
likened him to a man who got up behind a 
carriage and then affected to be " a great 
whip"; — and accused him of watching the 
atmosphere and trimming his sails according 
to the quarter from which the wind blew. 
The great statesman whom he attacked is de- 
scribed as sitting first in bewildered astonish- 
ment, and afterwards striving, not altogether 
successfully, to maintain his composure under 
an attack as unexpected as it was tremendous. 
The languid House woke up into fierce ex- 
citement ; and when at last the sitting was 
adjourned, the two sides in the great struggle 
had each learned a notable truth, — the Free 
Traders that they had gained to their side the 
most astute and powerful of their opponents ; 
the Protectionists, that they had found a tre- 
mendous Parliamentary gladiator to fight for 
them with a weapon more keen and trenchant 
than had ever been wielded in their cause 
during all the years the fray had lasted. 
We have now to describe — of necessity with 
brevity — the nature and progress of this 
battle of Free Trade against Protection. 

How the System of Protection was 
Established in England. 
The principle of Protection, or the guard- 
ing of a certain interest from interference, by 
restricting foreign competition, is found in 
the policy of various nations from early 
times. In England the system may be 
looked upon as the outcome and the legiti- 
mate successor of those monopolies against 
which we find Parliament protesting, with a 
certain measure of success, so early as 
the days of Queen Elizabeth. The patent 
granted to the favourite Essex for the sale 
of sweet wine from Portugal, and withdrawn, 
by the way, by his angry mistress when he 
fell under her displeasure, on the ground that 
" an unruly horse must be stinted of his pro- 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



vender," was simply an illustration of Protec- 
tion in its crudest form ; the sacrifice of the 
general interest to the profit of the one. 
Protection differed from monopoly in that 
it substituted for the favoured individual a 
favoured class. 

More than two hundred years ago, when 
Colbert, the famous French minister whose 
name is so closely connected with the silk 
manufacture of Lyons, asked the French 
merchants what he could do to advance the 
interests of commerce, their judicious reply 
was : " Laissez-nous faire," — " Let us manage 
for ourselves," — and in this ansv/er was in- 
volved the principle of Free Trade, which 
allows full scope to the industry and energies 
of all, repudiating the interference which 
would put a stop to competition, and has 
been generally found to foster idleness and 
apathy. In the last century there were men 
who took the side of Free Trade or unrestricted 
competition and commei-cial interchange 
between nations, against the opinion that 
could only see the present advantage to the 
producer in receiving a higher price for what 
he had to sell. David Hume, among the 
subjects of his admirable Essays, discussed 
that of Free Trade. Adam Smith, in his " En- 
quiry into the Origin and Causes of the Wealth 
of Nations," brought a truly philosophic mind 
to bear upon the question ; and practical 
Benjamin Franklin spoke out very plainly 
and sensibly on the maxin of " not governing 
too much." " It were to be wished," he says, 
" that commerce was as free between all the 
nations of the world as it is between the 
several counties of England ; so would all, 
by mutual communication, obtain more en- 
joyments. Those counties do not ruin one 
another by trade ; neither would the nations. 
No nation was ' ever ruined by trade, even 
seeming the most disadvantageous. Wher- 
ever desirable superfluities are imported, 
industry is excited ; and, therefore, plenty is 
produced. Were only necessaries permitted 
to be purchased, men would work no more 
than is necessary for that purpose." 

The Corn Lav/s, and their Intro- 
duction. 

It was on the article of corn, as the pro- 
duct most affecting the interests of the com- 
munity at large, that the question between 
Protection and Free Trade was actually fought 
cut ; but the principle applies equally to all 
interchangeable articles. 

When in 1814 the Empire of the great 
Napoleon was overthrown, and his vindictive 
continental system, that had aimed at ruin- 
ing Great Britain by closing Europe against 
her, came to a sudden end, a complete rever- 
sal of industrial and commercial relations 
ensued. The ports of Europe were thrown 
open to the commerce of Britain, while hers 



were for a time in like manner opened to the 
produce of foreign lands. It was soon found 
that in many respects England had what is 
familiarly termed "the pull" of her Continen- 
tal competitors. Her excellent machinery 
and processes of manufacture enabled her to 
leave Continental nations far behind, in the 
production of articles of hardware, etc.; and 
thus a cry arose, first in France, and after- 
wards in North and South Germany, and 
the other European nations, for the establish- 
ment of safeguards for native industries, 
though it has been well observed that the 
term " native industry " can only be properly 
applied to those branches for whose cultiva- 
tion the country is peculiarly fitted, and 
should not be made to include those that 
must be kept from withering by artificial aid. 
Thus a system of protection became generally 
adopted abroad ; the importation of British 
manufactures being seriously checked by 
high, and in some cases almost prohibitive, 
duties, on the plausible principle of the en- 
couragement of home industry. This was 
the more grievous for England, as her 
manufacturers had lost the market, that had 
been kept in an inflated condition, for certain 
articles, by the requirements of the war. 
Peace brought witli it a cessation of a 
demand that had kept thousands employed ; 
and many factories could no longer fincl 
work for their hands. The Continental 
nations, on the other hand, while closing 
their ports against English manufactures, 
were very ready to find in England a market 
for their agricultural produce, and con- 
sequently glutted the English markets with 
cargoes of foreign corn, until the English 
farmers cried out in dismay that they were 
being ruined, and would no longer be able to 
pay the rents demanded by their landlords, 
unless they were protected against this -influx 
of foreign corn. The Legislature, the Upper 
House being composed exclusively, and the 
Lower very generally, of landed proprietors, 
took the alarm ; and in 181 5, a new Corn 
Law was passed that practically stopped the 
importation of grain from abroad, by the 
imposition of an enormous customs duty. 
Until home grown corn had reached the 
price of Soj. per quarter, there could be no 
supply from beyond seas ; for till that figure 
had been touched, the ports were closed. 

Thus, although plentiful and abundant 
supplies might be ready for the relief of 
want, legislation forbade those supplies to be 
brought to the homes where they would have 
been welcome. 

The Remonstrances of the People, 

and how they were received. 

Naturally this artificial raising of the price 

of the nation's food excited great discontent. 

First there were earnest petitions from the 



FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 



manufacturing districts, which were uni- 
formly disregarded; then there were riots, for 
which men were hanged. The starving 
labourers turned out in desperation, and 
burned ricks and barns ; in some instances 
the military had to be called out to disperse 
the mobs. Those were the days of repression 
and harshness. The expression of popular 
discontent was treated as a crime ; and the 
infamous proceedings in St. Peter's Fields, 
Manchester, the " Peterloo massacre," in 
which an unarmed meeting, containing a 
large contingent of women and children, was 
driven asunder by a charge of cavalry, with 
a result of six persons killed and some 
seventy wounded, was an instance of the 
spirit in which popular remonstrance was met. 
The distress in the country was meanwhile 
great. It would be well for those who talk 
and write of the decline of national prosperity 
in England within the last half century to 
refer to authentic accounts of the period 
immediately succeeding the great war, and 
previous to the passing of the Reform Bill of 
1832. Wages were low, and the price of 
bread was high. Employment was fluctuat- 
ing, and the majority of the labouring popula- 
tion had to eke out their starvation pay with 
a parish dole. One of their poets well 
described their condition, when he wrote, — • 
•' A blessed prospect : 
To slave while there is strength — in age 

the workhouse, 
A parish shell at last, and the little bell 
Tolled hastily for a pauper's funeral ! " 
In general, while the farmers, influenced by 
the landlords, and naturally anxious to obtain 
a good market for their produce, were Pro- 
tectionists, the manufacturers, who found 
foreign markets closed against them by the 
Protective system, and chafed at the restric- 
tion it put upon their industry, were Free 
Traders ; and thus it may be said that to a 
great extent the representatives of agricul- 
ture and trade were arrayed against each 
■other. The artizans in the towns were keenly 
alive to the causes that rendered the food of 
their families dear and scarce ; as for the 
labourers, they were generally conscious only 
of a vague feeling of hunger and misery. It 
was natural, therefore, that the great centres 
of manufacturing industry like Manchester, 
should be the places whence the first practical 
complaint and remonstrance against the ex- 
isting state of things proceeded ; for these 
towns, while they wanted cheap ibod, had no 
interest in raising, or keeping up, the price 
of corn. 

Protection to British Sailors and 
Shipping; How the System Worked. 
Another remarkable development of Pro- 
tective doctrines was found in the system of 
the Navigation Laws, which restricted the 
carrying of British produce to British ships, 



and insisted that three-fourths of the crew of 
a British vessel should be Englishmen. The 
Americans and Continental nations were not 
slow to adopt the same policy ; and conse- 
quently ships were continually returning in 
ballast after delivering their cargoes, and two 
voyages were made for one profit. It seems 
almost incredible that the voice of the 
people and of common sense was not more 
loudly heard during the period after the great 
war ; but in those days of dear books and 
scanty instruction the opinion of the nation 
was little heard in Parliament ; nor could 
it, indeed, be considered as in any way 
adequately represented. One great evil of 
the system that kept foreign wheat out, until 
the home market had risen to 80^. per quarter, 
was found in the extraordinary fluctuations to 
which it gave rise. The price of wheat at 
the commencement of 181 7 was a 104^'. per 
quarter ; by the middle of the year it had risen 
to 1 1 2s. 6d. per quarter, which brought the 
price of the quartern loaf to is. loci. Naturally 
at such prices foreign wheat began to pour 
in ; but those were the days of slow postage, 
long passages, and no telegraphs ; so that by 
the time the great supply arrived, and the 
market was thoroughly glutted with foreign 
wheat, a bountiful harvest brought down the 
price with a run, to the consternation of 
the farmer, who, in 1821, for instance, saw 
wheat go down to below 39^. per quarter, and 
wondered how on earth he was to pay his 
rent out of such prices. So that, under the 
system pursued, when the labourer and 
artizan enjoyed a cheap loaf, and could satisfy 
their children's hunger, the farmer was groan- 
ing and lamenting that low prices would be 
his ruin : and that he would never be able to 
raise the rent he had bound himself to his 
landlord to pay. 

In 1 822, a slight alteration in the Com Laws 
was made by Lord Liverpool, who fixed 
yos. instead of Zos. as the price at which 
English corn must stand before foreign com 
was let into the market. It never had any 
practical effect. During the six years it re- 
mained in operation, no foreign wheat came 
into the market, for the English article never 
touched the stipulated price of yos. The 
Government of the Duke of Wellington, who 
became Prime Minister after the death of 
Canning in 1827, included Mr. Huskisson 
and Sir Robert Peel ; and an epoch was 
marked in the history of the Corn Laws by the 
introduction of the sliding scale, — an inge- 
nious contrivance for regulating the duty on 
foreign corn according to the price of home 
grown produce ; the duty on foreign corn to 
be highest when the price for English corn 
was lowest, to give the Bi-itish farmer the 
priority of sale. Thus when English wheat 
was selling for less than 62s. per c|uarter, the 
duty on foreign wheat was to be 25^'. ^d. ; as 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



English wheat rose shilling by shilling in 
price, the duty on foreign wheat was to 'de- 
crease in the same ratio : thus the price was 
always kept up, to the detriment of the com- 
munity and for the benefit, not so much of 
the farmers, whose rents were calculated on 
the basis of high prices for corn, as of the 
landlords, the owners of the soil. 

Scarcity and its Effects ; First 
Efforts against the Corn Laws. 

It will be easily understood that the 
grievance connected with the high price of 
corn kept increasing as the population aug- 
mented, and the productive power of the 
land remained the same. While harvests 
were tolerably abundant, the question re- 
mained in abeyance; but in 1836, when trade 
was in a depressed state, and the harvest 
failed, — when the price of wheat rose simulta- 
neously with the fall of wages and scarcity of 
work — considerable agitation was felt, and the 
Corn Laws became again the objects of violent 
and adverse criticism. It was a well-known 
saying of Napoleon's, that most political re- 
volutions have had their origin in famine. 
That great revolution in political economy 
that ended in substituting the principle of 
Free Trade for a system of Protection, cer- 
tainly had its source in the feeling of the 
inconvenience of having the price of bread 
high, at a time when wages were low and 
work was scarce. 

The first practical sign of an attempt to 
get partially rid of the Corn Laws was seen in 
the proposal of Mr. Clay in the House of 
Commons to substitute for the sliding scale 
a fixed duty on grain oiios. per quarter. The 
proposal met with scanty support, and was 
negatived on division by 223 votes to 89; 
so unpromising seemed the prospect of im- 
pressing any change in this direction on 
a House in which, as a rule, the members 
cared a great deal more for the interests of 
land than for those of labour. But a move- 
ment began in London outside the House of 
Commons, and a kind of anti-corn-law asso- 
ciation was formed, the precursor of the far 
more vigorous organization that, after passing 
through many vicissitudes, succeeded infixing 
the eyes of the nation upon the cause it repre- 
sented, and in carrying that cause trium- 
phantly through. 

At this time of day, when Free Trade 
principles have become firmly rooted in 
England, it is hardly possible to appreciate 
the amount of difficulty encountered by those 
who first attempted to storm the Protectionist 
stronghold in England. 

Formation of the Anti-Corn-Law 

League ; Its Leaders. 
It was in 1838, not long after the accession 
of Queen Victoria, that the great and wide- 



spread commercial distress in Lancashire, 
particularly in the town of Bolton-le-Moors, 
where thirty out of fifty factories had closed 
their doors, and five thousand workmen were 
without employment and without bread, led 
to the formation of the great association at 
Manchester, known as the Anti-Corn-Law 
League ; with the avowed object of procuring 
an entire repeal of the duty on corn, and 
thus securing cheap bread for the English 
people. The immediate occasion was an 
animated speech of Dr., afterwards Sir John, 
Bowring, who, at a meeting in Manchester, 
through which town he happened to be 
passing, spoke with forcible and incisive 
eloquence against the Corn Laws, their princi- 
ple, and their lamentable effects, as seen in 
the destitution around. The time for agita- 
tion had come ; and the committee of the 
newly formed association could not have had 
a better text to comment on than the anomaly 
of an artificial barrier erected against the 
supply of food to a population who were 
starving. In October 1838, the first lists of 
the Provisional Committee of the new associ- 
ation were published ; and in the first and 
second respectively appear the names of 
John Bright and Richard Cobden. Soon after, 
an executive committee was appointed of 
twelve gentlemen, six of whom remained in 
office throughout the whole seven years 
during which the League continued its labours. 
Among their number we read the names of 
Richard Cobden, the most illustrious of the 
members; of Archibald Prentice, to whose 
energetic action the formation of the League 
in the first instance was in a great measure 
due ; and of Mr. George Wilson, whose 
enlightened views on political economy, elo- 
quently and lucidly put forth, had a great 
share in ensuring its success. The Man- 
chester Chamber of Commerce joined heartily 
in the objects proposed by the League ; and 
a determination to sending a petition to Par- 
liament praying for the abolition of the Corn 
Laws was adopted and carried out. It had 
no immediate effect ; for the President of the 
Chamber, Mr. Wood, overawed by the temper 
of the House, in speaking of the state of 
commerce and manufacture throughout the 
country, blunderingly described it as very 
prosperous ; which gave Sir Robert Peel and 
the Tories an opportunity of using the very 
obvious argument — " Then why agitate for 
change, if things go so well with you ? " and 
Lord Melbourne, who was at the head of the 
Ministry, had an occasion of applying his 
favourite maxim of quieta non movere, or, 
as he famiharly and tersely put it, " Look 
here, can't you leave it alone ? " 

The Voice of the Free Traders Raised 
in and out of Parliament. 
When Mr. Villiers, one of the most brilliant 



FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 



and useful recruits of the League at its out- 
set, in pursuance of a resolution arrived at 
in one of the Association's earliest meetings, 
proposed in his place in Parliament that 
certain witnesses should be heard at the bar 
of the House in reference to the petition 
against the operation of the Corn Laws, the 
motion was negatived by more than two to 
one. It was evident that the League, if it 
wished to prosper, must look, in the first in- 
stance, for support outside the walls of Parlia- 
ment, and must seek to move that august 
assembly, if it were to be moved at all, by 
pressure exercised from without. 

To that task the members devoted them- 
selves with an earnestness and thoroughness 
that were well calculated to ensure success. So 
soon as the Anti-Corn- Law Association had 
formed itself into a League, a system was 



as he had already in the field ; Daniel 
O'Connell, the great Irish agitator, who from 
the first gave the League his free and hearty 
support ; and Mr. Joseph Hume, who had 
the reputation throughout the country of 
being a sound economist, and who, within 
the walls of Parliament was the bete noire 
of Chancellors of the Exchequer, and of aU 
such as wanted to conjure money out of 
the pockets of the British nation, in the 
shape of taxes and imposts of any kind. 
Meanwhile the action of Mr. Villiers in 
Parliament was alike energetic and valu- 
able. 

True to Mr. Cobden's idea that the nation, 
required to be instructed in the principles of 
Free Trade, the League, with admirable 
astuteness, made use of the services of 
enthusiastic and eloquent speakers, to de- 




Statue of Sir Robert Peel at Leeds. 



thoroughly organised for establishing similar 
associations in various important commercial 
and manufacturing centres, that gradually 
the whole natioi; might be drawn into co- 
operation with the central body, who had 
their office in Newall's Buildings, Market 
Street, Manchester. There the delegates 
from great towns met, and the programme 
to be carried out was discussed. The great 
force furnished by a powerful organisation 
was used to the best advantage ; and the 
result, in gradually converting the country 
to the principles of Free Trade, was marvel- 
lous. Soon the chiefs of this great and 
peaceful crusade could boast of many emi- 
nent men attracted to their banners, and 
induced to co-operate heartily in their cause: 
Sir de Lacy Evans, the gallant officer, who 
was making for himself a name in politics 



liver lectures in various parts of the country^ 
explaining what Protection and Free Trade 
respectively meant, and pointing out the 
tendency of each. Such lectures were de- 
livered by hundreds, — by Mr. Poulton and 
others, and by Mr. Cobden, who was the 
leadmg spirit of the movement. Deputations 
waited upon the members of the Ministry, 
who, though they received their unwelcome 
visitors with cold official dignity, and did 
not even vouchsafe to send away the dele- 
gates with "the chamehon's diet, promise 
crammed," yet became aware perforce that 
this Corn Law question was assuming an 
unpleasantly prominent character, and would 
ultimately have to be taken in hand in some 
way or other ; and that the longer that duty 
was delayed, the more unpleasant it was 
likely to become. 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



The Penny Post an Auxiliary to 
Free Trade. 

One event of the greatest moment to the 
League was contributing to spread its doctrines 
J, and opinions far and wide, and to promote 
i a national interchange of thought and 
I opinions in the country ; — the estabhsh- 
ment, in 1839, of the system of uniform 
'" penny postage throughout the kingdom. 
The proposed innovation, hke nearly every 
proposed reform, had been pitilessly sneered 
at ; and even so good a Liberal as Sydney 
Smith, of the Edinburgh Review and 
^'Peter Plymley," had pooh-poohed it as 
"nonsensical"; while Sir Robert Peel had 
honoured the scheme with active and per- 
sistent opposition. It was established, 
nevertheless, with what results of benefit to 
the world it is needless to say, though at one 
time it actually cost the originator his place' 
at the Post Office ; and a year or two after, 
the facetious Mi: Punch was caricaturing 
the Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, in the 
character of " Britannia presenting Rowland 
Hill with the sack." The new postal system 
came just in time to be of vital use to the 
League, one of whose chief methods of pro- 
paganda was by thousands upon thousands 
of tracts and pamphlets, for whose distribu- 
tion and circulation far and wide the penny 
post offered a ready and effectual means. 
The movement had its poets, too ; witness 
the works of Ebenezer Elliott, the " Corn-law 
Rhymer," who, with various others, con- 
tributed not a little by his lyric efforts to the 
popularity of the cause of Free Trade. 

The first period of the great activity of the 
League was also that of the Chartist agitation, 
■which was especially fierce and fiery in 1840 
and 1841. It might havebeen supposed that 
the Chartists would be ready to work 
cordially with the Free Traders, and to hail 
them as fellow-labourers in the cause of the 
people. But it was not so. The demagogues 
were annoyed at the thoroughly peaceful 
manner in which the League carried on its 
■work, and angrily denounced the Free Trade 
movement as an insidious and treacherous 
thing, — a political red-herring trailed across 
the track of the people's rights, to divert the 
.. staunch hounds of democracy from the true 
' line of the chase, and set them off on a 
: false issue, in which it was designed to betray 
the cause of the working man, and play into 
the hands of the middle classes. 

A Pair of Friends ; Richard Cobden 
AND His Career. 
Thus the Free Trade cause not only met 
with no encouragement, but actually en- 
countered fierce opposition, at the hands of 
the Chartists, who frequently interrupted the 
proceedings of public meetings with their 



outcries and invectives ; notably at Warring- 
ton, where it needed all the excellent temper 
and persuasive eloquence of Richard Cobden 
to restore order, and prevent an appeal to 
physical force. 

That distinguished man and great states- 
man may be considered, even more than his 
friend and colleague, Mr. John Bright, as the 
very heart and soul of the Free Trade move- 
ment. The two men were bound together 
by community of feeling on this subject and 
by the hearty respect each of them enter- 
tained for the character of the other, in a 
friendship so close and cordial, that the 
two names are always associated together, 
and we speak of " Cobden and Bright " as of 
Beaumont and Fletcher, or Damon and 
Pythias. Both came into Parliament at the 
same time, and were labourers in the same 
great work, and rejoiced in the same triumph. 
But the career of Mr. Bright was destined to 
be longer than that of his friend and colleague, 
and is associated with various great questions, 
while Cobden's name is connected with the 
cause of Free Trade and the commercial 
intercourse of nations as the be-all and the 
end-all of his political life. The son of a 
Sussex yeoman, he had lost his father early, 
and had been removed from school at fifteen 
to enter a house of business. He had 
travelled and had taken note of various sorts 
and conditions of people ; and it has been 
said of him that the objects that interested 
him most, and called forth the energies of his 
acute and inquiring mind, were not ruins, or 
the beauties of scenery or the treasures of art, 
but men. With a small borrowed capital of 
;i^5oo he had commenced business for him- 
self ; and but for the question of Free Trade 
and Protection, it might never have been his 
fate " the applause of listening senates to 
command." For his nature was singularly 
retiring and modest ; no man was ever 
less inclined to put himself forward indi- 
vidually, or to bid for public support or 
notoriety ; and but that the great question 
called him forward, and demanded the 
exercise of his high ability, he might have 
continued to the end of his life unknown and 
unappreciated, — simply a partner in a Man- 
chester cotton print firm. But when he had 
once embarked in the cause, his value was 
too marked to be open to any doubt ; and 
his friends and colleagues acted with sound 
policy when they relieved him from the cares 
of a business he could not have continued 
with advantage while his time and energies 
were given to the strife, and by procuring 
him the means to enter Parliament secured 
the whole of his time and energy for its 
success. As an orator his great point was 
persuasiveness. His language was admirably 
plain and lucid, good Saxon English, with no 
attempt at ornament or flourish of style. 



FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 



What most impressed the hearer in his 
speeches was his evident earnestness and 
sincerity, his deep and thorough behef in the 
cause he was advocating. Mr. Justin 
McCarthy, in his " History of our own Times," 
has admirably described the kind of power 
by which he achieved his most brilhant 
victories: — "If oratory were a business and 
not an art, — that is, if its test were its success 
rather than its form,— then it might be con- 
tended reasonably enough that Mr. Cobden 
was one of the greatest orators England had 
ever known. Nothing could exceed the 
persuasiveness of his style. His manner 
was simple, sweet, and earnest. It was 
persuasive, but it had not the kind of 
persuasiveness that is only a better sort of 
plausibility. It persuaded by convincing. It 
was transparently sin- 
cere. The light of its 
convictions shone all 
through it. It aimed at 
the reason and the 
judgment of the listener, 
and seemed to be con- 
vincing him to his own 
interest against his 
prejudices. . . . He 
illustrated every argu- 
ment 'by something 
drawn from his per- 
sonal observation or 
from reading, and his 
illustrations were al- 
ways striking, appro- 
priate, and interesting. 
, . . Many strong oppo- 
nents of Mr. Cobden's 
opinions confessed, even 
during his lifetime, that 
they sometimes found 
with dismay their most 
cherished opinions 
crumbling away be- 
neath his flow of easy 
argument. . . So long 
as the controversy could be settled after this 
fashion, — ' I will show you that in such a 
course you are acting injuriously to your 
own interests,' or, ' You are doing what a 
fair and just man ought not to do,' — so long 
as argument of that kind could sway the con- 
duct of men, there was no one who could 
convince as Cobden could." 

Mr. Bright, his Eloquence and 

Persistency. 
Mr. Bright, on the other hand, had 
undoubtedly greater gifts as an orator. 
Throughout his long parliamentary career 
there was never any danger of his speaking 
to empty benches. His full and rich voice, 
his commanding presence, his power of 
pathos, irony, and invective, that wonderful 




The Rt. Hon. John Bright 



sympathetic gift of enchaining the attention 
and stirring the hearts of multitudes that so 
few possess, were his in the fullest measure ; 
and he would have been what he was, the 
Tribune of the people, the fearless denouncer 
of what appeared to him to be erroneous or 
wrong, the upholder of what he felt to be 
just and true, sternly and uncompromisingly, 
in the face of discouragement and opposition, 
even if the Free Trade question had never 
arisen in his time. 

The Melbourne Government ; Its 

Apathy and its Fall. 
It has been said that thfe Melbourne 
ministry opposed a kind of passive resistance 
to the persistent efforts of the League to 
obtain a trial of their scheme. The Premier 
was true to his "let it 
alone " principle, ac- 
knowledging that there 
might be miuch truth 
in what the Leaguers 
said, and that in 
principle they were 
undoubtedly right, but 
that nations did not 
always see their true 
interests, and that it 
would be injudicious 
for England to be the 
first to give way on 
such a subject ; that 
would not be the way to 
commence negotiations 
for reciprocal advan- 
tages. This was dis- 
couraging enough ; and 
other tokens, such as 
the defeat, by a majority 
of much more than 
a hundred, of Mr. 
Villiers's motion "That 
this House resolve it- 
self into a Committee 
of the whole House, 
to take into consideration the Act of George 
IV. regulating the importation of foreign 
corn," showed that whatever the League had 
done with the nation, the process of " in- 
structing " the House of Commons was not 
yet very far advanced. But the association 
went on indefatigably with the work. The 
great banquets held at Manchester in a tem- 
porary building, where afterwards the Free 
Trade Hall was erected, on the very spot in 
St. Peter's Fields where the infamous Peterloo 
massacre had taken place in 1819, were en- 
tirely successful ; and the campaign was 
carried on bravely with lectures and the dis- 
tribution of pamphlets, and with public 
meetings all over the country, where the 
chiefs of the movement spoke with indefati- 
gable zeal and persuaded many. Meanwhile 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the Melbourne Ministry, with its inert and 
careless chief, was falling into disgrace with 
the nation ; and at length, in the middle of 
1 84 1, a. vote of want of confidence, moved by 
Sir Robert Peel, was just barely carried 
against the Government, who had no alterna- 
tive but to resign or dissolve Parliament. 
They chose the latter alternative ; and a 
i large majority for Peel was the result of the 
\ General Election; for the Melbourne Govern- 
\ nient, and the Whigs generally, had lost many 
friends, and gained none. When the new 
Parliament met, the Queen's speech con- 
tained a distinct reference to the principles 
of Free Trade as against Protection, but 
couched in ambiguous language. Several 
utterances were significant of a change, as 
the froth on the wave shows the turn of the 
tide. 

Indications of Change ; The Queen's 
Speech and its Forecast. 
Protection was now evidently no longer 
implicitly believed in, as a panacea for the 
nation's ills. In reference to various duties 
levied on imports, the Sovereign was made 
to say to the House of Commons : " It will 
be for you to consider whether some of these 
duties are not so trifling in amount as to be 
unproductive to revenue while they are vexa- 
tious to commerce." (This had long been 
an argument of the Free Traders, who had 
declared that, in many instances, the expenses 
of collection on the one hand, and the costly 
machinery maintained with very partial 
success against smuggling on the other, 
swallowed up more than the amount of the 
imposts maintained at the cost of so much 
obloquy.) " You may further examine whe- 
ther the principle of Protection, upon which 
others of those duties are founded, be not 
carried to an extent injurious alike to the 
income of the State and the interests of the 
people." It was not the extent to which the 
principle was carried, but the principle, the 
thing itself, against which the Free Traders 
protested as an injustice. " Her Majesty is 
desirous that you should consider the laws 
which regulate the trade in corn. It will be for 
you to determine whether these laws do not 
aggravate the natural fluctuation of supply," 
etc. Of this there could be very little ques- 
tion, even among the staunchest of Protect- 
I ionists. The faint indications of a tendency 
' to do something else with the Corn Laws than 
" let them alone " was not sufficient to save 
the Ministry, who were left in a doleful mino- 
rity in a division on an amendment to the 
Address, and accordingly had no choice left 
but to resign. 

Sir Robert Peel; His Opinions and 
Reservation. 
The country gentlemen and squires who 



put their trust in Sir Robert Peel, who now 
became Prime Minister, were not well skilled 
at discerning the signs of the times, or they 
would have recognised the fact that their 
trusted chief was not what they would have 
termed "sound" and "staunch" on the 
subject of Protection ; not what poor Lord 
George Bentinck, who about this time gave 
up to politics and the leadership of a party 
a portion of the time he had devoted to 
Newmarket and Epsom, would have termed 
" a man of a stable mind." At a later period 
they united in accusing the great statesman 
of "tergiversation." It was a good sounding 
word, — like Corporal Bardolph's famous "ac- 
commodation," a "soldier-like word, and a 
word of exceeding good command," — and 
none the less welcome to the country gentle- 
men, perhaps, from the fact that many of 
them did not quite understand its meaning. 
It is well, therefore, to remember that upon 
taking office Sir Robert distinctly declined 
to pledge himself to the maintenance of the 
Corn Laws, and plainly stipulated for full 
freedom of private judgment on that mo- 
mentous question. " If you ask me," he 
publicly said, on the subject of the corn 
duties, " whether I bind myself to the main- 
tenance of the existing law in its detail, or 
if you say that this is the condition on which 
the agricultural interest give me their support, 
I say that on that condition I will not accept 
their support. ... If I exercise power, it 
shall be upon my conception, perhaps im- 
perfect, perhaps mistaken, but my sincere 
conception of public duty. That power I 
will not hold unless I can hold it consistently 
with the mainten.ance of my own opinions." 
Surely there could not be much plainer speak- 
ing than this, or language that more distinctly 
stipulated for freedom of opinion and action. 
But the country party had got into their 
heads that Peel would be a thick and thin 
supporter of the Corn Laws. " The wish was 
father to the thought;" and thus when Sir 
Robert made use, in 1846, of the right he 
had distinctly reserved to himself in 1841, 
they chose to consider themselves injured 
and deceived men, and cheered to the echo 
the vituperative speeches in which Mr. 
Benjamin Disraeli accused the Premier of 
want of consistency, when Sir Robert had 
only consistently exercised the right he had 
claimed five years before. 

It would seem that already at this time the 
great statesman had some misgivings as to 
the principle of Protection ; and his cha- 
racter, though cautious, deliberate, and some- 
what cold, had nothing of that bigotiy about 
it which forbids men to advance beyond a 
certain point, and pledges them irrevocably 
to one set of opinions. Even Earl Russell, 
j or as he was then called, " Lord John," did 
not escape the reproach of at times advocat- 
10 



FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 



ing a policy of stagnation, and what many- 
called anything but a masterly " inactivity " ; 
and the epithet, " Finality John," bestowed 
upon him at one portion of his public career, 
had anything but a complimentary meaning. 

Enlarged Operations of the League ; 
The First Free Trade Bazaar. 

At any rate, the years 1841 and 1842 were 
not a time wherein even Lord John could 
have consistently counselled his followers to 
"rest and be thankful." The harvest of 
1841 was a bad one ; trade was deplorably 
bad ; great numbers were in receipt of 
parochial relief in London, Nottingham, 
Leeds, and other important industrial centres. 



in public favour, holding meetings, distribut- 
ing pamphlets,bringing together delegates from 
various parts of the country, and enlisting a 
large and influential contingent of the clergy 
in the cause. Then also a new and most 
successful means for raising the necessary 
funds for carrying on the agitation was dis- 
covered. The first "Free Trade bazaar"' 
was held, under the superintendence of a 
committee of ladies, with Mrs. Cobden for 
their president, in the theatre at Manchester, 
It was a huge '*' fancy fair," to which articles 
were contributed from the most various 
quarters. Financially it was a great success, 
bringing little short of ;^ 10,000 into the 
coffers of the association ; and it was still 
more important from the publicity it gave to 




ESS IN Liverpool ; The Home of Science and Art. 



"We've got no work to do,' was the cry 
among the Spitalfields weavers, the operatives 
of Nottingham, and the artizans in the 
manufacturing districts generally. Protec- 
tive duties, as the indefatigable workeus of 
the League did not fail to point out, bad not 
succeeded in providing a sufficient market 
for English goods ; and on the other hand, a 
tax of more than 24$'. per quarter made 
bread dear, while labour was so cheap. 

All this could not fail to strengthen the 
hands of the League. No time is so pro- 
pitious for convincing people of the injustice 
of a policy or principle as that during which 
they are suffering actual privation and want 
under its operation ; and during this time 
the League accordingly made steady progress 



the operations of the League by drawing 
attention to its labours. 

Liverpool was at that time one of the most 
active centres of the League. 

Deputation to London ; The Subject 
OF the Corn Laws pressed on Par- 
liament. 

As the association increased in popularity, 
and found itself making converts to its prin- 
ciples all over the country, it took a bolder 
and more decided tone, declaring its deter- 
mination to refuse all compromise in this 
important matter. Just as in 1831 and 1832 
the advocates of Parliamentary Reform had 
announced their resolution to accept only 
" the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Bill," the opponents of the Corn Laws now 
declared for "abohtion, total abolition, and 
nothing short of abohtion." A large depu- 
tation of some 500 delegates came up_ to 
London to press their views upon the Premier, 
who, however, declined to receive them ; 
whereupon they marched in a body to Palace 
Yard, to the door of the House of Commons, 
and amid the cheers of the people, raised 
cries of " Labour and bread!" "No Corn 
Law!" " No sliding scale !" Cobden pubhcly 
asked, in the House, why there should be a 
sliding scale for corn, when there was no 
shding scale for wages ? " What I supplicate 
for, on the part of the starving people," he said, 
^'is that they, and not you, shall be the judges 
of when corn is wanted. By what right do 
yoti pretend to gauge the appetites and 
measure the wants of millions of people ? " 
Sir Robert Peel himself saw that the pro- 
tective tariff had been screwed up, not only 
to " the sticking point," but to the point a^. 
which the string was more than likely to snap 
and gave a very practical proof of his 
opinion by the introduction of direct instead 
of indirect taxation ; reviving Pitt's Income 
Tax, which he succeeded in carrying in spite 
of Lord John's opposition. It is a significant 
fact, by the way, that the Whig leader at a 
later period not only adopted his opponent's 
measure, but endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to 
elaborate it and derive an increased portion 
of the Government resources from the In- 
come Tax. The aristocratic party saw with 
dismay that the popular discontent against 
the Corn Laws was increasing, and would 
presently, "like a bold flood, o'erbear." They 
saw with dismay that now deputations were 
no longer left out in the cold by the 
Government ministersy but were received at 
least with official courtsey, and dismissed with 
a vague promise that something' should 
be done for the relief of the general distress ; 
and with admirable prudence the League 
continued to work on strictly peaceful and 
legal lines, basing its hopes of ultimate suc- 
cess on the certainty of in time " instructing " 
its Disponents into acquiesceace. The ques- 
tion of the Corn Laws was kept persistently 
before the eyes of the public as a subject of 
paramount importance ; and though the 
Ministers were still strong enough to com- 
mand large majorities when the abolition of 
the taxes on corn was brought before the 
Legislature and pressed to a division, they 
could not get away from the subject, which 
was ever present, like the skeleton at an 
Egyptian feast. Cobden appealed directly 
to the Prime Minister, in whom his astuteness 
had already recognised a secret leaning to- 
wards the principles of Free Trade. " Would 
the right honourable baronet," he asked, " re- 
sist the appeals that had been made to him, 
or would he rather cherish the true interests 



of the country, and not allow himself to be 
dragged down by a section of the aristocracy? 
Lie must take sides, and that instantly ; and 
should he by so doing displease his political 
supporters, there was an answer ready. He 
might say that he found the country in dis- 
tress, and he gave it prosperity ; that he 
found the people stai'ving, and he gave them_ 
food ; that he found the large capitalists of 
the country paralysed, and he made them 
prosperous." 

Dismay of the Protectionists ; The 
Heat of the Battle. 

The dismayed country party still clung 
to Peel like drowning sailors to a life buoy. 
He was their great hope, the one pilot to 
whom they trusted to weather the storm that 
was rising around them ; and the most em- 
barrassing circumstance of all was that the 
great advancing host could not be kept out 
by ramparts mounted with cannon and 
bristling with bayonets. There was not, as 
in the Chartist movement, anything about it 
that could be met by the reading of the Riot 
Act, and by an order to disperse, accentuated 
by a charge of cavalry to follow. A rising 
mob or a gathering of rick -burners might be 
encountered by calling out the military ; but 
you could not send the soldiers into a Free 
Trade bazaar, and overthrow the tables as if 
they were barricades. 

One proof of the increasing hold of the 
League on public opinion was soon after 
given in a most satisfactory and practical 
form. The organisation required the sinews 
of war for carrying on its operations. A sum 
of ;!^5o,ooo was raised by subscriptions with- 
out any difficulty ; and this was in a time of 
general distress. 

But tlie Parliamentary battle had as yet 
scarcely begun. The compact phalanx of 
country gentlemen who stood together shoulder 
to shoulder to keep out the pernicious Free 
Trade doctrines, gave the Government enor- 
mous majorities in the division lobbies ; and 
though Mr. Villiers persisted in bringing 
forward his annual motion for the abolition 
of the Corn Laws, he seemed to have as 
little chance of carrying it as ever. The 
Tory papers raved and howled against the 
Free Traders and all their works. Cobden, 
the most peaceable and kindly, if one of the 
most outspoken of men, was described as 
having risen in his place "to hurl at the 
heads of the Parliamentary landowners of 
England these calumnies and taunts which 
constitute the staple of his addresses to 
farmers." 

He was fiercely denounced as a Manchester 
money-grubber, under whose blows the land- 
owners of England, the representatives by 
blood of the Norman chivalry, the representa- 
tives by election of the industrial interests of 



12 



FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 



the Empire, ignominiously quailed and shrank. 
The basest and most selhsh motives were 
attributed to the Manchester school ; and 
above all, the readers of the Protectionist 
newspapers were entreated to remember that 
the squire was the father and patron of the 
agricultural community. Codlin the squire 
was the friend, not Short the manufacturer ; 
and the endeavour to procure cheap bread 
for the working man was merely a cloak 
under which the Free Traders were concealing 
their nefarious design to ruin the country 
gentlemen of England, to overthrow the land- 
marks of the constitution (this was a very 
favourite phrase), and to pull down the fabric 
raised by " the wisdom of our ancestors." 

Important Recruits to the Free 
Trade Ranks. 

But the inexorable logic of facts was stronger 
than the ravings of the Morning Post, or of 
the now long defunct Morning Herald, 
whose hysterical ejaculations were redoubled 
when the League, encouraged by the ready 



colleagues. The advocates of Free Trade 
could now boast the adhesion of such men 
as Mr. Pattison, the Liberal member for the 
city of London ; Mr. Jones Loyd, afterwards 
Lord Overstone, the great banker ; and Earl 
FitzWilliam, a great landowner. Moreover, 
the meetings in Covent Garden Theatre were 
fully and accurately reported in the London 
press, whose notices, copied into the provincial 
papers, gave its opinions a circulation far wider 
than could be achieved by any distribution of 
pamphlets, or even by the publication of the 
Economist. " The enemy increaseth every 
day," was the rueful conviction that gradually 
forced itself upon the minds of the Protec- 
tionists. And the ^100,000 was obtained for 
the General Purposes Fund as promptly and 
easily as the ^50,000 had been collected the 
year before. Truly, 1843 was a memorable 
epoch for the Anti-Corn-Law League, which 
may then be said to have attained its majority. 
During the next year the work was steadily 
and energetically carried on. Trade im- 
proved, and a good harvest brought down 




The Covent Garden Theatre of the League Meetings. 



response given to its appeal for money, re- 
solved now to raise ^100,000 for the expenses 
of the next year, and to widen and enlarge 
its lines of proceeding, adding to the pam- 
phlet it was distributing a newspaper, in which 
the objects and arguments of the League were 
to be definitely set forth. Great meetings 
had already been held in Drury Lane Theatre, 
in which the Free Trade doctrines, hopes, and 
prospects had been explained to overflowing 
and enthusiastic houses. The proprietors 
had stepped in to prevent the lessee from 
opening the house to the League ; but the 
other great theatre, Covent Garden, was at 
that time very much in the condition of the 
halls of Balclutha, so far as desolation was 
concerned ; and the programme of the Anti- 
Corn-Law League included the taking of that 
house for thirty meetings. This was done ; 
and the effect was beyond the most sanguine 
expectations of the committee. The speeches 
were delivered by JMr.Cobden, Mr.Bright,who 
was now also in Parliament, and by many 
inflnential and eloquent men among their 



the price of bread. But here the difficulty 
inseparable from the Corn Laws again made 
itself felt. If corn was cheap, what was toi 
become of the farmers ? How were they to 
pay their rents ? The most obvious device was 
to take it out of the labourers, whose wages 
were accordingly reduced in many districts 
to starvation point ; and the wretched men 
in too many cases sought refuge from their 
misery in acts of violence and incendiarism. 
Leech's celebrated cartoon, " the home of the 
rick-burner," published in Piinch at this time, 
made a profound impression. The pitiable 
serf is represented sitting brooding in sullen 
misery before his empty grate ; his wretched 
children crouching in a corner ; while the 
corpse of his wife, killed by starvation and 
misery, lies stretched out gaunt and stiff upon 
the floor ; and the thoughts that are passing 
through the man's mind are indicated by the 
mocking demon who offers him a torch, the 
means of vengeance. But there was a better 
hope looming in the distance than the pros- 
pect of a wild revenge. Even the labourer 



13 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



had awoke to the consciousness that men 
were working to procure for him and his wife 
and children the inestimable boon of cheap 
food : the gospel of Free Trade was being 
preached to the poor, and they heard it 
gladly. 

The Condition of the British Labourer 
— The Iniquity of the Corn Laws. 
This was forcibly illustrated by some 
remarks of Mr. Bright at one of the great 
meetings in Covent Garden Theatre. 

After commenting on the extraordinary 
statement of an opponent, a landed pro- 
prietor with an income of ^8,000, who had 
advanced the astounding declaration that 
were he to come again into the world, and 
had to choose the particular class or rank in 
society to which he would belong, he would 
select that of an agricultural labourer, Mr. 
Bright proceeded : " Now, what is the con- 
dition of this agricultural labourer, for whom 
they tell us that Protection is necessary ? He 
lives in a parish, whose owner, it may be, 
has deeply mortgaged it. The estate is let 
to farmers without capital, whose land grows 
almost as much rushes as wheat. The bad 
cultivation of the land provides scarcely any 
employment for the labourers, who become 
more and more numerous in the parish ; the 
competition which there is among these 
labourers for the little employment to be had 
bringing down the wages to the very lowest 
point at which their lives can be kept in them. 
They are heart-broken, spirit-broken, des- 
pairing men. They have been accustomed 
to this from their youth, and they see nothing 
in the future which affords a single ray -of 
hope. We have attended meetings in those 
districts, and have been received with the 
utmost enthusiasm by those round-frocked 
labourers. They would have carried us from 
the carriage which we had travelled in to the 
hustings ; and if a silly squire or a foolish 
farmer attempted any disturbance or im- 
proper interference, these round-frocked men 
were all around us in an instant, ready to 
defend us ; and I have seen them hustle away 
many a powerful man from the field in which 
the meeting was being held. . . . But the 
crowning offence of the system of legislation 
, under which we have been living is, that a 
* law has been enacted under which it is alto- 
j gether unavoidable that these industrious 
\ and deserving men should be brought down 
; to so helpless and despairing a condition. 
By withdrawing the stimulus of competition, 
the law prevents the good cultivation of the 
land of our country, and therefore diminishes 
the supply of food which we might derive 
from it. It prevents at the same time the 
mportation of foreign food from abroad, and 
it also prevents the growth of supplies abroad, 
so that when we are forced to go there for 



them, they are not to be found. The law is, 
in fact, a law of the most malignantly in- 
genious character. It is fenced about in every 
possible way. The most demoniacal ingenuity 
could not have invented a scheme more calcu- 
lated to bring millions of the working classes 
of this country to a state of pauperism, suffer- 
ing, discontent, and insubordination, than 
the Corn Laws which we are opposing." The 
speaker then reminded his hearers of the 
national struggle made two centuries before 
by the English nation, when a despotic and 
treacherous monarch assumed to himself the 
right to levy taxes without the consent of 
Parhament and the people ; and indignantly 
asked if, when their ancestors refused to be 
the bondmen of a king, they would consent 
to be the born thralls of an aristocracy, or 
whether they would not by a manly and 
united expression of public opinion put an 
end at once and for ever to that giant wrong ? 

Futile Remedies ; The Hour of 
Triumph at Last. 

The Protectionist cause was made worse 
by the remedies for agricultural famine pro- 
posed in high quarters. The Duke of 
Norfolk suggested curry-powder ; a reverend 
Dean considered that swedes and mangold 
wurzel would make excellent food for the 
labourer. On the whole, the people thought un- 
taxed bread would be better than either. At 
last an event occurred which, as the writer 
of the " History of our Own Times " has ably 
expressed it, " forced Peel's hand." In 1845, 
the potato disease brought famine upon Ire- 
land, and it became absolutely necessary to 
open the ports to foreign corn ; and then the 
League saw that the maintenance of the Corn 
Laws was henceforth impossible. Sir Robert 
Peel, unable to get his Cabinet to acquiesce 
in what he considered the necessity for im- 
mediate action, resigned on the 9th of 
December ; and Lord John Russell being 
sent for to form an administration, failed, as 
he had done before. Then Sir Robert re- 
turned to power, by the Queen's command ; 
and the impressive scene took place which 
has been described in the opening paragraph. 
In spite of the vituperation and invective 
lavished upon him by those who in their 
bitter disappointment accused him of having 
betrayed their confidence, the Prime Minister 
carried a budget, with the total repeal of the 
Corn Laws as its chief feature; and with the 
triumphant passage of that budget through 
Parliament, the reason for which the Anti- 
Corn- Law League had been called into being 
ceased to exist ; and at a meeting at Manchester 
on the 2nd of July, 1846, it was proposed by 
Mr. Cobden to wind up the affairs of the 
association, which was accordingly done, its 
work having been triumphantly brought to a 
close. 



14 



FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION. 



During all his long and distinguished 
career as a statesman, Sir Robert Peel had 
never done a grander thing than the abolition 
of the Corn Laws; and his action in this 
matter was the more honourable as it was a 
distinct vindication of the rights of conscience 
against political'expediency. Sir Robert was 
far too experienced a politician not to know 
thoroughly the price he might be called upon 
to pay for his action in this matter ; how 
many friends he would alienate, and to what 
an amount of misconstruction and reproach 
he would lay himself open. He could, in- 
deed, hardly have anticipated the concen- 
trated malignity with which Mr. Disraeli 
pursued him to the end of the Session ; or 
the extent to which that honourable member's 
tirades would be cheered by delighted country 
gentlemen, wondering that one small head 
could carry all he knew in the way of epi- 
grammatic invective ; but that he expected 
to be heavily censured, he openly stated in 
his memorable speech, when the great mea- 
sure that set corn free was passed. 

It was a grand speech, and worthy of the 
occasion on which it was delivered. The 
generous sentiments it expressed came with 
double force from the lips of a man whose 
oratory was generally somewhat cold and 
unimpassioned, more calculated to convince 
the reason than to rouse enthusiasm. The 
noble tribute paid to one of the chiefs of the 
Anti-Com-Law League certainly displays no 
tokens of the self-glorification and pique with 
which the late Lord Beaconsfield charged it. 
On the contrary, it reads like the utterance 
of a great man, raised above all party con- 
siderations by the importance and solemnity 
of the moment. 

" The name which ought to be, and which 
will be, associated with the success of these 
measures," said Peel, "is the name of the 
man who, acting, I believe, from pure and 
disinterested motives, has advocated their 
cause with untiring energy, and with appeals 
to reason, enforced by an eloquence the more 
to be admired because it is unaffected and 
unadorned, — the name of Richard Cobden." 
And, then, as though conscious that he was 
standing almost at the close of his political 
career, and that his tenure of power would 
cease and determine with the passing of the 
great measure with which his memory would 
be always identified for good or for evil, he 
expressed that lofty and generous hope that 
since has been so fully realised. " It may 
be," said the great statesman, "that I shall 
leave a name sometimes remembered with 
expressions of goodwill in those places which 
are the abode of men whose lot it is to labour 
and to earn their daily bread by the sweat of 
their brow, — a name remembered with expres- 
sions of goodwill when they shall recreate 
their exhausted strength with abundant and 



15 



untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no 
longer leavened with a sense of injustice." 

Better words could not have been spoken 
to be associated with the memory of a great 
national benefit. And they were spoken in 
good season ; for the price paid by Peel for 
the passing of the measure was nothing less 
than the Premiership itself. He had judged 
quite rightly when he said that he should be 
exposed to heavy censure for what he had 
done, especially by the monopolists whose 
interest lay in the maintenance of protection. 
By a coalition of some of his former par- 
tisans with his avowed opponents during the 
sarne Session, he was defeated by a majority 
of more than seventy on the question of the 
Coercion Bill, and went out of office, to be 
succeeded by Lord John Russell. The re- 
mainder of his career was passed in the cold 
shade of Opposition ; and less than four 
years afterwards a lamentable accident de- 
prived him of life ; and the country had to 
bewail the loss of an upright, talented, and 
indefatigable public servant. 

Summary and Conclusion, 
More than a generation has gone by since 
the day when the triumph of Free Trade was 
assured in England. The time, therefore, 
has been amply sufficient to test the merits 
of the system ; and the soundness of the 
policy on which it is based has stood the 
ordeal of experience, and the inexorable trial 
of facts and figures. 

The majority of those who took a leading 
part in the struggle have passed away in 
the course of nature ; but some of them yet 
remain ; and the foremost of the survivors, 
Mr. Bright, has taken the opportunity, on 
the occasion of a well-deserved public cele- 
bration of the seventieth anniversary of his 
birthday, to give a summary of the work of 
the great movement with which he was so 
brilliantly connected ; and no one surely has 
a greater right to speak with authority on 
such a subject. A few extracts from his 
remarks will elucidate what Free Trade has 
done for the country. 

Mr. Bright recalled what the League had 
done. He said : " Now, forty years ago — I 
must look round the room and see how many 
men there are who can recollect things forty 
years ago — the landed interest, as it was 
called, comprising, I suppose, land owners 
and tenant farmers, doubted all that we 
recommended, feared all that we proposed 
to do, and they were distinctly of opinion 
that our principles and our plans were 
wholly hostile, if not destructive, to their 
interests. That was the view when we 
began the agitation. But in 1846 the change 
was not very considerable, when the agita- 
tion came to a close, for at that time no 
doubt the bulk of the landed proprietors and 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



of the tenant farmers of England were 
opposed to the repeal of the Corn Laws, 
which Sir Robert Peel carried ; because out 
of the whole of his great majority in the 
House of Commons, I think he only took 
about eighty votes, which, added to the 
votes of the Liberal party, enabled him to 
carry that Bill through Parliament. We 
had not converted them, therefore, in 1846 ; 
we merely vanquished them. We had 
created so much opinion among the various 
classes of the country that, aided by the 
terrible catastrophe of the Irish famine, the 
land proprietors and the tenant farmers had 
to succumb. The Corn Law was repealed, 
and the landed interest was thrown upon its 
own resources, and was exposed to the com- 
petition which until now it has met, I believe, 
without any very great suffering." 

With regard to the idea that Protection 
could ever again become the policy of the 
country, the speaker quoted the words 
recently uttered at a meeting of the East 
Lothian farmers, by Mr. Harper, the 
president on the occasion, who said : " Now, 
gentlemen, I may say at once that no relief 
can ever be expected from the imposition of 
a duty on grain or cattle, or by trying to 
raise up by any unnatural process the price 
of those articles to the people of this coun- 
try. The policy of Free Trade in these 
matters is irrevocably settled. The idea of 
taxing the whole community for the benefit 
of a class would not now be tolerated, and 
the Government or Parliament that could 
succeed in doing so, must be prepared for 
a revolution which would be at once short, 
sharp, and decisive." 

The enormous increase in the prosperity of 
the country is strikingly given in the com- 
parison drawn between the England of 1840, 
and the country at the present day. The 
orator said : " In the year 1840 the country 
v\^as suffering a good deal from bad harvests. 
The people were suffering because their 
bread was twice as dear as it ought to have 
been. The farmers did not complain, for 
they were selling what they produced at 
twice as much as it was really worth. The 
exports from this country to foreign countries 
at that time of all the produce of Great 
Britain and Ireland was ^51,000,000. I 
Avon't pretend to explain to you what fifty- 
one millions mean, because I don't know 
really myself. It is so big a sum that you 
can't measure it or imagine it. You can 
only talk about it. What are the exports 



now? Instead of being fifty-one millons 
they amount to close upon, if not quite, two 
hundred millions sterling, so that the whole 
trade of the country, so far as its foreign 
trade goes, has increased fourfold within 
that time. And, as a matter of course, the 
home trade must have enormously increased 
at the same time, because so great an 
increase of foreign trade has brought such 
great wealth to the country that the home 
trade has increased during that time in 
quite as great proportion as the foreign trade 
has done. 

" There is another point, which is one of 
extraordinary interest, and it shows, I think, 
that no class in this country suffered so 
much by the ancient policy of protection as 
the working classes, and that no other class 
in this country has gained so much as they 
have gained during the last forty years by 
the adoption of the new policy. Now, I tell 
you that in these days it was the commonest 
thing in the world for country gentlemen, 
members of the House of Peers, and feeble- 
minded folk of that day to say that nothing 
could be done except by way of emigration. 
They did not say that if you brought more 
loaves into the country more people could be 
fed. That is what we said. They said No ; 
the people are too numerous ; there is no 
employment for them ; they ought to emi- 
grate, and what the Government should da 
should be to establish colonies abroad and 
take the people abroad. 

"Well, a good many people have emi- 
grated from that time to this, but what does 
the census say of the actual state of the , 
population ? It says that in 1840 the inhabi- 
tants of Great Britain were 18,330,000, Just 
bear that in mind. In 1879 the population 
of Great Britain was estimated at 28,792,000 
— that is, that the increase is nearly 
10,000,000. The people did not go abroad, 
but stayed at home, and the law was altered 
so that bread could come here, and a great 
many other things could come here, and 
trade extended, and the people have added 
more than ten millions to the population in 
forty years, and there has been a continual 
demand for labour ; and I have no doubt 
that some of these people who forty years 
ago wanted a general system of emigration 
have got now some other nostrum or some 
other scheme equally absurd and equally im- 
possible to apply to your condition." 

H.W. D. 



16 




Trial of the Templars in London. 



THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 

THE STORY OF THE RED CROSS KNIGHTS. 



The Crusaders in Sight of Jerusalem — Cruelties Inflicted on Pilgrims to the Holy Land— Appeal of Peter the Hermit — 
Europe Roused to a Crusade — Capture of Antioch and Massacre by the Crusaders — Siege and Storming of Jerusalem 
— Horrible Slaughter by Godfrey of Bouillon and his Followers — Worshipping in the Church of the Sepulchre — The 
Latin Kingdom — Origin of the Hospitallers and Templars — The Knighthood of the Temple of Solomon — Institutioro 
of the Order of the Knights Templars, and Rules drawn up by Bernard — Visit of the First Grand Master to England 
— Rapid Development and Enormous Possessions of the Order — Battles in Palestine — Noureddin and Saladin — The: 
Last Crusade — The Siege of Acre— Persecutions in England and France — Tortures and Executions — Heroic ConducS- 
of the Knights — Horrible Accusations — Suppression of the Order and Confiscation of the Possessions. 




Jerusalem the Golden. 

1 N the glow of a July morning, 1099, the 
advanced guard of the first army of 
the Crusaders looked upon Jerusalem. 
At their feet was the deep, dry ravine, through 
which the brook Kedron had ceased to flow, 
dried up by the heat of the sun. Before them 
were the massive walls and towers of " the 
city set upon a hill," and rising above them 
the dome of the mosque of Omar, reai-ed by 
infidel hands on the site of the magnificent 
Temple of Solomon. In that bright light of 
dawn, the sun, rising beyond the Mount of 
Olives, made the city beautiful. The minarets 
of the mosque gleamed in the early sunlight ; 
the flat-roofed houses became picturesque 



with light and shade ; and the cornfields aKc?' 
fig-trees on the slopes beyond the gates^,. 
where the Divine One had walked and talked 
a thousand years before, wore the beauty of 
the older time. It was "Jerusalem the 
Golden," Jerusalem the Sacred, of which 
dim and uncertain pictures had been pre- 
sented by pilgrims who had returned to. 
Europe from the far East — which priests and 
preachers had tried to see through the haze- 
of legend. 

Those who had first reached the eminence- 
were speedily followed by others. Fatigue 
and suffering — and the warriors and pilgrims. 
had endured enough of each — were forgotten 
now that the goal was reached. Armed 
knights, with battered armour, frayed plumes, 

17 c 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and dented shields, urged their weary steeds 
to a last effort ; footmen, more lightly armed, 
pressed forward eagerly ; and pilgrims, a 
motley host, old men, weak women, children 
even, toiled up the steep ascent and over 
the rocky ground till they reached the ridges 
and looked upon the city where David had 
reigned, and where the Divine Son of David 
•had taught and prayed and died. 

Then warriors and pilgrims, noble and 
toseborn, — Godfrey of Bouillon, Count Ray- 
mond of Thoulouse, Robert of Normandy 
i(the Conqueror's eldest son), Robert of 
Flanders, Tancred, forty thousand knights 
and men-at-arms, — fell upon their knees, and 
'''poured out their tears on the consecrated 
rsoil." Then rose the chant of the monks and 
priests above the subdued sobbings of sup- 
|Dressed emotion, and the strain floated on 
the air to the towers and mosques where 
Saracen sentries watched, and the Moslems 
sprayed with their faces turned to Mecca. 

Pilgrimages to the Holy Land. 
Four years earlier. Western Europe was 
■ablaze with anger and enthusiasm ; for 
intelligence had arrived that pilgrims to the 
shrines so sacred to Christendom had been 
-cruelly maltreated. For three centuries, 
■although the Mahometan Ahassides and 
Fatimites had held the city, they had freely 
permitted Christians to visit Jerusalem, and 
ihad even with a stately courtesy set apart 
aiearly one-fourth of the city, including the 
Church of the Resurrection, the Holy 
Sepulchre, and the great Latin convent, as a 
Christian quarter. There is a record, that 
in one year, 1064, seven thousand pilgrims, 
■old and young, men and women and chil- 
•dren, had visited Jerusalem, to pray at the 
■Sepulchre and weep at Calvary. A year later, 
dSerce Turcomans, Mahometans in creed, but 
'very different from the cultured Arabians they 
vdisplaced, had captured the sacred city, and 
anassacic I a large number of the inhabitants. 
The Chr stians were cruelly oppres-ed ; those 
who escaped with life were robbed and 
insulted ; their worship was ridiculed and 
interrupted, and the priests of the Church 
of the Sepulchre dragged by the hair of their 
head to dungeons, and there left to die. 
Pilgrims as they arrived, all unknowing of 
"1 M-hat had happened, were plundered, im- 
) prisoned, and ill-treated. Some, indeed, were 
sillowed to visit the shrine of the Sepulchre 
if they could pay broad pieces of gold for the 
•privilci^e ; if they could not, they were driven 
irom the city to starve in the wilderness. 
A few leached the coast and contrived to 
'ireturn to Europe, in some instances many 
■years after they had set out on the pilgrimage, 
iielped by the charity of ship-masters and 
the people of the countries through which 
•■they made their way. 



18 



Peter the Hermit. 

Among those who had made the journey 
and witnessed the cruelties to which thf 
Christians were subjected in Jerusalem, was 
one of those remarkable men who have now 
and again made their mark on history, and 1 
been raised by their marvellous power oi 
exciting popular enthusiasm to leadership. 
A man of gentle birth, a native of Amiens, 
educated in Paris and in Italy, Peter — 
known to all time as Peter the Hermit, no 
other surname or title is on record— had been 
a soldier, but retired from the army, married, 
and had children. His wile died ; and 
sorrow, it may be, quickening natural inclina- 
tion for a Hfe of religious contemplation and 
work, he became a monk, and afterwards a 
hermit. After a time he quitted his retreat, 
and, perhaps alone, living on such alms as 
were seldom refused to "holy men," perhaps 
in the company of a pilgrim band, to whom 
he was the spiritual guide and leader, he 
passed through southern Europe, and ci'ossed 
the seas of the Levant to Syria ; then, by 
the way of many a scene of sacred story, he 
reached Jerusalem, only to find how Chris- 
tians were maltreated. His soul, once 
tranquil and devout, was fired with indigna- 
tion and a new-born zeal to avenge the 
insult to his Master. Small in body, mean 
in aspect, this energetic man, roused to 
heioic ardour and almost superhuman 
strength, regardless of all dangers and all 
sufferings, holding his life as nothing in 
comparison with the work he had to do, 
returned to the Western world, made his way 
to Rome, and there, at the feet of Pope 
Urban II., told his terrible story. It was 
listened to ; and the Pope authorized him to 
appeal to Christendom to form an armed 
confederation to rescue Sion from the spoiler, 
and the sacred Calvary from the cruel and 
insulting infidel. Thus sanctioned, Peter 
traversed Italy and crossed the Alps. In 
the market-places of towns, by the roadside, 
wherever he could collect an audience, the 
Hermit — no longer a fitting name, for he was 
a powerful leader, not a lonely recluse — told 
how Christian men and women, holy priests 
and pious pilgrims, were tortured and slain 
by the cruel followers of the accursed false 
Prophet. No detail, we may be sure, was 
spared, no incident of horror toned down. 
Tien, with the fervour born of an enthusiasm 
which from continuous dwelling on one 
subject had become almost frantic in its 
excitement, and eloquence, with which he 
was so strangely gifted, he called upon all to 
aid in the great work. The noble summoned 
his retainers, the workman left his anvil and 
bench, the burghers of the busy towns took 
down their swords from their resting-place 
and girded themselves for warfare j women 



THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 



wept hysterically, and beat their breasts 
in sympathetic anguish when the powerful 
appeal was made. A Frenchman by birth, 
an Italian by traiqing, a wanderer in many 
countries, Peter spoke to all in their native 
language or patois ; and, riding on an ass 
and holding aloft a cross, was followed by a 
mighty host shouting to be led to Jerusalem. 
Where was the holy city they knew not, how j 
many leagues of land and water miist be 
crossed they knew not, but they knew that 
those who worshipped Christ were being 
martyred by those who worshipped " Ma- 
hound," and they asked to know no more. 
Peter's preaching, says Milman, "appealed 
to every passion,— to valour and shame, to 
indignation and pity, to the pride of the 
warrior, to the compassion of the man, the 
religion of the Christian, to the love of the 
brethren, to the hatred of the unbeliever, 
aggravated by his insulting tyranny, to 
reverence for the Redeemer and the saints, 
to the desire of expiating sin, to the hope of 
eternal life." 

In France especially was indignation 
mingled with enthusiasm. A council of the 
Church was held at Clermont, at which 
Pope Urban himself was present, and de- 
livered a harangue well calculated to fan the 
flame. All Western Christendom was aroused, 
and an enormous host, scarcely to be called 
an army, so rude and undisciplined were the 
men, assembled from aU parts of Europe. 
Peter himself took the command of one por- 
tion ; the other had a far abler leader, in a 
mihtary sense, known as Walter the Penniless, 
probably one of those daring, experienced 
soldiers of fortune who abounded in that age. 
Peter, however, was the ruling spirit. He led 
the host through Hungary ; and the Hunga- 
rians were found to be ready to oppose them. 
Probably, in his zeal, the Hermit had over- 
looked the necessity of providing food for the 
half-savage legions who followed him ; and 
they provided it in rough and ready fashion 
for themselves. The people of the countries 
south of the Danube objected to the invasion 
of the pilgrims as they might have objected 
to a cloud of locusts, and fighting ensued. 
Peter's followers were defeated at Semlin, 
but continued their disorderly march, and at 
length reached Constantinople, the capital of 
, the Eastern Empire. The Emperor Alexis, 
! not disposed to " welcome the coming," 
; deemed it expedient to " speed the parting, 
J guests." He gave Peter and his host (con- 
siderably diminished in number by deser- 
tions, death in battle, starvation, and sickness) 
supplies to help them on their way. They 
crossed the Bosphorus, and near Nice, or 
Nicaea (famous as the seat of two great 
Councils of the Church), the modern Isnek, 
they were encountered fey a Mahometan 
army under Sultan Solyman, and terribly 



defeated. The remnant wandered on, a 
mere rabble of enthusiasts, daily diminishing 
in number from disease, starvation, and the 
attacks of predatory bands. Peter himself 
and a few hundreds only of the many thousands 
who followed him in Italy and Germany, 
knelt with the army of the Crusaders and 
returned thanks for having lived to see 
Jerusalem. 

The First Crusade. 

That army, in the ranks of which might be 
found the ablest warriors, the most renowned 
nobles of Western Europe, was an outcome 
of the same enthusiasm which had so wonder- 
fully helped the Hermit ; but it was an enthu- 
siasm acting by means of military organization, 
and directed by statesmen and experienced 
leaders. Six bodies were collected and 
equipped, and led by some of the most dis- 
tinguished warriors of the time,— Godfrey of 
Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine ; Hugh, Count 
of Vermandois, brother of King Philip of 
France ; Robert, Duke of Normandy, son of 
William the Conqueror; Count Robert of 
Flanders ; Bohemund, Prince of Tarentum, 
son of the more famous Guiscard ; and Count 
Raymond of Toulouse. The place of rendez- 
vous for the allied armies, the first Crusaders 
(so named for wearing a red cross on the 
right shoulder), was Constantinople. Cross- 
ing into Asia Minor, they captured, on the 
24th of June, 1097, Nice, the capital of Sultan 
Solyman ; and then marched, experiencing 
little opposition, to Antioch, which they be- 
sieged and captured after a weary siege of 
seven months. The valiant Crusaders had 
little more respect for the quality of mercy 
than had the grimmest of the Mahometans 
they encountered ; and when they entered 
the town as conquerors, they celebrated their 
victory, and revenged themselves for the toil 
of the long siege, by slaughtering the inhabi- 
tants without regard to age or sex. 

They were scarcely satiated with their horrid 
work, the last shrieks of the dying had scarcely 
died away into silence, when the Crusaders 
found that they were themselves besieged, for 
a relieving force of 200,000 Mahometans, 
sent by the Sultan of Persia, arrived. Soon 
the Crusaders were in desperate straits. 
Food was scanty, the most loathsome sub- 
stances were consumed, and disease broke out, 
arising from the foul state of the city, in 
which dead bodies lay in heaps putrefying in 
the furnace-like heat of a Syrian summer. 
Thousands of the more fainthearted escaped 
over the walls in the darkness of night, 
eluded the enemy, and months afterwards 
appeared in the great cities of Europe in rags 
and misery, — how they found their way thither 
they could scarcely tell, — and told how sorely 
the Cru saders, the flower of European chivalry, 



19 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



were beset by the " malignant and turbaned 
Turks." 

The knights! and men who remained in 
Antioch were made of sterner stuff, and more 
worthily showed " the mettle of their pasture." 
They could but die, and better to fall, if it 
must be so, overpowered by numbers in the 
open field, than to die like cowards behind 
the walls of the beleagured city. They 
sallied out; and with longsword, axe, and 
mace, they dashed at the Mahometan hosts, 
drove them with great slaughter from the 
ground, raised their proud war-cry, '■'' Deus 
vult" " God wills it," as they trampled on 
the dead and dying warriors of the Crescent, 
and pursued the flying remnant of the enemy 
till the weary and starving steeds could no 
longer bear the steel-clad knights. 

Advance to Jerusalem. 

The way to Jerusalem was now open to the 
Christian army. The Crusaders marched for 
three hundred miles from Antioch to Jaffa, 
keeping near the coast for the convenience of 
obtaining supplies from the Italian trading 
vessels which touched at the ports. The 
strongholds were deserted by the Mahometan 
emirs, who fled at the approach of the in- 
vaders. From Jaffa they crossed in an 
easterly direction to Jerusalem. " With 
devout and awful curiosity," we read, "the 
rude warriors of Europe now traversed a 
region filled with places which hourly recalled 
some sacred association, and at length the 
Holy City burst upon their enraptured gaze." 

So came it that twenty thousand Cru- 
saders, with the wretched remnant of the 
Hermit's legions, and a camp following of pil- 
grims and others, knelt on the ridges near the 
Mount of Olives, and prayed and wept on 
that July day, in the last year of the eleventh 
century. 

All the leaders of the six divisions of the 
great Crusade army were not there ; Bohemund 
of Tarentum had quitted the expedition, but 
his most famous follower, the Tancred of the 
Itahan poets, remained. The acknowledged 
leader was Godfrey of Bouillon. He had 
achieved a martial renown which few knights 
could rival ; had taken part in the wars 
waged by the great Emperor Henry IV., in 
Germany and in Italy, and had slain the 
usurper, Rudolph of Swabia, with his own 
hand, in the decisive fight at Wolksheim. 
When the Crusade was proclaimed, Godfrey 
was one of the first to answer to the call. To 
raise money for the equipment of his contin- 
gent to the army, he mortgaged the duchy 
of Bouillon to the Bishop of Liege. 

No time was lost in beginning the attack 
on Jerusalem ; but the Crusaders soon found 
that a sudden capture was impossible, so 
strong was the position, and so well prepared 
and resolute the Moslem garrison. In vain 



the knights and their followers endeavoured 
to force the gates and climb to the lofty ram- 
parts. They were beaten down by showers 
of missiles from the walls, on which the Ma- 
hometans displayed the cross, the symbol of 
the Christian faith, defiled with filth. Mad- 
dened by the insult, the Crusaders again 
rushed to the assault, only to leave heaps of 
dead in the ravine at the foot of the wall. 
It was evident to the leaders that proper 
appliances for a siege must be constructed ; 
but no timber could be obtained near the 
spot, and detachments of the force were sent 
to the beautiful wooded valley of Shechem^ 
thirty miles distant, to procure material for 
the movable towers and battering rams. 
The large trees were dragged by main force 
to the camp, and, with the help of a number 
of Genoese sailors, collected from the vessels 
lying off the coast, the necessary engines were 
constructed. 

While this work was going on, the sufferings 
of the besiegers and followers of the camp 
were intense. The scorching sun had dried 
up the brooks, and the garrison had filled up 
the wells beyond the walls. A maddening 
thirst was felt by all. Parties were sent off 
to procure water, if possible, from distant 
springs ; and when small quantities were 
brought to the camp, a draught was purchased 
by a piece of gold. The poor wretches who 
had nothing to give eagerly licked up the 
morning dews, or dug holes in the ground 
that they might press their parched lips 
against the moist earth. The Genoese 
sailors, aided by the labour of the men- 
at-arms, worked well, and forty days after 
the arrival of the Crusaders, all was ready for 
the grand assault. 

The Siege and Slaughter. 
Day after day they had witnessed on the 
wall the defiled sign of salvation ; day after 
day they had heard the Moslems' shouts of 
defiance and jeers at their faith ; and they 
were excited to an inexpressible fury. A huge 
tower on wheels, propelled by the force of a 
hundred or more strong arms, bore Godfrey, 
Robert of Normandy, and their companions- 
in-arms to the walls. At another part, the 
Count of Thoulouse led the attack. The 
garrison hurled heavy missiles, and poured 
out Greek fire on the devoted assailants. The 
war-shout of the soldiers of the Cross was 
answered by the wild cries of the savage 
Turcoman believers in the Prophet. Godfrey's 
tower almost touched the ramparts, a bridge 
was thrown across, and the brave leader and 
his band leapt upon the walls', A short, sharp 
struggle, and the footing was secure. The 
Moslem warriors fell in heaps beneath the 
blows of the axe and longsword ; and in a 
few moments after Godfrey had rushed across 
the frail bridge, his banner, planted by his 



20 



THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 



own hands, swayed in the wind on the eastern 
rampart of Jerusalem. 

On the other side, Count Raymond of 
Thoulouse had been equally successful in 
his attack. The walls were gained, the gates 
forced or thrown open from the inside, and 
the Crusaders pressed into the city. Further 
resistance was impossible; Jerusalem was 
won, and the banner of the Cross was raised, 
with a shout of triumph, on the battlements 
where for forty days the sacred symbol had 
been mocked at by the infidels. 

Then began the terrible work of the 
avenger. The white banner of the Cross 
floated above ; but the soldiers of the Cross 
were red-handed and red-hearted, — the blood 
that bespattered their armour was not only that 
of the Moslem warriors they had slain on the 
ramparts, but of the panic-stricken citizens, 
the old and young, the mother and child, 
they slaughtered in the streets. The Via 
Dolorosa, with its sacred memories of agonies, 
was again a way of weeping ; and shrieks of 
terror, dying groans, and the shouted curses 
of the maddened conquerors, mingled in the 
narrow streets that led to the Church of the 
Holy Sepulchre. There was a wild rush of 
fugitives to the Mosque of Omar, on Mount 
Moriah, the site of the temple of Solomon, 
where they hoped to find safety. But the 
assailants followed ; the mounted knights 
{for by this time their horses had been 
brought in through the gates) dashed among 
the affrighted crowd, trampling down and 
slaying indiscriminately. Into the broad area 
surrounding the mosque, the sacred enclosure, 
fled the trembling crowd, pursued by the 
horsemen, shouting '■^ Deus vult I '''' and at 
every shout a victim fell. One of the chief 
actors in this terrible massacre boasted in a 
letter to the Pope that they rode up to their 
horses' knees in the blood of the infidels, and 
that within the precincts of the mosque ten 
thousand fugitives were slain. Altogether, if 
we may believe the most moderate of the 
chroniclers of this terrible day, quite twenty 
thousand were massacred — an almost incre- 
dible number, considering the limited size of 
the city ; but, making allowance for exaggera- 
tion, the besetting sin of mediaeval (and, in- 
deed, of many other) narrators, it is but too 
probable that nearly all the inhabitants were 
massacred. In Tasso's "Jerusalem De- 
livered " (Fairfax's Translation) we read :— 

" The victors' ire destroyed the faithless crew, 
From street to street, and chased from gate to gate, 
But of the sacked town the image true 
Who can describe, or paint the woful state ? 
Or with fit words this spectacle express 
Who can? or tell the city's great distress? 

" Blood, murder, death, each street, house, church, 
defiled, — 
There heaps of slain appear, there mountains high, 



There underneath th' unburied hills up-piled 
Of bodies dead, the living buried lie ; 
There the sad mother with her tender child 
Doth tear her tresses loose, complain, and fly." 

That is a picture sketched by a poet who de- 
voted his genius to the glorification of Godfrey, 
Tancred, and the rest of the Crusaders, and, 
in imitationof the older epics, in which super- 
natural assistance generally figured, repre- 
sented the Archangel Michael as fighting 
with them. 

As the evening of that memorable day 
drew near, the new masters of the sacred 
city, satiated with blood, thought that the 
time was come for devotion. To quote 
an able recent writer, " Duke Godfrey, after 
himself staining the example of heroic cou- 
rage with merciless slaughter, threw aside his 
reeking sword, washed his bloody hands, 
exchanged his armour for a white linen tunic, 
and, with bare head and bare feet, repaired 
in pious humiliation to the Church of the 
Sepulchre, and the whole host in turn, dis- 
carding their arms and purifying their persons 
from the signs of recent slaughter, moved in 
procession to the hill of Calvary." Then 
they marched out of the city, and prostrated 
themselves on the slopes of the Mount of 
Olives, while Peter the Hermit uttered a 
terrible thanksgiving, and preached about 
the triumph of the Cross. 

The work was not accomplished. There 
were yet some fugitives who had secreted 
themselves, some Jews who had sought safety 
in the synagogues, and listened, fear-stricken, 
behind the barred doors to the shouts and 
wails without. On the following morning 
the slaughter was renewed. Women with 
infants at the breast, and orphaned children, 
were dragged from their hiding-places, and 
pitilessly butchered, except a few whom the 
Count of Thoulouse reserved as slaves. The 
synagogues were burned, the Jews within 
perishing in the flames, and pillage went hand 
in hand with slaughter. 

The Latin Kingdom. 
Eight days afterwards, Godfrey of Bouillon 
was selected bythe leaders King of Jerusalem; 
and so was founded that Latin kingdom, which 
at first comprising little more than the city 
of Jerusalem, was gradually extended by con- 
quest until it included nearly the whole of 
Palestine. A language resembling Norman- 
French was established — there were few left 
to speak in the tongue with which the 
slaughtered thousands cried for mercy; laws 
(known as "the assize of Jerusalem") in ac- 
cordance with the feudal spirit of the time 
were drawn up, and Jerusalem became a 
patriarchate of the Church, and Bethlehem 
a bishopric. It is said that Godfirey declined 
to use the royal style, although it was gene- 
rally accorded by others, but preferred to call 



21 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



himself "Defender and Guardian of the Holy 
City." He refused to be crowned; for he 
would not "wear a crown of gold where the 
Saviour had worn a crown of thorns." He 
died (it was suspected from the action of 
■poison) in July iioo, aged 42, and was 
buried on Mount Calvary. 

These events have been dwelt on, for they 
were the prelude to that remarkable episode 
of history, the rise and fall of the Knights 
, Templars, whose history is now to be 
sketched. 

Helping the Pilgrims. 
When tardily— for in those days news 
I travelled slowly — the princes and people of 
Europe were informed of the capture of 
I Jerusalem, the desire to make the pilgrim- 
age, checked for a time by the report of the 
danger to be encountered, revived with in- 
creased enthusiasm. Crowds of pilgrims, of 
both sexes, including many children, dragged 
their weary limbs across Europe, from Eng- 
land, France, Germany, and Italy, to the 
ports where they could obtain a passage to 
the Syrian coast. They hoped to find the 
j.road to the holy city open, and knew little 
lof the dangers which awaited them. At 
Jerusalem, indeed, the Christians were mas- 
ters ; but in the highways and byeways of 
Palestine lurked Mussulman robbers, in- 
flamed by a spirit of revenge, and greedy of 
'even such wretched plunder as the poor pil- 
'grims could yield. Bedouins, too, those sons 
I of the desert, whose hand was and is " against 
I every man," attacked the caravans of pilgrims, 
1 and left them naked to perish. 

The Brotherhood of St. John. 
About fifty years before the capture of 
'Jerusalem by Godfrey, some Italian merchants 
who traded in the East, pitying the condition 
' of the poor pilgrims who were permitted by 
the Egyptian caliphs to reside in the city, 
founded a hospital for their reception and 
entertainment, which was placed under the 
care of monks of the Order of St. Benedict. 
Another hospital was afterwards erected, and 
dedicated to St. John the Compassionate, who 
had been patriarch of Alexandria ; and the 
brethren who ministered there adopted a 
peculiar oi'ganization, and wore as a distinc- 
tive dress, black mantles with a white cross 
on the breast. When the Turcoman tribes 
] obtained possession of Jerusalem, the good 
J brothers had no home there, and then they 
assumed a new character, and joining the 
Crusaders, fought bravely in their ranks, 
taking part in the capture of the city. It is 
probable they partially resumed their occu- 
pation as entertainers of the poor pilgrims ; 
and their example appears to have stimulated 
at a later period, about eighteen years after 
the siege, two French Knights, who had also. 



shared in the great campaign, to undertake 
the duty of protecting pilgrims from the pre- 
datory Moslems and Bedouins. 

Origin of the Templars. 

Hugues de Payens, or Paganes, and Geof- 
froi de St. Omer, were the two, and seven 
other French Knights united with them in 
the duty. It has been stated, but not on 
certain authority, that they had all been at 
one time members of the fraternity of St. 
John. They voluntarily made vows of poverty, 
obedience, and chastity, and added an en- 
gagement to fight against the infidels. Their 
poverty was symbolized by a device repre- 
senting two knights riding on one horse; 
and a legend has thence arisen that Payens 
and St. Omer were really so poor that they 
could only own one horse between them. If 
that were the case, the animal must have 
been a steed of amazing powers, for certainly 
one armed knight was ordinarily a sufficient 
load. Adopting the name of the Poor Soldiers 
of the Holy City, the Knights made a solemn 
compact between themselves to aid one 
another in clearing the highway of robbers 
and in protecting and assisting pilgrims. 

For six or seven years these knights un- 
aided discharged their appointed task bravely. 
Many a Turk and Bedouin bit the dust before 
them ; and many pilgrims reached Jerusalem 
in safety, blessing the Poor Soldiers. Then 
other knights joined them, and they assumed 
the importance of a regularly constituted 
body, with De Payens as Master. In 1118, 
Baldwin, the successor of Godfrey as King of 
Jerusalem, granted them a residence within 
the sacred enclosure of the Temple, on 
Mount Moriah, and in place of their former 
designation, they now claimed the name of 
the Knighthood of the Temple of Solomon. 
Increasing rapidly in number, they added to 
their duties the defence of Jerusalem, of the 
Eastern Church, and of all the holy places ; 
and De Payens, the chief of the religious 
and warlike society, was styled Master of 
the Temple — z. title which has remained from 
that day to this, and is now borne by the 
eminent clergyman who resides in the Temple, 
Fleet Street, and preaches in the old church. 

Rules of the Order. 
Baldwin, estimating the value of this new 
society, to which many of the most renowned 
knights in Jerusalem were attaching them- 
selves, desired to obtain ecclesiastical sanc- 
tion and control for what might prove a too 
powerful organization if quite independent. 
The most conspicuous individual figure in 
the Western Church at that time was 
Bernard of Clairvaux, the saintly ascetic 
afterwards canonized ; and to him Baldwin 
sent two of the Knights of the Temple, 
asking him to intercede with the Pope for 



22 



THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 



the purpose of obtaining a confirmation of 
the establishment of the new Order, and rules 
for its guidance. Bernard appears to have 
at once interested himself in the matter, for 
shortly afterwards De Payens, St. Omer, and 
four others went to Rome, where they were 
treated with much honour, and invited by Pope 
Honorius to attend the Council at Troyes, 
in 1128. The result of the visit was that 
Bernard was entrusted by the Pope with the 
task of framing rules in accordance with 
which the Order was to be regularly con- 
stituted. 

These rules were lengthy, and included a 
large number of details ; but the most im- 
portant regulations may be briefly sum- 
marized. Self-mortification, fasting, and 
prayer, were enjoined on the members of the 
Order, as well as regular devotional exer- 
cises. They were to attend matins, vespers, 
and all the services of the Church, in order 
that, "being refreshed and satisfied with 
heavenly food, and stablished with heavenly 
precepts, after the consummation of the 
Divine mysteries, none might be afraid of 
the fight, but be prepared for the crown." 
Silence was to be observed in the refectory 
and domitory, except it should be absolutely 
necessary to speak. The professed Knights, 
both in winter and summer, were to wear, if 
they could be procured, white garments, 
" that those who have cast behind them a 
dark life may know that they are to com- 
mend themselves to the Creator by a pure 
and white life." No gold or silver, '' the 
mark of private wealth," was to be seen on 
bridle, breastplate, or spear, nor should any 
brother buy such ornaments. If they were 
bestowed on them, the gold or silver was to 
be so coloured that " its splendour and 
beauty may not impart to the wearer an 
appearance of arrogance beyond his fellows." 
They were not to communicate with relations 
without permission of the Master, not to 
listen to idle or licentious talk, not to follow 
" the sport of catching one bird with another, 
not to shoot with the bow in the woods, nor 
halloo nor talk to a dog, nor spur a horse to 
catch game." There might be married 
brothers, if they and their wives promised 
solemnly to bequeath their property to the 
Order ; but they must not appear in the white 
mantles worn by the other Knights. The 
celibate members (that is, nearly all, married 
Knights being rare exceptions) must not kiss 
" widow nor virgin, nor mother, nor sister, 
nor aunt, nor any other woman," and the 
wisdom of this rule was thus enforced, — " Let 
the Knighthood of Christ shun feminine 
kisses, through which men have very often 
been drawn into danger, so that each, witli a 
pure conscience and secure life, may be able 
<-o walk everlastingly in the sight of God." 

The social status of the Knights was to be 



preserved ; they ought to have lands, andJ 
men, and husbandmen, because they were 
Knights. But, Knights as they were, . they- 
must submit to punishment by the lawful 
heads of the Order ; the Master, however^^. 
being advised to take heed that, in adminis- 
tering punishment, the sinner be not encou- 
raged by easy lenity, nor hardened in iniquit>^ 
by immoderate severity. "If any offending- 
member will not be amended by godly ad- 
monition and earnest reasoning, but will gO' 
on more and more lifting himself up with 
pride, then let him be cast out ; for it is 
necessary that the dying sheep should be 
removed from the society of the faithful 
brothers." Bernard finally thus encouraged 
the members of the Order : " Under Divine 
Providence, we do believe, this new kind of 
religion was introduced by you in the holy 
places, that is to say, the union of warfare 
with religion, so that religion, being armed, 
maketh her way by the sword, and smiteth 
the enemy without sin." 

The White and Red Cross Knights. 
The members of the Order of St. John, the 
brothers who had the charge of the hospital 
for the pilgrims, had before this obtained the 
sanction of Pope Calixtus (the predecessor 
of Honorius) for remodelling the Order, and 
thenceforth appear in history as the Knights 
Hospitallers, or Knights of St. John of 
Jerusalem, a great association rivalling and 
surviving the Knights Templars. The Hos- 
pitallers wore black mantles with white 
crosses, and Pope Honorius assigned to the- 
Templars white mantles as their peculiar 
dress. A few years later, Pope Eugenius 
III. ordered that they should wear a red 
cross on the left breast. The red cross was 
also displayed on their banner, which was 
formed of cloth striped black and white,, 
whence it was named Beauseant, an old 
French term applied to a horse marked with 
those colours. From this arose the war-cry,. 
" Beauseant !" raised when the conflict raged 
fiercely by the Red Cross Knights. 

The Priory in London. 
In 1128, De Payens visited London, and 
was warmly welcomed by Henry I. and the 
leading nobles. In pursuance of the plant 
proposed by the heads of the Order to esta- 
blish branches (to use a modern term) in the 
principal cities of Europe, the Grand Master 
obtained permission to found a Priory of the. 
Temple in the road leading to the Old Bourne, 
the stream which ran into the Fleet river. 
Southampton Buildings, in Holborn, now 
covers the site of the old priory. The journey 
was extended to Scotland ; and in both 
countries De Payens was " well received by 
all good men," and received large donations 
of gold and silver for the benefit of the.- 



23 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Order, The chivalric and religious spirit of 
the age, which so curiously combined a spirit 
of adventure with a spirit of devotion, and 
was ready to derive as great pleasure from kill- 
ing the Saracens as from saving the Sepulchre, 
seems to have been fascinated by the idea of a 
body of gallant Knights binding themselves 
by vows to support the faith by the force of 
arms. The Norman romances, founded on 



De Payens left England, "there went with him 
and after him," says the writer of the events, 
"so great a number as never before since 
the days of Pope Urban," that is, since the 
departure of the first Crusaders,. Grants 
of land as well as of money were made, and 
priors and sub-priors were appointed to 
manage the estates of the Order and transmit 
the money to Jerusalem. 




Peter the Hermit's Call to a Crusadh. 



the Arthurian legends, the traditionary ex- 
ploits of doughty champions, who rode 
hither and thither in search of adventures, 
rescuing captives, helping the helpless, and 
slaying oppressors, had prepared the popular 
mind to welcome the existence of an Order 
the semi-religious character of which de- 
manded reverence, while the brilliant prowess 
of the Knights extorted admiration. When 



Gifts to the Order. 

Not only were enormous gifts and bequests 
made, but wealthy and enthusiastic persons 
appeared to suppose that a pecuUar sanctity 
attached to the fraternity, and many distin- 
guished persons on their death-beds took the 
vows, that they might be buried in the habit of 
the Order, and so partake of the blessings 



24 



THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 



believed to be bestowed on the souls of 
Templars. Sovereign princes and nobles of 
scarcely inferior rank enrolled themselves 
as members of the fraternity, and bequeathed 
vast estates, even entire territories, to the 
Master and brethren of the Temple. Bernard, 
whose personal influence was greater than that 
of any other man in Christendom, already 
regarded as a saint, whose canonization after 



by donations of land and money. On his 
return to Jerusalem he was received with 
great honour, and for five or six years after- 
wards, until his death in 1136, continued to 
hold the office of Grand Master, and to be 
the leading spirit of the Knights of the 
Temple. His successor was Robert the 
Burgundian (son-in-law of William de Cur- 
bellio, Archbishop of Canterbury), who held 




Doing Battle with the Infidels. 



death was a certainty, issued from his cell at 
Clairvaux a famous discourse on " The New 
Chivalry,'' and congratulated Jerusalem on 
the appearance of the Soldiers ot Christ, in 
the words with which Isaiah prophesied good 
things for the holy city. 

Not only in England, but in nearly all the 
Christian countries of Europe, De Payens 
established priories of the Order, supported 



the office nearly ten years, and was followed 
by Everard des Barres, Prior of the Order 
in France, and the period of his rule was 
destined to be marked by great events. 

NOUREDDIN THE SARACEN. 

The Saracen Sultan of Egypt and Syria, 
the famous Zenghis, or Emod-el-Deen, "pillar 
of religion," and his son, the even more 



25 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



famous Nour-ed-Deen, "light of religion," 
known in popular history as Noureddin, 
brave warriors animated by that fanatical zeal 
for propagating their creed by the sword which 
had subdued the north of Africa and the south- 
western peninsula of Europe to the sway of 
the Crescent, determined to attack and, if pos- 
' sible, destroy the Latin Kingdom in Palestine. 
■ In 1 144 and the following year, Noureddin 
, had made himself master of important po- 
' sitions in Mesopotamia and of the city of 
Aleppo, and pursuing his victorious course, 
defeated and killed Raymond, Prince of 
Antioch, in 1149, and threatened the very 
existence of the Christian power in Palestine. 
" The Latin Kingdom shook to its founda- 
tion," says one historian. 

The Second Crusade. 

On the reception in Europe of the intelli- 
gence of the successes of the Saracen prince, 
Bernard exerted all his eloquence and influ- 
ence to arouse the Christian Powers to anew 
Crusade. The Emperor Conrad IL and 
Louis VII. of France responded to the call. 
A chapter of the Order of the Templars was 
convened at Paris, where they were received 
by Pope Eugenius III., the King of France, 
and an assembly of the most distinguished 
princes, prelates, and nobles from all parts 
of Christendom. A second Crusade was re- 
solved on, a large army collected, the pro- 
tecting rear-guard composed of Knights 
Templars. Having reached Jerusalem the 
immense force was reorganised, and then a 
march was made to Damascus, occupied by 
Noureddin and his brother Saif-eddin, "sword 
of the faith." The old city, the scene of so 
many sieges from the days of the Assyrians 
downwards, was once more surrounded by a 
hostile force. The Crusaders were attacked 
and defeated with tremendous slaughter by 
the Saracens. 

Shortly afterwards Des Barres resigned 
his high office — humiliated, perhaps, at the 
defeat of the Christian army — and retired 
to the monastery of Clairvaux, over which 
Bernard ruled. The new Grand Master 
was Bernard de Ti^emelay, a member of a 
very distinguished family of Burgundy, and 
he soon had an opportunity of displaying his 
abilities as a military leader. The infidels 
f had advanced, trampling down all opposition, 
1 to the very walls of Jerusalem. The banner 
of the Crescent waved on the Mount of 
Olives ; the gardens and villages, so sacred 
in the eyes of Christian men, visited and wept 
over by legions of Christian pilgrims, were 
trampled down and occupied by the fierce 
legions of the power which the faithful re- 
garded as Antichrist. If anything could have 
added to the religious zeal of the warriors of 
the Temple, if anything could have nerved 
their arms to strike a blow, it was the sight 



1 of the Paynim hosts near the Garden of 
Gethsemane and the humble homes of Be- 
thany. Under cover of the night the Templars 
and their allies passed through the gates of 
Jerusalem, crossed the ravine, and attacked 

i the Saracen camp. The Moslems flew to 
arms, but in the confusion which prevailed 
were no match for the avenging Knights. 
They were mercilessly slaughtered; five 
thousand, it is said, were left dead round and 
about the camp, and the disorderly host of 
refugees, a few hours before so insolent and 
defiant, fled in terror beyond the Jordan. 

The great patron of the Order, Bernard of 
Clairvaux, died in 11 53. On his deathbed 
he wrote a letter, commending the Templars 
to the spiritual care of the patriarch of 
Antioch, and another letter to one of the 
Knights, Andrd de Montbard, expressing his 
affectionate solicitude for the Order and 
asking their prayers. 

The Saracens, though defeated, were not 
subdued, as the Templars soon found to 
their . cost. Noureddin and his followers 
were as brave and as fanatical in their faith 
as the Knights were. The Mahometan 
leader was an ascetic as well as a warrior, 
renouncing the temptations of the world, 
fasting and praying, and devoted all his 
energies to the task of recovering Jerusalem 
from the Christians. That was the sole 
object for which he lived, and no disaster 
could lessen his enthusiasm and belief in the 
promise of the Prophet, " The sword is the 
key of heaven and of hell ; a drop of blood 
shed in the cause of God, a night spent in 
arms, is of more avail than two months of 
fasting and prayer. Whoever falls in battle, 
his sins are forgiven him." 

Defeats of the Templars. 

The Templars were equally eager for the 
contest, and desired to complete the victory 
on the slopes of the Mount of Olives by 
driving the infidels from the land they pol- 
luted by their presence. The Saracens were 
strongly posted at Ascalon ; and that town 
was attacked by the Knights. But disaster 
awaited them. A breach in the walls was 
made, and through it the gallant Master, 
Bernard de Tremelay, with a band of Knights, 
entered the town. They were surrounded by 
overpowering numbers, and fell fighting as 
Templars always fought. Not one was left 
alive, and their dead bodies were exposed in 
triumph on the walls. 

About three years afterwards another disas- 
ter occurred. The new Master, Bertrand de 
Blanguefort, a Knight of Guienne, and a large 
body of the Knights, accompanied by King 
Baldwin of Jerusalem, were drawn into an 
ambuscade near the Lake of Tiberias. Three 
hundred Templars were slain, and the Grand 
Master and nearly ninety others taken pri- 

26 



THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 



soners. The defeat was partially avenged by 
a night attack made by a small body of the 
Knights on the camp of Noureddin, that 
renowned leader only escaping death or cap- 
tivity by flying, half-naked and unarmed, from 
the field of battle. The Grand Master soon 
afterwards regained his liberty by the media- 
tion of Manuel Commenus, Emperor of Con- 
stantinople. 

Conflicts with Saladin. 

The most renowned leader of the forces 
of the Sultan of Egypt, the Saladin of 
romance — the Salah-ed-deen ("integrity of 
religion") of Arabic history — attacked the 
fortified city of Gaza, belonging to the 
Templars, about 1174. The Knights were 
at a disadvantage in respect of number, 
but resolute as ever. They fasted and 
prayed, and then made an unexpected 
sally on Saladin's camp, with such success 
that the Saracens broke up in disorder, and 
hastily retreated into Egypt. A year after- 
wards, Saladin, who, on the death of Noured- 
din, had become Sultan of Egypt and Syria, 
invaded Palestine with 60,000 men. There 
was a great battle before Ascalon. The Temp- 
lars attacked the enemy's lines with such 
vigour that the Saracens were scattered, and 
the great leader himself with difficulty escaped. 

In 1 176 the mihtary Orders erected a 
strong fort near the Jordan, at the northern 
limit of the Latin Kingdom. There they 
were attacked by Saladin, and in a hard- 
fought battle, the Templars, the Hospi- 
tallers, and the Christian warriors were 
disastrously routed. The Grand Master of 
the Templars fell alive into the hands of the 
enemy ; the others retreated behind the fortifi- 
cations, to which Saladin then set fire. Some 
of the Knights were burned, others dashed 
to pieces by leaping from the rocks. Some 
were captured and sawn in two, and others 
sent in chains to Aleppo as captives, unless 
ransomed. 

Influence and Wealth of the Order. 

While these events were taking place in 
far-off Palestine, the Order was rising to 
colossal dimensions in Europe. The priory 
in London had become too small for the 
requirements of the establishment, and an- 
other site was chosen, on the banks of the 
Thames. A round church — we may visit it 
to-day if we will — on the model of the Church 
of the Holy Sepulchre, was consecrated, in 
II 8 5, by Heraclius, the patriarch of Jerusalem. 
The quadrangular portion of the edifice was 
not added till more than fifty years after- 
wards (1240). 

About the time of the consecration of this 
church, Geoffrey, the Superior of the Order 
in England, caused an inquisition to be made 
of the possessions of the Templars in this 



country ; and from that and other materials 
we may form some estimate of the wealth 
and influence of the Order. Mr. Addison, 
the modern historian of the Templars, tells 
us that " the number of manors, farms, 
churches, advowsons, demesne lands, villages, 
hamlets, wind-mills and water-mills, rent of 
assize, right of common and free manors, and 
the amount of all kinds of property possessed 
by the Templars in England at the period of 
the taking of this inquisition are astonishing. 
Upon the great estates belonging to the 
Order, prioral houses had been erected, 
wherein dwelt the procurators or stewards 
charged with the management of the manors 
and farms in their neighbourhood, and with 
the collection of the rents. These prioral 
houses became regular monastic establish- 
ments, inhabited chiefly by sick and aged 
Templars, who retired to them to spend the 
remainder of their days, after a long period 
of honourable service against the infidels in 
Palestine. They were cells to the principal 
house at London. There were also under 
these certain smaller administrations esta- 
blished for the management of the farms, 
consisting of a Knight Templar, to whom 
were associated some serving brothers of the 
Order, and a priest, who acted as almoner. 
The commissions or mandates directed by the 
Master of the Temple to the officers at the 
head of these establishments were called pre- 
cepts, from the commencement of them, 
Prcecepimus tibi (we enjoin, or direct, you, 
etc.) The Knights to whom they were 
addressed were styled Prceceptores Templi, 
or Preceptors of the Temple, and the district 
administered by them Prcsceptoria, or pre- 
ceptories." At that time there were three 
hundred Knights and serving brothers in- 
numerable in the Temple house on Mount 
Moriah. The wealth of the Order exceeded 
that of sovereign princes. They had three 
great Eastern provinces — Palestine (the 
ruling province), Antioch, and Tripoli^forts, 
and fortified cities. In Sicily they had many 
houses, large estates, and many important 
privileges and immunities. Throughout 
Italy there were numerous preceptories of 
the Order, and extensive convents. The arms 
of the Order are still to be seen at Perugia 
and Bologna. In Portugal they were also 
wealthy and powerful, and greatly distin- • 
guished themselves in fighting against the .> 
Moors. In Aragon, the Balearic Isles, in 
Germany and Hungary, they were wealthy , 
and powerful, and in Greece they possessed 
lands and establishments, the chief house of 
this province being at Constantinople. " The 
preceptories and houses of the Temple in 
France were so numerous that it would be a 
wearisomeandendlesstaskto repeat the names 
of them." The chief house of the Order for 
France, and .ilso for Holland and the Nether- 



27 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



lands, was the Temple at Paris, an extensive 
and magnificent structure, surrounded by 
a wall and a ditch. It was ornamented 
with a great tower, flanked by four smaller 
towers, erected by brother Herbert, almoner 
to the King of France, and was one of the 
strongest edifices in the kingdom. The 
visitor to Paris may now walk along the Rue 
de Temple, the Boulevard du Temple, the 
Faubourg du Temple, the name of the great 
Order being preserved there, as it is in 
London, and in the prefix to the name of 
many places in England, as Temple Rothley 
in Leicestershire, Temple Cowley in Oxford- 
shire, and others. 

Matthew Paris tells us that in his time (about 
1240) the Templars possessed nine thousand 
manors in Christendom, besides a large 
revenue and immense riches arising from the 
constant charitable bequests and donations 
of sums of money from pious persons. The 
annual income of the Order in Europe has 
been roughly estimated at six millions 
sterling. Besides this amount of wealth —an 
amazing amount, indeed, if we compare the 
value of money seven centuries ago with 
what it is at the present time — they had in 
this country extraordinary legal privileges 
and immunities, granted not only by the 
Kings, but by the Popes. Sir Edward Coke, 
in his " Institute of the Laws of England," 
says, " The Templars did so overspread 
throughout Christendom, and so exceedingly 
increased in possessions,revenues, and wealth, 
and specially in England, as you will wonder 
to read in approved histories, and withal 
obtained so great and large privileges, 
liberties, and immunities for themselves, their 
tenants and farmers, etc., as no other Order 
had the like." 

The Grand Master of the Temple ranked 
in Europe as a sovereign prince, and had 
precedence of all ambassadors and peers in 
the general councils of the Church. He was 
elected to his high office by the chapter of 
the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which was com- 
posed of all the Knights of the East and of 
the West who could manage to attend. 

Richard Cceur de Lion. 

In 1190, a third Crusade was arranged. 
The leaders were the three greatest secular 
potentates of Europe, — Frederick Barbarossa, 
Emperor of Germany, Philip II. of France, 
and Richard I. of England, the Coeur-de- 
Lion of romance, the Achilles of the battles 
of the Cross. In the two years' campaign 
against the Saracens, led by the renowned 
Saladin, the Templars and the two other 
great military Orders, the Hospitallers and 
the Teutonic Knights (organised in this 
Crusade, in imitation of the older Orders), 
highly distinguished themselves. 

So great was the reputation of the Templars 



28 



throughout Europe, that when, in 11 92, 
Richard desired to return to England pri- 
vately, he adopted, presumably with the 
consent of the Grand Master, the habit of 
the Order, and reached Europe in a vessel 
belonging to the fraternity. 

It was while wearing that dress that he 
was captured by the emissaries of the 
Emperor of Austria, and lost to the view of 
Christendom until, if legend may be accepted 
for history, he was discovered by the minstrel 
Blondin. The ship in which Coeur-de-Lion 
had embarked was wrecked on the coast of 
I stria, and the King was forced to make his 
way as he could, with one or two attendants, 
to his own country, and in the course of his 
wanderings reached the dominion of his 
personal enemy, Leopold, Duke of Austria. 
That treacherous potentate, jealous alike of 
the ascendency and personal prowess of the 
English King, had some intimation of his 
movements, but failed to obtain an exact 
clue. 

Travelling as a poor Templar, and lodging 
and faring in the humblest manner, Richard 
escaped recognition until he reached a little 
village near Vienna, One of his attendants, 
a young page, having been sent to purchase 
provisions, was seen by one of Leopold's 
followers who had returned from the Crusade. 
The lad was recognized and questioned ; but 
as he refused to give satisfactory answers, he 
was cruelly tortured, and in his agony told 
where he had left his master. Duke Leopold 
immediately sent a band of soldiers to the 
inn, and they searched the place, examining 
every inmate, but could find none of whom 
they could say, as Queen Elinor did, in 
Shakespeare's King John, " He hath a trick 
of Cceur-de-Lion's face." The host was 
questioned and threatened; "There is no one 
here," he protested, "like him whom you 
seek, unless it be the Templar in the kitchen, 
turning the fowls which are roasting for 
dinner." Into the kitchen rushed the 
emissaries of Leopold, and there found 
seated a man of mighty thews and sinews, 
quietly engaged in turning the spit. The 
Austrian officer, who had served in the 
Crusades, knew him at once, and exclaimed, 
" It is he ! seize him." To seize Coeur-de- 
Lion was not an easy exploit. Springing to 
his feet, Richard, writes Bernard le Tresorier, 
" did battle for his liberty right valiantly, but 
was overpowered by numbers." 

A Mogul Invasion. 
For the next fifty years or thereabouts, 
the martial history of the Templars is the 
story of the Crusades. They shared in 
most of the victories and vicissitudes of the 
soldiers of the Cross, growing in reputation 
abroad and in wealth at home. Long before 
1230, Richard had died, and so had the most 



THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 



chivalrous of the Saracens, Saladin, as 
poHshed and graceful, but as keen and cruel, 
as his own scimitar. At the date named, a 
truce of ten years had been arranged, the 
Emperor Frederick II. had obtained posses- 
sion of Jerusalem, and the arms of the 
, warriors of the Temple might have rusted 
' had not a new enemy appeared on the field. 

In 1242, the Moguls, or Mongols, that race 
of Scythian descent who, under Genghis or 
Zenghis Khan, had made themselves masters 
of the best part of Central Asia, made their 
appearance in Syria. They were of the same 
stock as those Turcomans whose oppression 
of the Christian inhabitants of Jerusalem and 
the pilgrims had roused Europe to the 
adventure of the first Crusade. The barbaric 
Moguls were led by Barbacan, a Kharizmian 
chief, who had a force of twenty thousand 
horsemen. Jerusalem was not in a condition 
to sustain a siege, and the Templars and the 
other military Orders quitted it, without leav- 
ing, it would seem, — and their conduct is 
inexphcable, — any protection against the cruel 
foe. The Kharizmian warriors entered Jeru- 
salem, and indiscriminately massacred the 
inhabitants. 

Alliance with the Saracens. 

Christian and Mahometan sanctuaries 
were alike outraged and pillaged, sepulchres 
even were violated, and the remains of the 
dead rifled and searched for hidden orna- 
ments and treasure. The Christian Knights 
had learned in the interval of peace to live in 
something like friendship with the Saracens, 
once their deadliest foes, and now both made 
common cause against the fierce invaders. 
The Knights of Jerusalem united their forces 
■with the Moslems of Damascus and Aleppo ; 
and, urged by the appeal of the Patriarch, 
hurried rashly into the field. The event 
proved that they had miscalculated their own 
strength and undervalued the prowess of the 
foe, for they were defeated with terrible 
slaughter. The Grand Masters of the Tem- 
plars and the Hospitallers were killed, and 
only thirty-three Templars, twenty-six Hos- 
pitallers, and three Teutonic Knights of all 
those engaged, survived the conflict. 

Tiberias, Ascalon, and other strong places, 
fell into the hands of the enemy; and the 
remnant of the Christian chivalry took refuge 
in Acre, that memorable town which, fifty 
years before, Coeur-de-Lion had captured, 
after a two years' siege, at a cost of more 
than three hundred thousand men. Then 
the Saracen Sultan of Egypt came to the 
rescue. The barbarians were defeated ; Bar- 
bacan, their leader, was killed, and the rem- 
nant of the horde driven back to the eastern 
deserts whence they came. 

Another Crusade. 
With the end of the common danger came 



the end of the alliance. To the Christian 
princes and ecclesiastics of Europe, the Sultan 
of Egypt, although he had expelled the Moguls, 
was nearly as objectionable in the capacity of 
master of Jerusalem. The Holy Sepulchre 
was still in the custody of infidels; and in 
1248, at a great council at Lyons, presided 
over by Pope Innocent IV., the seventh 
Crusade was arranged, the most prominent 
command being taken by Louis IX. (St. Louis) 
of France, The army reached Lower Egypt, 
and at the suggestion of the Count d'Artois, 
brother of the French King, a brave but rash 
and inexperienced warrior, made an attack 
on Mansourah, the capital. The assault was 
repulsed with terrible loss to the Crusaders. 
The King of France himself was taken pri- 
soner, the Grand Master of the Templars 
was killed, and thirty thousand of the Christian 
force were either slain in the heat of battle, or 
afterwards massacred in cold blood. 

Deadly Quarrel with the Knights 

Hospitallers. 
A few years afterwards, the jealousy which 
had been long smouldering between the two 
great Orders broke out into open flame. 
Templars and Hospitallers alike believed 
themselves to be too renowned and powerful 
to brook a rival. Each Order could claim as 
i members princes and nobles of the highest 
rank ; each could boast of a long record of 
great achievements ; each was enormously 
wealthy ; and each was proud, arrogant, and 
defiant. Quarrels broke out in the seaports 
of Palestine, each Order claiming exclusive 
privileges and quarters ; words were followed 
by blows, and even the sanctity of churches 
was violated by sanguinary struggles within 
the edifices. At length it was resolved to 
test the rival pretensions by an appeal to the 
ordeal of battle. The Masters of the two 
great Orders arranged, therefore, a formal 
engagement. The red cross and the white 
cross mingled in the fray. Knights renowned 
throughout Christendom for valour, who had 
fought side by side against the Moslems, now 
turned their lances against each other. The 
Templars fought with the valour which always 
distinguished the Order ; but the Hospitallers 
prevailed, and scarcely one of the Red Cross 
Knights escaped with life on that fatal day. 

Invasion of the Mamelukes. 
The excitement among the members of the 
Order at home was intense. From the pre- 
ceptories and houses of the Temple of all 
parts of Europe, Knights departed to fill the 
places of those struck down by the grim war- 
riors of St. John. A war of extermination would 
have been the result, but, fortunately for the 
peace of Christendom — for who could say to 
what principalities and powers the feud might 
have extended? — the Mamelukes, under Bon- 
29 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



docdar, a renowned chieftain, invaded Pales- 
tine, and changed the state of affairs. The 
reinforced Templars and the victorious Hos- 
pitallers forgot their quarrel, and united against 
the infidel, setting a noble example of heroism 
to their allies, and indulging in rivalry only 
to the extent of bravely competing for the 
honour of bearing the banner of the Cross 
triumphantly into the ranks of the warriors 
of the Crescent. 

Apostacy or Death? 
In one of the battles, ninety Templars fell 
by treachery into the hands of Bibar, the 
great Mameluke chief. They had capitulated 
in accordance with a promise of honourable 
treatment ; but no sooner had they quitted 
their stronghold, than they were surrounded 
and secured. Bibar offered the Knights so 
treacherously captured the choice of Islamism 
or death. To a man they chose the latter, 
and were at once slaughtered, meeting death 
as brave men should. Flushed with victory, 
the Mamelukes besieged and took Antioch, 
putting to the sword many thousands of the 
Christian inhabitants of that large city, and 
•capturing, it is said, as many as a hundred 
thousand more, to be sold into slavery. 

Siege of Acre and End of the 
Crusades. 

The eighth and last Crusade, under the 
leadership of Louis of France and Prince 
Edward of Engb.nd, was undertaken in 1270. 
One of the most prominent events was the 
.siege of Acre by the Mahometans. The city 
was the last refuge of the Christians, and 
•was in a state of great internal confusion. 
Europeans of many nations were crowded 
there, and there were seventeen independent 
tribunals, and, of necessity, divided counsels 
among the leaders. When the besieging 
army appeared in sight, most of those who 
could contrive to escape fled from the city, 
which was left with a garrison of about twelve 
thousand men, nearly all belonging to the 
military Orders. The siege lasted thirty-three 
days, and then a breach was made, through 
which the Moslems poured into the city. 
Lusignan, who held the title of the King of 
Jerusalem, basely fled. Tl;e Hospitallers, 
led by their Grand Master, cut their way 
through the beleaguring host, and reached 
the coast. The Templars maintained the 
defence, Pierre de Beaujeau, the Grand Master, 
being killed by a poisoned arrow. The courage 
displayed by the Knights daunted the other- 
wise successful foe, and they were offered, 
and accepted, an honourable passage from 
the city. Directly they had quitted the for- 
tress, however, they were attacked, and many 
were slain. The brave remnant cut their 
way through, and ultimately reached Cyprus. 

That gallant band were the last of the 



Crusaders, and theirs was the last effort for 
the defence of Palestine. 

The Templars in England. 

In England, the Templars were at the 
summit of wealth and prosperity. In the 
reign of Henry III., Queen Berangeria, widow f'' 
of Coeur-de-Lion, was unable to obtain pay- 
ment of her annuity promised by King John, ^ 
who had pleaded "the greatness of his adver- 
sity by reason of the wickedness of his mag- 
nates and barons," and who, indeed, would 
as soon have defrauded his sister-in-law as 
any other person. Berangeria appealed to 
the Pope to help her to obtain the amount 
due, ^4,000. The Templars took up her 
cause, and became guarantees for the pay- 
ment of the money. When Henry III. died, 
and was buried in the old coffin which had 
originally contained the corpse of Edward 
the Confessor, in Westminster Abbey, the 
Knights Templars, with the consent of the 
widowed Queen Eleanor, undertook the care 
and expense of the funeral, which was very 
magnificent, and raised a superb monument 
to his memory, inlaid with precious stones 
brought from the Holy Land by his son 
Edward. 

The wars in Palestine were ended ; the 
special work of the Templars was no longer 
to be performed. The temple was in the 
hands of Mahometans, and Moslem eyes gazed 
irreverently on the Church of the Sepulchre. 
The Knights were in Europe potentates 
even amongst princes, lords of vast estates, 
masters of untold wealth. Their possessions 
excited the envy of kings ; their power and 
military prestige aroused fear and jealousy. 
Kings wanted money, the Templars had it. 
These were two propositions in the great 
logic of events ; the conclusion was soon 
supplied, and the syllogism completed. 
Edward I., who had fought by the side of the 
Knights in Palestine, began by seizing the 
funds which the Templars had collected for 
the use of their brethren in Cyprus, but, on 
the interposition of the Pope,refunded it. On 
his return from the campaign in Wales, being 
pressed for money, he sent to the Temple in 
London, and caused the coffers to be broken 
open, and ;^ 10,000 to be taken away. His 
son, Edward II., sent his too ready companion 
and favourite. Piers Gaveston, to repeat the 
act of spoliation, and ^50,000, gold, jewels, \ 
and silver, were taken. 1 

Persecution in France. ^ 

The King of France, Philip, was also in 
want of money — a common want of kings in 
those times. He began by confiscating the 
property of the Jews — an action rather meri- 
torious than otherwise, according to the 
prevailing code of morals ; but on attempt- 
ing to extend the operation to his Christian 



30 



THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS. 



subjects, and to pay his debts in base coin, 
while exacting good money in all payments 
of taxes by his subjects, there was aery about 
" cruel injustice," and a riot broke out in 
Paris ; the King himself being threatened by 
a mob which gathered around his palace. He 
believed, or affected to believe, that the 
Templars had fermented the outbreak, and he 
made that supposition the excuse for a course 
of action, which perhaps he would not have 
had the courage to adopt more openly, for 
among the Templars (who then numbered 
about fifteen thousand) were members of 
some of the most powerful families of France. 

Horrible Charges and Torture. 

Philip had acquired almost unbounded 
influence at Rome. The Pope was a French 
cardinal, and many of the cardinals were also 
of French birth. In 1307, the King summoned 
the Grand Master from Cyprus, and he 
arrived in Paris, in company with sixty 
Knights. Philip secretly sent letters to all the 
governors of the provinces in France, accusing 
the Templars of profanity, infidelity, and the 
most horrible crimes which a depraved 
imagination could conceive. The only autho- 
rity he adduced was the statement of an 
apostate Templar named De Flore stan. On 
the night of the 13th of October, every 
Templar in France was arrested. Monks 
were appointed to preach against them in the 
public places, exciting the popular anger by 
accusing the Knights of worshipping idols ; 
burning the bodies of their dead brethren, 
making a powder from their ashes and ad- 
ministering it to the young Knights ; of roast- 
ing infants and anointing the idols with the 
fat ; of celebrating hidden rites and mysteries, 
and perpetrating abominable debaucheries. 

After suffering an imprisonment of twelve 
days, the Knights were delivered over to the 
tender mercies of the Dominican monks, the 
most accomplished torturers of the time. A 
hundred and forty Templars were put to the 
torture, their feet roasted before slow fires 
till the flesh dropped off, and submitted to 
other cruelties too horrible and disgusting 
to be described in detail. In their agony 
anany made so-called confessions, really dic- 
tated by the Dominicans — confessions after- 
wards retracted by some of the braver spirits. 

Edward II. and the Pope. 
Edward of England was not unwilling to 
iTvail himself of the Templars' wealth, but 
felt or feigned indignation at the cruelties 
perpetrated by his brother of France. He 
addressed letters to the Kings of Portugal, 
Castile, Aragon, and Sicily, asking them not 
to punish the Templars unless their guiJt was 
legally proved ; and also to the Pope, ex- 
pressing his disbelief in the horrible accusa- 
tions. The Pope, however, had anticipated 



him by forwarding a bull requiring the King to 
seize the persons of all the Templars in his 
dominions. Edward II. was one of the 
weakest of men, and abjectly complied. 

On the 8th of January, 1308, the English 
Templars were suddenly arrested in all parts 
of the Kingdom. William de la More, the 
Master of the Temple in London, and all his 
Knights, were committed to close castody m 
Canterbury Castle, but, on the intervention 
of the Bishop of Durham, admitted to bail. 
The King began with great promptitude to 
apply the property of the Order to his own 
use ; but the Pope (who held very decided 
views of his own on the matter) wrote to him 
to the effect that his conduct in doing so 
" affords us no slight cause of affliction," and 
that fit and proper persons would be sent to 
England to take possession of the property 
and to make an inquisition concerning " the 
execrable excesses" the members of the 
Order were said to have committed. 

The Charges against the English 
Templars. 

In September 1309, the Pope's inquisitors 
arrived ; they were Dieudonn^, abbot of 
Lagny, and Sicard de Vaury, canon of Nar- 
bonne and chaplain to the Pope. The Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, in obedience to Papal 
instructions, made public a bull, in which the 
Pope declared himself perfectly convinced of 
the guilt of the Templars, and threatening 
with excommunication all persons who should 
give " assistance, counsel, or kindness," to 
the members of the Order. That being the 
decision arrived at, of course the so-called 
trial of the accused was a mere absurdity. 
The tribunal, consisting of the Pope's inqui- 
sitors and the Bishop of London, assembled 
in the episcopal palace on the 20th of October, 
a year and eight months after the Templars 
had been arrested. Torture had been ap- 
plied, and confessions, as they were called, 
extorted. The Master and some of his asso- 
ciates were brought from the Tower, and 
eighty-seven articles of indictment were ex- 
hibited. Among other charges were those of 
spitting on the cross, and offering even greater 
indignities to the sacred symbol ; of denying 
that Christ was very God ; of worship- 
ping a cat ; of claiming for the Master the 
power of forgiving sins ; of worshipping an 
idol with three faces ; and of habitually 
practising abominations which cannot be de- 
scribed. Sittings of the inquisitors were also 
held at Lincoln and York. 

The witnesses were nearly all monks, Car- 
melites, Augustinians, and Minorites, aided 
by a few serving-men and apostates who had 
been expelled from the Order for miscon- 
duct. There was scarcely any direct evidence ; 
but the readiness with which the witnesses 
deposed to matters they had " heard of," or 



31 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



" suspected * to have occurred, was remarka- 
ble. It is quite possible that the Templars 
had secret rites of initiation, some vague know- 
ledge of which had reached the outer world, 
and so made a shadowy basis for the charges. 
Indeed, M. Michelet, the French historian, 
ventures to say, " The forms of reception into 
the Order were borrowed from the whimsical 
dramatic rites, the mysteries which the 
ancient Church did not dread to connect 
with the most sacred doctrines and objects. 
The candidate for admission was presented in 
the character of a sinner, a bad Christian, a 
renegade. In imitation of St. Peter, he de- 
nied Christ ; the denial was pantomimically 
represented by spitting on the cross. The 
Order undertook to restore this renegade — 
to lift him to a height as great as the depth 
to which he had fallen." Worn out by tor- 
ture, many of the Templars confessed all 
kinds of crimes, and some were permitted to 
make public recantation of their offences in 
St. Paul's and at York, and then reconciled 
to the Church. The Master, William de la 
More, died of a broken heart in a dungeon of 
the Tower of London, and others died in 
prison, where they languished loaded with 
chains. 

On the suppression of the Order, many of 
the Knights who had confessed the error of 
their ways were received into different monas- 
teries, living on small pensions doled out to 
them. The first Knights of the Order had 
made a vow of poverty; their successors now 
gradually realised it. 

Horrible Cruelties in France, and 
Abolition of the Order. 

While these events were transpiring in Eng- 
land, the proceedings against the Templars 
in France were of a most sanguinary character. 
Edward of England, instigated by the Pope, 
was contented with a moderate amount of 
torture and robbery; Philip of France, whose 
creature Pope Clement V. was, determined 
that the Knights should be extirpated. Fifty- 
four members of the Order were burned in an 
open place at Paris, and many others at 
various places ; and so revolting in its cruelty 
was the persecution, that the corpse of a 
dead Templar of renown was dragged from 
its grave and burned. 

The Pope abolished the Order by a bull 
drawn up in a private consistory, and the 
survivors of the famous Templars were left 
to the mercies of the King. Edward of Eng- 
land offered no protection. He had joined 
in the spoliation, and had, moreover, married 
Isabella the Fair, the daughter of Philip, who 
was gifted with a fine dowry from the wealth 
of the Templars. 

Heroic Conduct of the Grand Master. 
On the 1 8th of March, 1313, Jacques de 



Molay, the Grand Master, and others who 
had been prisoners for more than five years, 
appeared, loaded with chains, on a public 
scaffold, erected before the great church of 
Notre Dame, in Paris, and the citizens were 
summoned to hear their confessions. The 
papal legate called upon them to renew in 
the hearing of the people the avowals they 
had previously made of their guilt. De 
Molay, raising his fettered arms, advanced 
to the edge of the scaffold, and in a loud 
voice declared that to say that which was 
untrue was a crime in the sight of God and 
man. He added, " I do confess my guilt, 
which consists in having, to my shame and 
dishonour, suffered myself, through the pain 
of torture and the fear of death, to give 
utterance to falsehoods, imputing scandalous 
sins and iniquities to an illustrious Order 
which hath nobly served the cause of Chris- 
tianity. I disdain to seek a wretched and 
disgraceful existence by engrafting another 
lie on the original falsehood." 

He was forcibly interrupted, and taken, 
back to prison, whence he and the Grand 
Preceptor, who also declared his innocence, 
were taken that same day, by the order of 
the King, and slowly burned to death over 
a charcoal fire on a little island of the Seine, 
near the spot where now stands the statue 
of Henry IV. A legend, long believed, asserts 
that De Molay, with his last breath, cited 
the Pope to appear within forty days, and 
the King within a year, before the judgment- 
seat of God. It is a fact that the Pope died 
within the period mentioned of an attack of 
dysentery, and that the church in which the 
coffin was deposited was burnt down, and the 
body of Clement almost entirely consumed ; 
and that shortly afterwards Philip died of a 
lingering and painful disease. 

A Scramble for the Possessions. 
In England, the King quarrelled with the 
Pope about the property of the Order, which 
was eagerly scrambled for by the Court 
favourites ; but ultimately, yielding to papal 
pressure, conferred it upon the Knights of St. 
John, who, however, did not obtain it for 
some time, and then only on payment of 
exorbitant fees. The great house, with its 
church, by the river-side was afterwards 
granted to students of law ; and when 
Henry Vlll. abolished the Order of the 
Hospitallers, the lawyers became tenants of 
the Crown. The nine cross-legged effigies ^ 
' in the round church do not represent Knights- 
j Templars, but distinguished Crusaders buried 
there. There is good reason to suppose that 
j only one monumental effigy of a Templar 
exists, and that represents John, Count de 
Dreux, buried in the church of St. Yvod de 
Braine, near Soissons, in France. 

G. R. E. 



32 




The Meeting of Sir James Outram and General Havelock. 

INDIA'S AGONY. 



THE STORY OF THE SEPOY MUTINY OF 1857. 

" Where ev'ry prospect pleases, and only man is vile." — Heber. 



A Terrible E.xample — The "Company's" India; Conquest and Misrule — Shaking the Pagoda-tree — Mutinies of the Last 
Century — A Danger Disregarded — Sir Charles Napier's Opinion — A Policy of Annexation — The First Outbreak— 
The Greased Cartridges — Meerut — Delhi and the Great Mogul— Spread of the Mutiny — Prompt Action of Lord 
Canning — The Two Lawrences and Outram — Meean Meer — General Anson — Successive Commanders — Delhi Re- 
taken — Hodson and the Family of the Mogul — Nana Sahib of Bithoor — Cawnpore — The Massacre on the Ganges^ 
The Turn of the Tide — Vengeance of Nana Sahib — Struggle in Oudh — Havelock and Outram— Lucknow — Sir Colin 
Campbell — Slaughter of the Rebels — "Lucknow" Kavanagh— Final Throes of the Mutiny — Bareilly — Transfer of 
India to the English Government — End of the East India Company. 



A Terrible Example. 




HE time is 
close upon five 
o'clock on the 
afternoon of 
the 13th of 
October, 1857; 
the place is the 
general parade 
ground of Fort 
George, at 
Bombay. 

Since noon 
it has been 
known in the 
Government 



Offices that there is to be a military exe- 
cution; and the first rumours have been 
corroborated by the circulation, through- 
out the island of Bombay, of a garrison 
order that has come like a shock upon the 
whole community. For this is no ordinary 
military execution ; the fatal paper announces 
that recourse is to be had to a proceeding 
so unusual that only a few white-beai-ded 
men can remember that similar scenes were 
enacted in their youth. For the garrison 
order sets forth that Drill Havildar Syed 
Hoossein, of the Marine Battalion Native 
Infantry, and Private Mungul Guddrea, of 
the loth Regiment N.I., having been pro- 
nounced guilty at an European general court- 
martial of having on the night of the 3rd ot 



33 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the same month attended a seditious meet- 
ing, and there made use of highly seditious 
language, evincing a traitorous disposition 
towards the Government, tending to promote 
rebellion agai-nst the State, and to subvert 
the authority of the British Government, the 
said Syed Hoossein and Mungul Guddrea 
are to suffer death by being blown away from 
the muzzle of a cannon. 

As the time for the terrible spectacle ap- 
proaches, hundreds of Europeans are seen 
wending their way to the parade ground ; 
while from the alleys and lanes of the Black 
town thousands upon thousands of the dark- 
skinned population come pouring forth. The 
stranger is at once struck by the feature that 
impresses every new-comer in India, — the 
immense contrast between the swarming 
masses of natives and the mere handful of 
the resolute, inflexible, dominant race by 
whom they are held in subjection. The 
neighbouring city, whose inhabitants are 
pouring forth to the esplanade, numbers 
eight hundred thousand inhabitants ; and 
the proportion of Europeans is exceedingly 
small, — for the sway of the East India Com- 
pany is not yet a thing of the past on this 
October afternoon in 1857; and the system 
which discourages by every means the esta- 
blishment of "uncovenanted" Europeans 
and interlopers is, with various other extra- 
ordinary rules and customs of " Company 
Bahadoor,'' still in full operation. The pre- 
vailing expression on the dark faces is one 
of apathy and indifference ; but who shall 
tell what volcanic fires of rage and hatred 
may be smouldering in the bosoms of those 
undemonstrative men, and how suddenly the 
flames may burst forth, and the stolid mask 
may be rent and blown away into atoms, 
like the bodies of the unhappy traitors, the 
hour of whose doom has come suddenly upon 
them ? 

And now the troops in garrison come 
marching out to take up the positions marked 
out for them on the parade ground. They 
are drawn up on the parade so as to form 
three sides of a hollow square ; but the com- 
ponent parts of these sides are very different. 
The base consists of about five hundred men 
of the 95th Regiment, and the same number 
of sailors in the Company's service ; while at 
the sides are drawn up three Sepoy regiments, 
the loth Native Infantry, to which the con- 
demned culprit, Mungul Guddrea belonged, 
being one of them. 

All this was regular enough, and according 
to routine, that the whole garrison should be 
summoned to witness so important an act 
as a military execution. But now came a 
startling and unusual detail. Besides the 
two guns pointed forward from the base line, 
and intended for the execution of the two cri- 
minals, six others were accurately planted in 



the square, three being turned against each 
of the two opposite sides. These were served 
by men of the Royal Artillery, who stood by 
them, lighted match in hand. They were 
loaded to the muzzle with grape and canister^ 
and pointed full against the Sepoy regiments. 
At the same time the 95th Queen's Regiment 
and the Company's sailors loaded their 
Enfields, ready at a moment's notice to 
fire into the Sepoy ranks ; and then, amid 
a death-like silence, the two culprits were 
marched forward. The artillery men stripped 
them of their regimental jackets, bound them 
to the guns. Then, after an instant of terrible 
suspense, the word " fire " was given. A 
thunderous explosion shook the ground ; and, 
amid thick wreaths of smoke, a horrible 
shov/er of crimson morsels came down like 
a red hail, — the remnants of the two unhappy 
culprits blown out of the world. 

And all this while the Sepoys stood in their 
ranks, and moved not hand or foot. In silence 
they looked on while their comrades were 
blown to fragments ; in silence they marched 
back to their quarters when the sweepers had 
collected, with brooms and baskets, the relics 
of the two culprits, and the tragedy was played 
out. And yet there was not an European pre- 
sent who did not breathe more freely, and feel 
that a crisis of supreme danger was past, when 
the dusky, sullen forces disappeared under 
the archways leading to the barracks, and the. 
grim order of the day had been successfully 
carried out. 

For the crime for which such swift and 
exemplary punishment had descended upon 
those two guilty men had been nothing less 
than an organised conspiracy, the fourth 
within a few months, to seize the island of 
Bombay, and murder every European, with- 
out distinction of age or sex ; and this dia- 
bolical scheme was planned at the time 
when India was passing through the great 
agony of the mutiny that was destined to 
mark on the page of history, in letters of 
blood, the centenary of British rule in the 
peninsula of India. 

The story of that mutiny, of the tremen- 
dous struggle it entailed, and of the manner 
in which British valour and endurance at 
last triumphed over the enormous perils and 
difficulties of " India's agony," we here pur- 
pose briefly to tell. 

The Company's India ; Conquest and 
Misrule. 
The whole history of our Anglo-Indian 
Empire is full of surprises, and in many re- 
spects reads like a wild romance rather than 
like sober reality. The unexampled spectacle 
of a company of merchants, a trading cor- 
poration, converted within a few years into 
the rulers of a hundred millions of human 
beings, with almost irresponsible power, tc 



34 



INDIA'S AGONY. 



rule justly or tyrannically as their own in- 
clination or interests prompted, was in itself 
sufficiently startling ; but the wonder was 
greatly increased by the manner in which 
the Company was permitted, year after year, 
to exercise the utterly anomalous and ex- 
ceptional authority with which it was in- 
vested. " It's such a long way off," is in 
many instances equal to " It happened such 
a long time ago ;" and India has always 
■ been looked upon, oddly enough, as beyond 
the ordinary ken, and exempt from ordinary 
rules. One of the most graphic of our 
writers on India, Dr. Russell, has remarked 
on the indifference manifested in England on 
the abuse of power thousands of miles away ; 
how, in spite of the marvellous eloquence 
of Burke and his colleagues, the accusations 
against Warren Hastings, though of the 
gravest kind, were received with indifference 
by the people because the acts referred to 
were perpetrated in such a far country ; 
whereas, had they been done in the Channel 
Islands, in Ireland, or in Scotland, the in- 
teUigence would have been received with a 
general burst of indignation. " To-night I 
hear," says the same writer, — it is in 1858, — ■ 
"that the menagerie of the King of Oude, 
as much his private property as his watch 
or turban, . were sold under discreditable 
circumstances, and his jewels seized and 
impounded, though we had no more claim 
on them than on the Crown diamonds of 
Russia. Do the English people care for 
those things ? Do they know them .'' The 
hundred millions of Hindostan know them 
well, and care for them too." How deeply 
the natives of India cared, the events of 
1857 and 1858 sufficiently testified. 

" Shaking the Pagoda-tree" ; Native 

Hatred to Foreign Rule. 
. With "all its glories, conquests, triumphs, 
spoils," the government of the East India 
Company in India was tainted from the very 
first with mighty vices ; and these became 
more flagrant as time gave to the various 
abuses the impunity and even the authority 
•derived from prescription. For generation 
after generation, the great aim and object of 
the servants of the Company, from the high 
civil and military functionaries downwards, 
was to squeeze as large as possible a fortune 
out of the country as quickly as might be, 
and to turn their backs upon it for ever, so 
soon as that object had been attained, and 
the last golden harvest had been shaken 
down from the pagoda tree. With perfect 
truth has it been said that if the native rulers 
chastised the people with whips, the European 
masters chastised them with scorpions, and 
that the subjugated race found the little 
finger of the Company thicker than the 
loins of the worst and most dissolute of 



their native princes. Hindoos and Ma" 
hometans were sufficiently acute to submit 
to the inevitable, and to crouch beneath 
a despotism upheld by the sword, wielded 
in the hands of masters whom they never 
met in the field without a .certainty of defeat 
and of swift and terrible punishment. But 
none but the wilfully blind could assert or 
even affect to believe that the English rute 
in India was popular among the inhabitants, 
and that anything but the conviction of the 
uselessness of resistance induced them to 
remain quiet under it, or to refrain from 
attempts to pull it down. Whenever the 
English arms received even a temporary 
check, the excitement and restlessness among 
the natives, their eager expectation of de- 
liverance from the foreign yoke, became 
unmistakable ; and to those capable of dis- 
cerning the signs of the times, the likelihood 
of a tremendous outbreak sooner or later, 
must have now and then been present, like 
the skeleton at the Egyptian feast. And, 
indeed, tlie most pressing and terrible form 
in which danger to the foreign rule could 
offer itself, had been brought before them 
more than once, though at long intervals, 
and the lesson had passed unheeded. There 
had repeatedly been great and formidable 
mihtary mutinies. 

Mutinies in India during the Last 

Century. 
Already in Clive's time, when the Company 
had not long emerged from the position of a 
trading corporation holding certain lands 
for which rent was paid to the native govern- 
ments, there were occasional outbreaks of 
insubordination in the army, that threatened 
to overthrow the newly erected power. One 
of the most formidable of these occurred 
during Clive's third visit to India, v.'hen the 
conqueror of Plassy came to Calcutta as 
governor, with the avowed intention of 
putting down the great and growing evils 
that had taken root in the administration, 
" or perishing in the attempt." The Sepoys 
were at that time in such a state of chronic 
insubordination that they are described as 
being only kept in check by wholesale execu- 
tions. But it was among the European 
officers that the mutiny broke out. Indig- 
nant at some restrictive regulations intro- 
duced by the Governor, they refused 
obedience ; and a great number of theni 
struck against him, resigning their commis- 
sions on the same day. Clive put them 
down with an energy and decision that 
astonisl'ied them into rapid and abject sub- 
mission ; but an evil example had been set, 
which was followed by the native troops. 
On various occasions outbreaks occurred, 
which should have served as warnings to the 
authorities, but passed unheeded. 



35 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



A DANGER Disregarded, and a Lesson 
Left Unread. 

One of the most dangerous of these was 
the rising at Vellore, in the Madras Presi- 
dency, in 1856; where two Sepoy battaUons 
attacked the European soldiers, murdering 
113 of them, and were themselves attacked 
with a loss of 800 of their number by the 
19th Dragoons, under Colonel Gillespie. 
Other outbreaks had been planned by the 
native soldiery ; and the European officers 
and officials, who by their energy and fore- 
sight prevented these attempts from being 
carried out, received scant thanks and no 
reward for their services ; on the contrary 
they were stigmatised as alarmists, and the 
government completely failed to realise the 
gravity and extent of the danger, or to note 
the significant fact that the immediate causes 
of the disaffection were to be found in 
regulations concerning dress, accoutrements, 
shaving, the wearing of marks of caste, and 
other matters that had to do with the religious 
feelings and prejudices of the native sol- 
diery. 

In 1824, at the breaking out of the Bur- 
mese war, insubordination, carried, indeed, 
to an outrageous extent on parade, again 
appeared ; various regiments declaring that 
to cross the " Black water " would be a 
violation of the precepts of their religion. 
On one occasion it became absolutely neces- 
sary to open with a fire of artillery upon the 
insurgents. In 1844, there was a mutiny of 
Bengal regiments at Ferozepore, who refused 
to march to occupy the conquered territory 
of Scinde, unless increased allowances were 
granted to them. In 1849 ^'^^ 185O5 there 
were again mutinies among the 13th, 22nd, 
and 66th Bengal Native Infantry. Conces- 
sion and remonstrance in some instances, 
firmness and severity in others, got over the 
difficulties for the time ; but still the authori- 
ties refused to read the lesson that stared 
them in the face, or to remember that the 
pitcher goes to the well until it is broken. 
Each time the difficulty was for the moment 
averted, they treated it as permanently over- 
come ; like the debtor who, on signing a bill 
at three months for a liability he was unable 
to meet, rejoicingly rubbed his hands, declar- 
ing that '■that matter was settled." 

Sir Charles Napier's Opinion; Changed 
Feeling of the Sepoys. 

One far-seeing and sagacious man there 
was who read the signs of the times aright, 
and lifted up his voice in warning persis- 
tently, honestly, and vainly ; this was the 
conqueror of Scinde, the gallant and good 
Sir Charles Napier. That strenuous and 
experienced officer was utterly astounded at 
the state in which he found the Sepoy regi- 



36 



ments, and at the want of discipline and 
subordination everywhere apparent. He 
roundly asserted that India was in danger, 
and declared that swift, combined, and 
energetic action was necessary, if the whole 
country were not to be lost to British rule. 
But his outspoken frankness drew upon hirf , 
the censure of the viceroy. Lord Dalhousie, | 
and a lamentable conflict ensued between, j 
the Governor-General and the Commander- | 
in-Chief, until the latter threw up his office 
in well-grounded anger and disgust. With the 
volcano of disaffection rumbling beneath 
them, the authorities pursued the path of 
false security until it led them to ruin. 

The feeling of the Sepoys towards the 
English had greatly changed since those 
days when, during the defence of Arcot, the 
native soldiers came to Clive, who was in 
command, not to complain of the privations 
they were suffering, but to propose that all 
the rice should be given to the European 
portion of the garrison, while they, who 
required less nourishment, would content 
themselves with the thin gruel that was 
strained from the boiled grain. The Sepoy ' 
of a hundred years later was a proud, 
stubborn, and obstinate being, exceedingly 
tenacious of what he considered his rights, 
and above all things punctilious on ques- 
tions affecting his caste. The mutiny at 
Vellore had been in a great measure due to 
a rumour that, the Sepoys were to be com- 
pelled " to wear the leather stock, supposed 
to have been manufactured from the hide of 
the contaminating hog, and to don the garb 
of infidels who daily indulged in the blasphe- 
mous and revolting practice of devouring the 
flesh of their holy cow." Among the causes 
of the great mutiny of 1857, religious fanati- 
cism was certainly the chief; and it is 
astonishing that this danger should have 
been so long disregarded. 

A Policy of Annexation. 
Lord Dalhousie's policy in India was one 
of annexation, and under his rule an immense 
amount of territory was added to the British 
possessions in India. That the transfer of 
authority from native princes to the English 
was in many respects of advantage to the 
native population is undeniable ; but it was 
difficult to persuade men to look with com- 
placency upon new masters, especially where 
those masters were of a foreign race, and were 
known to entertain a feeling of contempt for 
" niggers," under which contemptuous epithet 
they included every class of the dark-skinned 
race from the Brahmin to the Pariah. " These 
are boys, but they are going out to govern 
India, to be wigless judges, sediles, and pro- 
consuls," writes the astute Dr. Russell in his 
journal on his passage to Madras, astonished 
at hearing the "nigger" spoken of generi- 



INDIA'S AGONY. 



cally in terms of the, most uncompromising 
scorn, by a couple of beardless " grift's," over 
their cards and brandy pawnee. 

That a keen, quick-witted race like the 
Hindoos should not be thoroughly aware of 
all this, is incredible. The same acute ob- 
server has left on record the impression made 
upon him by the aspect of the natives as he 
travelled through Bengal from Calcutta to- 
wards Lucknow ; nor did he for a moment 
misinterpret the true meaning of the cringing 
salaams wherewith, as an Englishman, he 
was greeted, or mistake the nature of the 
homage "which the faint heart would fain 
deny but dare not.'' Mr. Trevelyan, in his 
" Cawnpore," has given, in graphic language, 
his idea of the opinion of the natives con- 
cerning the English. " We should not," he 
writes, " be far wrong if we are content to 
allow that we are regarded by the natives of 
Hindostan as a species of quaint and some- 
what objectionable demons, with a rare apti- 
tude for fighting and administration. Foul and 
degraded in our habits, though with reference 
to those habits not to lae judged by the same 
standard as ordinary men ; not altogether 
malevolent, but entirely wayward and unac- 
countable, — a race of demidevils, neither quite 
human nor quite supernatural ; not wholly 
bad, yet far from perfectly good ; who have 
been settled down in the country by the will 
of fate." This queer creed needed but little 
to transform it into active hatred ; and far 
more than that little was supplied by the 
increased estrangement between the Sepoys 
and the white officers, consequent upon the 
greater communication kept up with Europe, 
that led the latter, " instead of identifying 
themselves with those under them, to seek 
for interests, pleasures, and society in impor- 
tations from home." 

Such was the state of feeling at the be- 
ginning of the eventful year 1857, the year 
that shook the English power in India more 
rudely than it had ever been shaken, since the 
time of Warren Hastings and Hyder Ali, 

The Mysterious Cakes. 
There had long been a tradition, repeated 
with bated breath in many an Indian hut, 
that the dominion of the infidels in India 
should last no more than a century ; and in 
1857, the centenary of Clive's victory at 
Plassey, whereby the government of Bengal 
had been wrested from Surajah Dowlah and 
bestowed on Meer Jaffier, the puppet set up 
by the East India Company, the time was 
considered as accomplished. For many 
months of 1856 a strange kind of secret Free- 
masonry was noticed among the various 
stations. From village to village small cakes 
of bread, called chuputties, were carried to 
the head man of each place, who received 
orders to forward similar tokens to the next 



village. But although this went on under the 
very eyes of the British functionaries, no notice 
was taken of it. Some, indeed, considered 
that these mysterious chuputties were merely 
distributed as a charm against impending 
calamity; but the very fact that they were 
not sent to any territory governed by native 
princes, but only circulated in villages undef 
British rule, should have awakened the autho' 
rities to a sense of the danger. Amid all the 
doubt that still hangs over this eventful period, 
and amid the contraiy statements of various 
witnesses and writers, one thing may be con- 
sidered abundantly proved, namely, that there 
existed throughout India a vast conspiracy — 
a conspiracy in which Hindoo and Mussul- 
man, forgetting their ancient feuds, were 
acting in concert, and that its object was 
utterly to subvert the rule of the foreign 
masters of Hindostan. 

Discontent op the Army. 
It was in the army that the universal dis- 
content first broke into a flame. In the five 
years of Lord Dalhousie's rule as Governor- 
General, Nagpore, Suttara, Berar Jhansi, 
and Oude had been annexed ; and it was 
the avowed wish of that statesman, to whom 
India is indebted for many benefits in the way 
of cheap postage, telegraphy, railways, and 
increased facilities for commerce, to take all 
power of government out of native hands, 
that the English might be all in all in the 
peninsula. "We are lords paramount of 
India," he declared, " and our policy is to 
acquire as direct a dominion over the 
territories in the possession of the native 
princes, as we already hold over the other 
half of India." These annexations, necessary 
and justifiable no doubt in some cases, 
excited deep and bitter emotions in the 
breasts of the natives, and especially of mem- 
bers of the annexed states serving in the 
army. Hatred of foreign domination seems 
an inextinguishable principle inhuman nature, 
and the dissolute tyranny of their own rulers 
seemed to these men preferable to the juster 
rule imposed on them by strangers. 

The First Outbreak ; The Greased 
Cartridges ; Meerut. 

And now the belief in the invincibility of 
the Enghsh had been rudely shaken. Such 
disasters as the defeat of Gough at Chillian- 
wallah lingered in the memory of men only 
too ready to rejoice in any check received by 
their masters ; and the story of the disasters 
and blunders of the Crimean War, then just 
concluded, — a story narrated with wonderful 
frankness by English newspaper correspon- 
dents, — had increased the impression that the 
star of Britain was waning. " I am struck 
by the scowling, hostile look of the people," 
writes Dr. Russell shortly after this time; 



37 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



"the bunniahs bow with their necks and 
salaam with their hands, but not with their 
eyes." In the army, the treatment of native 
officers, who were tabooed by the Enghsh, 
and to whom only the lowest grades were 
open after long service, made them more 
likely to side with their men than with the 
white officers ; and their influence could 
rather be counted on to widen than to heal 
any misunderstanding that might arise. 

The immediate cause Of the breaking out 
of the mutiny was the well-known incident of 
the greased cartridges. The introduction 
of the Enfield rifle into the army had brought 
with it an altei^ation in the cartridge, which, 
it must be remembered, was at that time 
bitten open before use, and not twisted or 
torn with the fingers. A rumour, spreading 
with the marvellous rapidity with which such 
things spread among an ignorant and fana- 
tical race, was borne abroad far and wide 
among the Sepoys, that animal fat, and 
especially hog's lard and cow's fat, had been 
used in lubricating these cartridges, and that 
their introduction was a trick to deprive the 
natives of high caste of their standing, and 
degrade all to a common level, by making 
them take the accursed thing in their mouths, 
and thus " break their caste." And they were 
furious. 

Efforts made by a proclamation of the 

■ Governor-General, declaring the absence of 
any such material from the cartridges, 

iand by the withdrawal of the cartridges 
i them selves from circulation, failed to allay 
the ferment. At Dumdum, Barrackpore, 

• and other places, acts of such mutinous insu- 
ibordination occurred, that executions and 
Uhe disbanding of various regiments had to 
, be resorted to, to restore even the appearance 
] of order ; and the repeated refusals of the 
] troops to receive the cartridges served out to 
1 them, and in which the lubrication did in 
\ some instances contain cow's fat, at last 
,' awakened the apprehension of the authorities ; 

■ but the measures to suppress the discontent 

• were taken too late. 

On the 23rd of April, 1857, the 3rd Bengal 
Cavalry being drawn up on parade at Meerut, 
for instruction in platoon exercise, eighty- 
five troopers refused to receive the ammunition 
served out to them. They were arrested, 
tried by court-martial, and sentenced to ten 
years' imprisonment. On the 9th of May the 
i sentence was read out in the presence of the 
1 whole garrison, Europeans and native regi- 
"^ments, and the eighty-five prisoners were 

• loaded with chains in the presence of their 

• comrades, and in spite of their tears and pro- 
' testations of many old soldiers among them, 

■ were marched off to a jail two miles distant. 
On parade the native regiments, overawed 
by the presence of a battalion of the 60th 

, Rifles, the Carbineers, and men of the Royal 



Artillery, had moved neither hand nor foot, 
but here the prisoners were left entirely in 
the custody of their countrymen. A rescue 
was accordingly planned, and speedily 
effected. The next day a number of the 3rd 
Bengal Cavalry rode over to the jail, broke 
into the cells, and released the prisoners, 
whose manacles were struck off by smiths 
brought with them by the rioters. Hereupon 
the two native infantry regiments at once 
rose in rebellion, seized their arms, killed 
Colonel Finnis, who thus became the first 
victim of the mutiny, and massacred a 
number of the English inhabitants of Meerut, 
being joined in this outbreak by the rabble 
and scum of the city. The English portion 
of the garrison, under General Hewett and 
Brigadier Wilson, opened upon the mutineers 
with a fire of artillery and musketry ; where- 
upon the latter at once broke and fled, leaving 
the English masters of the field. 

Delhi and the Great Mogul; The 
Hidden and Unsuspected Danger. 
And now came the event that converted a 
local, though dangerous, outbreak into a 
national revolt, that shook the English 
Empire in India to its very foundations, and 
brought the ruling people face to face with 
dangers such as might have appalled the iron 
heart of Clive himself. Driven from their 
cantonments, the insurgents betook them- 
selves in headlong haste to Delhi, situate on 
the Ganges and the Jumna, some forty miles 
away. 

This great city had for centuries been 
the capital of India, the metropolis of that 
mighty Mogul Empire which had retained 
amid a rapid internal decay the outward 
semblance of strength and prosperity, even 
under the sway of the degenerate successors 
of Aurungzebe, the last really great emperor 
of the house of Timour. At Delhi, in the 
precincts of the palace, there lived, in a con- 
dition of degraded and impotent dependence, 
an old man between eighty and ninety years 
of age, in receipt of a pension from the East 
India Company, and keeping up with his 
sons and grandsons the semblance and 
shadow of a royal state. This man was the 
Mogul, the descendant of Aurungzebe, whose 
power had long since departed, but who, in 
the eyes of many of the natives, was still the 
rightful ruler of Hindostan. A quarter of a 
century before, Macaulay, writing of the 
foundation of the British Empire in India, 
had mentioned how "there was still a 
Mogul,"apensioner of the Company, who was 
allowed to play at holding courts and receiv- 
ing petitions within the confines of the 
palace of Delhi, where he might boast of 
possessing some of the outward attributes of 
royalty, but who had less power to help or to 
harm than the youngest official in the Com- 



38 



INDIA'S AGONY. 



pany's service. The brilliant essayist little 
dreamt what mighty power for harm was 
destined to be placed in the hands of the 
effete old man. 

The mutineers, who by an unaccount- 
able fatality were allowed to proceed to 
Delhi unpursued, at once made their way to 
the palace, and rattled the old king out ot 
his repose. They thronged with shouts and 
clamours round his palace ; they insisted 
that he should accept their homage and 
services ; they proclaimed him Emperor of 
India, and set upon the battlements of the 
palace of Delhi the standard of a national 
revolutionary war, whose object was to be 
nothing less than the restoration of the royal 
house of Tamerlane. Not a soul of the 
accursed race of Feringhees, " who proposed 
to destroy caste, and to rob the natives of 
India of their religion," was to remain alive. 
A cause and a cry and a king had all been 
found at once. Here was the result ot 
allowing the mutineers of Meerut to betake 
themselves unpursued to Delhi : a military 
riot turned into a national revolt. 

The Spread of the Mutiny ; Massacre 
AT Delhi. 

Two centuries and a half before, that pro- 
found historian and philosopher, Lord 
Bacon, had remarked : '• The causes and 
motives for sedition are innovations in relig- 
ion, taxes, alterations of laws and customs, 
breaking of privileges, general oppression, 
advancement ofunworthy persons, strangers, 
deaths, disbanded soldiers, factions grown 
desperate, and whatever in offending people 
joineth and knitteth them in a common 
cause." Wonderfully close is the application 
of those words of wisdom to the events ot 
1857. Every one of the "causes of sedition" 
enumerated by the great Lord Chancellor, 
was at work in India in that year ; and the 
result was "to knit men together in a com- 
mon cause " to an extent undreamt of and 
unparalleled in India until then. 

For the great city of Delhi made common 
cause, promptly and decidedly, with the 
mutineers. The regiments in garrison then 
rose against their officers, many of whom were 
at once put to death. The English bungalows 
in the neighbourhood of Delhi were looted 
and fired, a rabble of Hindoo gipsies, de- 
lighted at the opportunity for mischief and 
plunder, lying in wait on the roads to kill the 
Europeans as they fled from their burning 
homes. In the town itself a massacre of the 
white residents began ; hundreds fell and the 
rest of the white population — merchants, 
officers, and officials, clergymen, and traders, 
men, women, and children — fled from the 
revolted city, many perishing by the way 
before they reached Meerut and other havens 
of refuge. The heroic resolution of Lieu- 



tenant Willoughby and a few brave com- 
panions, who, by firing a magazine, deprived 
the rebels of at least a part of the great 
stores of war material piled up in Delhi, 
was of immense importance in this moment 
of supreme danger ; but for the time all was 
lost in Delhi. About fifty prisoners, men, 
women, and children, were kept for five days 
in an underground apartment of the palace, 
and then ruthlessly slaughtered. 

Prompt Measures of Lord Canning; 

The Two Lawrences and Outraim. 

When the news of the calamities in the 
North-West Provinces reached Calcutta, the 
feeling was one of mingled rage and alarm. 
It was a most unfortunate moment for such 
an outbreak ; lor the proportion of native 
troops in the Company's service was out of all 
calculation greater than that of the English 
soldiers, on whom reliance could be placed — 
being 200,000 Sepoys as against 38,000 
Europeans, the Bengal forces being composed 
of 118,000 natives and 22,000 Europeans. 
Moreover, the Eui'opean troops were mostly 
posted either on the Afghan or the Pegu 
frontier ; and the 1,200 miles between Calcutta 
and the Sutlej was occupied almost entirely 
by the native army. The action of Lord 
Canning, the Governor-General, was prompt 
and vigorous. With admirable decision, and 
an assumption of responsibility worthy of a 
Wellington or a Nelson, he at once wrote to 
Lord Elgin and Lord Ashburnham, and pre- 
vailed on them to call back the troops des- 
tined for the China expedition to the rescue 
of India. One very fortunate circumstance 
must be chronicled, in a time when almost 
all the chances seemed against the English 
in India. A war in which we had been in- 
volved with Persia had just been brought to 
a conclusion ; and the expeditionary force, 
under Sir James Outram, having inflicted a 
crushing defeat on the Persians before it was 
known that the peace for which the latter 
sued had been signed at Paris, his army and 
his services were available for combating the 
dangers in India. 

Every man whose fidelity could be relied 
on — every musket and bayonet that could be 
made available for the service — was urgently 
required ; for the insurrection spread like a 
bush fire in Australia, or a conflagration on an 
American prairie. At Indur and at Azimghur, 
at Jelanpore and Allahabad, there were fierce 
and dangerous outbreaks, the example of 
Meerut and Delhi being followed ; and there 
seemed an immediate prospect of the in- 
surrection spreading over the whole of 
northern India, and that it would soon 
embrace the Bombay and Madras Pre- 
sidencies. 

To the great good fortune of the British 
rule >" India, never in such imminent peril 



39 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



as at that awful moment, Lord Canning proved 
equal to the occasion. That statesman, a son 
of the great George Canning, shared with his 
illustrious father the disadvantage of being 
misunderstood during his hfe, and had but 
scant justice done to his memory after his 
death. Because he refused to acquiesce in 
the frantic demand for indiscriminate ven- 
geance upon all the "nigger" soldiery, and 
heard and weighed dispassionately every 
piece of intelhgence brought to him, re- 
serving to himself the right of forming his 
own judgment and acting upon it, he was 
somewhat sneeringly dubbed, " Clemency 
Canning," and twitted by newspapers for 
having had more regard for the revolted 
Sepoys than for his massacred countrymen 
and their wives and children ; but when the 
excitement and the frenzy for vengeance had 
given place to more moderate counsels, the 
man who during the crisis had never lost his 
head was reluctantly acknowledged by many 
of his former opponents to have been in the 
right. He at once saw the necessity of re- 
capturing Delhi at all hazards, well knowing 
the moral effect the fall of the head- quarters 
and chief centre of the rebellion would have 
upon the insurgents ; and accordingly took 
measures for the siege. One very fortunate 
circumstance was the presence in the newly 
annexed Punjaub of two of the most splendid 
soldiers and administrators who ever wielded 
power in India — the brothers Sir John and 
Sir Henry Lawrence, the former destined to 
become Viceroy of the country he helped to 
save, the latter to die a soldier's death _ in 
the performance of his duty. By unflinching 
firmness he stamped out the rebellion in the 
Punjaub before it had taken firm hold. By 
the holding of the Punjaub by the Queen's 
troops, the mutiny was not only prevented 
from spreading to the Bombay Presidency, 
but was, as it were, shut in by definite barriers, 
until two avenging armies from opposite 
quarters came to crush it out. 

Judicious Measures at Meean Meer; 

General Anson and his Command. 

The story of the disarming of the native 
regiments at Meean Meer, who were on the 
eve of a rebellious outbreak, will give an idea 
of the union of astuteness and firmness with 
which the Lawrences and other officers, civil 
and military, met the danger that had so 
suddenly come upon them. \ historian of 
our own day has thus summarised one of 
the most important events of a year of sur- 
prises : — " A parade was ordered for day- 
break at Meean Meer (in the Punjaub), and 
on the parade ground an order was given 
for a military movement which brought the 
heads of four columns of the native troops in 
front of twelve guns charged with grape, the 
t!\rtillery-men, with their port-fires lighted, and 



the soldiers of one of the Queen's regiments 
standing behind with loaded muskets. A 
command was given to the Sepoys to pile 
arms. They had immediate death before 
them if they disobeyed. They stood literally 
at the cannons' mouth. They piled their 
arms, which were borne away at once in 
carts by European soldiers, and all chances 
of a rebellious movement were over in that 
province, and the Punjaub was saved." At 
Mooltan the native troops were disarmed in 
similar fashion. And not only was the Pun- 
jaub preserved to British rule by having a. 
statesman and a hero at its head, but became 
a basis of operations against the rebels in 
the revolted provinces, and a means for 
isolating the disaffected districts. 

At the head of the forces who marched to. 
the siege of Delhi was General Anson, the 
Commander-in-Chief. This General had no 
opportunity of trying conclusions with the 
rebels, for he fell a victim to cholera — one 
of the foes with whom the armies had to 
contend during that terrible year — on the 
27th of May. Not unnaturally impatient for 
the recapture of Delhi, on which such mighty 
issues depended, the British public, and 
especially a portion of the press, were inclined 
to do scant justice to him. Those were the 
days of family influence and political jobbery, 
and the appointment of General Anson was 
severely criticised. The leading journal de- 
scribed the Commander-in-Chief as a holiday 
soldier, who had never seen service either in 
peace or in war, and as one whom a shame- 
less job had sent at one step from Tattersall's 
and Newmarket to the command of an army 
in one of the Presidencies. When a vacancy 
occurred in the chief command of 300,000' 
men, the authorities at home at once re- 
cognised the claims of family and personal 
acquaintance in the disposal of the post. 

Successive Commanders ; the Re-taking 
OF Delhi. 

General Anson appears to have done his 
best. Be that as it may, he died on the 
march ; and shortly afterwards his successor. 
Sir Henry Barnard, followed him, his mind 
giving way under the strain suddenly put 
upon him ; his very anxiety to fulfil his task 
hastened his end. He died of cholera early 
in July, after an illness of only six or seven 
hours, — so swiftly does that dread disease 
claim its victims in the burning climate of 
India. Captain, afterwards General, KnollySy 
Sir Hope Grant's aide-de-camp, who has left 
us a graphic account of the events of that 
time, tells us that, like General Anson,, 
Barnard suffered little pain, " and had wasted 
away at the last, quite unconscious." After 
he was taken ill, his mind wandered, and he 
continually repeated, "Tell Grant to take 



40 



INDIA'S AGONY. 




4.1 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



out all the cavalry. Tell Reed I have sent 
up the 6oth to support him." General Reed, 
who succeeded to the command, suffered so 
much from ill health that he had to return to 
the Punjaub; and to Brigadier- General Wil- 
son, an energetic, sound-headed officer, who 
knew his work, was allotted the task of taking 
Delhi from the rebels. He accomplished it 
with great gallantry, but not without the loss 
of many brave officers and men, Brigadier 
Nicholson being among the slain. It was 
not until the middle of September that he 
was so far reinforced by the arrival of Sikhs 
and Goorkas that an assault of the enormous 
place, with its immense stretch of walls and 
its large host of desperate Sepoy defenders, 
fighting with ropes round their necks, became 
possible. The scenes at the taking of Delhi 
were appalling ; the shrieking, yelling Sepoys, 
knowing they had no mercy to expect from 
their assailants, fought from street to street 
and from house to house. They numbered 
at least 30,000, while the attacking force could 
not muster 7,000. No quarter was given, and 
the unhappy city was deluged with blood. 
To such a pitch of fury were the besiegers 
worked up by the massacres that had taken 
place, of peaceful citizens, women, and chil- 
dren, that many were with difficulty deterred 
from laying Delhi even with the dust, as an 
expiatory offering to murdered innocence. 

Captain Hodson, of "Hodson's Horse," 
AND THE Princes of Delhi. 

One event so tragic in character as to 
stand prominently forth even in those days of 
horror, was numbered among the deplorable 
incidents of the war, when the first fury of 
vindictive passion had subsided. Captain 
Hodson, the commander of an irregular body 
of cavalry known as " Hodson's horse," 
undertook the capture of the King of Delhi 
and his family. The wretched old potentate, 
the last of the Moguls, who at nearly ninety 
years of age had been set up as a puppet, to 
give the rebellion a name and a character, 
had taken refuge with some followers in a 
place known as the Hummayoon's tomb, about 
five miles from Delhi. Thither Captain 
Hodson rode out, with a party of his Sowars, 
or horsemen ; and imperatively ordering the 
natives in the courtyard to lay down their 
arms, a command which they, presuming 
from his confident manner that a considera- 
ble force was at hand, sulkily obeyed, he 
sent a message to the king, desiring him to 
surrender, and promising that his life should 
be spared. Accordingly the last of the 
Moguls came forth, and was at once placed 
in a small bullock waggon and conveyed to 
the town, where he was securely lodged as a 
prisoner in the palace. He remained in 
close captivity until his death. So far there 



was nothing to be objected to in a daring 
and well-timed exploit that had delivered 
into the power of the British a feeble old 
man who, as a puppet in the hands of rebel 
chiefs, might be made dangerous. But 
Captain Hodson's next exploit was of a more 
ambitious kind. Next day, hearing that 
several relatives of the Mogul were still in 
the tombs, he rode forth again, and by means 
of the treacherous native he had employed 
to communicate with the king, two younger 
sons of the Mogul and a grandson, the Shah- 
zada, or heir-apparent, were induced to come 
forth and surrender themselves uncondition- 
ally. It is idle to assert that they did not 
do this on an implied supposition that their 
lives, too, would be spared. The remainder 
of the narrative may be given as Hodson 
himself told it to Sir Hope Grant, who 
entered it in his journal within a few hours. 
After long persusaion from the man sent to 
them, the princes came forth, and were at 
once driven away in a bullock gharry, or 
small covered coach, Hodson following them. 
When within a couple of miles of Delhi, 
"where no one could interfere," this officer 
in the British service halted the gharry, 
called forth the captives, and after reproach- 
ing them with their guilt, which they strenu- 
ously denied, declaring that they had had no 
hand in the massacre at Delhi, he constituted 
himself judge, jury, and executioner, by 
shooting them dead one after another ; and 
this when they were not men captured in 
fight, but who had surrendered certainly with 
the idea that they were to be delivered into 
the hands of the British, to be protected at 
least until they could suffer lawful censure 
for such faults as could be proved upon 
them. The brave officer who took down this 
narrative from the lips of Sir Hope Grant, 
deplores this slaying of the princes as a " sad 
act that was most uncalled for ; " yet there 
were many in England who at that time 
were ready to laud it as a piece of good 
service. So much can war and passion blunt 
the feelings of justice and humanity. The 
unhappy King is described by an officer who 
visited him in his prison as an old man, 
said by one of his servants to be ninety years 
of age, short in stature, slight, very fair for a 
native, and with.a high-bred, delicate-looking 
cast of features. All the dignity of the great 
Mogul had departed. "It might have been 
supposed that death would have been prefe- 
rable to such humiliation," says the writer ; 
" but it is wonderful how we all cling to the 
shreds of life. When I saw the poor old 
man, he was seated on a wretched charpoy, 
or native bed, with his legs crossed before 
him, and swinging his body backwards and 
forwards with an unconscious, dreamy look." 
It appears almost absurd to tax such a wreck 
with the atrocities of Delhi. 



42 



INDIA'S AGONY. 



Nana Sahib of Bithoor ; The Darkest 
Scene of the Tragedy. 

We now come to the most ghastly of all 
the tragic events of the mutiny, — a crime that 
stands out in its exceptional atrocity even 
among the sanguinary events of the terrible 
chronicle of India in the fatal year 1857. 
The whole page of Indian history of that 
time is stained with blood ; but the story of 
Cawnpore and Nana Sahib shows a black- 
ness of crime and treachery that marks it as 
infinitely more horrible than even the massa- 
cre of the Black Hole at Calcutta. The 
whole transaction is an illustration of the old 
axiom that "injured men will turn and hate;" 
and Oriental hatred is of the deadly, long- 
enduring, sullen kind, unmitigated by any 
touch of Christian feeling or pity ; lying in 
wait for years, if need be, but finding an 
opportunity to satiate itself in the blood of 
an enemy at last. 

The great and important military station 
•of Cawnpore, situated about fifty miles from 
Lucknow, on the high road to Oude, and 
numbering about 1,000 European and Eur- 
asian inhabitants to a native population of 
some 60,000, was occupied at the breaking 
out of the mutiny by a garrison chiefly of 
native soldiers, with 300 English officers and 
soldiers, under the command of a veteran 
general, Sir Hugh Wheeler. A few miles 
higher up the river Ganges is situated the 
small town of Bithoor ; and Bithoor had 
been appointed years before as the residence 
of the Peishwa of Poonah, Bagee Rao, whose 
territory had been annexed by the East 
India Company, and to whom a consider- 
able pension had been awarded on his 
deprivation. Bagee Rao, the last of a 
powerful Mahratta house, had adopted as 
his son and heir, Seereck Dhoordoo Punth, 
who afterwards gained a tragic celebrity as 
the Nana Sahib of Bithoor ; and on the 
death of Bagee Rao, the adopted son ex- 
pected, according to Oriental usage, that the 
pension accorded to the Peishwa would be 
continued to him. But the Company and 
Lord Dalhousie could sometimes be econo- 
mical in the wrong place ; and the pension was 
cut off at Bagee Rao's death. Nana Sahib, 
aghast at such a decrease in his revenues, 
though he was still a wealthy man, in 1854 
sent as an agent to London, to advocate his 
claim, a young Mahometan, originally of low 
birth, a certain Azimoolah Khan, who became 
a kind of "lion" for a season in London, 
like Rammun Loll in Thackeray's " New- 
comes," who, according to the description of 
that acute observer, Barnes Newcome, had 
some of the elite of the ladies of Vanity Fair 
" snuggling up to his indiarubber face." 
Azimoolah Khan returned to his master un- 
successful so far as his mission was con- 



cerned ; but it was the time of the Crimean 
war and its disasters, and he brought back 
highly coloured stories of the calamities the 
English were enduring, and of the alleged 
decline of their influence and power ; and 
appears to have inflamed the black heart of 
Nana Sahib with the hope of gratifying at 
once his ambition and his revenge. Mean- 
while, however, he maintained an outward 
appearance of friendliness to the English, to 
whom, indeed, he often displayed an ostenta- 
tious and splendid hospitality ; and when the 
mutiny spread from Meerut to Cawnpore, 
and poor Sir Hugh Wheeler was in dire 
straits and waited in vain for reinforcements, 
while Sir Henry Lawrence, who_, straining 
every nerve to hold his own against the 
rebels at Lucknow, could not spare him a 
single man. Sir Hugh turned for assistance 
to his good neighbour the Rajah of Bithoor ; 
for he had been obliged to take refuge with 
the Europeans in an old military hospital 
whose defences were in as bad a state as 
those of Arcot a century before, when Clive 
and his handful of troops undertook the 
defence of the place against the 10,000 
assailants brought against him by Rajah 
Sahib. The Nana responded to the appeal ; 
but on his arrival the mutineers pressed him 
to make common cause with them ; and 
whatever may have been his intentions on 
his arrival, he acceded to their proposal, and 
ranged himself on the side of the foe, who 
swarm.ed round the wretched mud-wall be- 
hind which were huddled, in the direst dis- 
tress, about a thousand persons, men, women, 
and children ; the number of combatants 
being under four hundred. 

The Massacre on the Ganges. 
Even in this extremity the high courage 
and skill of the dominant race asserted itself 
in an unmistakable manner. An attempt to 
storm the place failed ; and an urgent mes- 
sage was sent to Sir Henry Lawrence, who, 
however, could do nothing. Exposed to 
every hardship, straitened for provisions, 
and only able to procure water at the direst 
peril, the heroic garrison still held out, 
though its numbers were wofuUy thinned ; 
and when a renewed assault by a large body 
of Oudh mutineers upon the entrenchments 
was repulsed. Nana Sahib's heart began to 
fail him, and he understood that if reinforce- 
ments arrived, he was a ruined man. 
Accordingly he entered into negociations 
with the beleagured garrison, promising quar- 
ter to all " who had not been implicated in 
the actions of Lord Dalhousie ; " and it was 
arranged that the garrison should evacuate 
the place, and be conveyed in the great 
thatched boats used on the Ganges to 
Allahabad, it being stipulated that the boats 
should be adequately provisioned for the 



43 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



journey. There was rejoicing among the 
poor survivors of that dismal siege, at the 
prospect of rehef from the horrors that had 
so long environed them ; the women and 
children especially were glad to get away 
>^ from Cawnpore on any terms : and a long 
•' procession moved down towards the boats, 
« carefully leading or carrying the numerous 
,; sick and wounded. But at a given signal, the 
r blowing of a bugle, the native rowers set fire 
''- to the thatched roofs of the boats, and then 
sprang overboard and made for the shore ; 
while from the banks of the river a shower 
of bullets poured upon the unhappy passen- 
gers . The greater number were killed then 
and there ; Tantia Topee, the lieutenant of 
Nana Sahib, superintending the work. The 
women and children who survived the mur- 
derous fire of musketry were relanded, and 
marched back, a melancholy, dismal train, to 
Cawnpore ; the men whom the bullets had 
spared were put to death at once ; with the 
exception of four who, after incredible hard- 
ships and dangers, managed to effect their 
escape to the English forces. The women 
and children, 125 in number, were confined 
in a small building, afterwards distinguished 
by a sinister celebrity as the yellow house, 
where they had hardly room to move. A 
fifth of their number were soon dead of 
cholera or dysentery ; the rest remained from 
day to day with the fear of death on them. 

The Turn of the Tide ; The Vengeance 
OF A Baffled Tiger. 

Meanwhile Nana Sahib began to realise 
that the mutiny had failed. The defeat of 
the Oudh men, in spite of the favourable 
circumstances under which their assault was 
made, was a heavy blow and surprise to him ; 
and with every fiendish propensity in his 
black heart intensified by the prospect of 
approaching retribution, — for he knew the 
British, under Havelock, were advancing 
victoriously towards the rebellious city, — he 
seems to have determined, at least, to enjoy 
the satisfaction of a complete revenge. 

Accordingly it was announced to the 
captives that their doom was death. The 
manner in which that doom was inflicted has 
no parallel for horrors, except perhaps in the 
massacre of September 1792, in the days of 
the great French Revolution. Five men 
were sent one evening to the house where 
the unhappy prisoners were immured. Two 
of them were butchers by trade, two Hindoo 
peasants, and the fifth wore the Nana's uni- 
form. These wretches slaughtered the English 
women and children, as they would have 
slaughtered cattle ; one of them appearing at 
the door twice, to exchange his broken sword 
for a new weapon. When the last shriek 
from within the building had died away, and 
all was still in the charnel house, the 



executors of the Nana's orders emerged 
from the horrible scene of the atrocity, lock- 
ing the door behind them. Next day the 
bodies of the murdered victims were flung 
into a dry well, where they were found, a 
ghastly heap, when Cawnpore was taken by j 
the English force." When the house of the f 
massacre itself was entered, its floor and its 
walls told with terrible plainness of the scene k 
they had witnessed. The plaster of the walls ';,\ 
was scored and seamed with sword slashes x 
low down and in the corners, as if the poor 
women had crouched down in their mortal 
fright, vdth some wild hope of escaping the 
blows. The floor was strewn with scraps of 
dresses, women's faded, ragged finery, frilling, 
underclothing, broken combs, shoes, and 
tresses of hair. Among the most sorrowful 
of these mementos were a quantity of broken 
toys, stained with blood. But one part of 
the hideous story, as at first circulated among 
the horror-stricken English, is happily un- 
true. An inscription, in which some unhappy 
captive is represented as calling upon her 
countrymen for revenge for unutterable 
wrong inflicted upon the prisoners, was 
shown to be a forgery, written up long after- 
wards, probably to stimulate still further 
the thirst for vengeance that these things 
naturally excited. What became of the 
fiendish Rajah of Bithoor was never known. 
When Cawnpore was taken by the English 
he fled first to Bithoor and then in the 
direction of Nepaul ; and though more than 
once the memory of these things was revived 
by a rumour of his capture, the rumour 
always proved untrue, and in this world the 
fate of Nana Sahib will probably always 
remain a mystery. 

The Struggle in Oudh ; Sir Henry 

Lawrence, " who endeavoured to do 

HIS Duty." 

In Oudh, Sir Henry Lawrence, the 
Governor, struggled against the mutineers 
with equal valour and judgment. The over- 
whelming numbers against him compelled 
him to retreat to the Residency at Lucknow, 
which he fortified to the utmost of his power, 
as a tower of refuge for the Europeans of the 
district. In this stronghold he was quickly 
besieged ; and after a few weeks of heroic 
struggle, he was mortally wounded by the 
explosion of a shell. " Here lies Henry 
Lawrence, who tried to do his duty," was 
the epitaph the grand, simple-hearted soldiers 
desired to have erected over his tomb. 
With him died one of the noblest men who 
ever drew the sword for the defence of the 
English in India. 

Meanwhile, great efforts were being made 
to relieve Lucknow. General Havelock was 
marching to raise the siege, and in a series 
of engagements with the rebels, beat them 



44 



INDIA'S AGONY. 



time after time under circumstances of such 
disadvantage as plainly showed that the 
days when the English in India had ceased 
to reckon the number of the foe had not 
passed away. Indeed, in the time of the 
mutiny, a general thought himself well off 
if the odds against him were not more than 
four or five to one. 

Henry Havelock— A Christian Hero : 
His Exploits and Services. 
Among the great and remarkable names 
of that memorable year, none shines with 



gayer spirits, especially as his strong cha- 
racter influenced many around him, and 
" Havelock's saints" and their camp-services 
became a noted feature in the army. It 
was quickly found, however, that as with 
Cromwell's pikemen and troopers two cen- 
turies before, so with Havelock's " saints," 
piety in no way interfered with military 
efficiency. If they feared God, "they un- 
doubtedly also kept their powder dry," and 
fought their way through hordes of rebels 
with a determined persistency and a splendid 
valour that aroused the admiration even of 



ll!|i'r ■' 




Mr. Ka\ 



THROUGH THE REBEL ArMY AT LUCKNOW. 



a purer lustre than that of Henry Havelock. 
A quiet, modest man, and without the ad- 
vantage of influential connections, he was 
little known beyond his immediate circle, 
though his career had been long and 
honourable, dating from before the Burmese 
war of 1824. A grave, studious character, 
he had been known already in his boyish 
days at the Charterhouse School as " Old 
Phlos," or philosopher, while his serious 
and religious turn of mind — he belonged to 
the Baptist community — had drawn a good 
deal of attention, and occasionally a little 
satire upon him, among the wilder and 



far-off Europe ; and among his countrymen 
in England the name of Havelock became 
a household word during that troublous 
autumn. 

Sir James Outram had been appointed 
Chief Commissioner in Oudh, and hastened 
to join his force to Havelock's little army. 
With splendid generosity he declined to take 
the position of commander, to which his 
seniority and his official rank entitled him, 
and declared he would appear merely in his 
civil capacity as Commissioner, and would 
place himself and his men at Havelock's 
disposal, for that the general who had made 



45 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



such gallant and strenuous efforts to relieve j 
Lucknow should have the honour of com- 
pleting the work. It was indeed a tremendous 
march from Calcutta to Lucknow, through 
a country swarming with enemies, in the 
burning summer heat. After a short rest at 
Allahabad, Havelock had pushed on with 
about 1,400 men, and his brilliant victory 
over the rebels at Futtipoor formed an epoch 
in the great achievements of the year. On 
the 13th of July, Havelock and his men were 
before Cawnpore ; and here it was that 
Nana Sahib came out against him with his 
whole force, only to be completely defeated, 
and vanish into the darkness from which he 
never afterwards emerged. A tremendous 
vengeance was wreaked on the Sepoys and 
on Cawnpore for the murder of the English 
women and children. The sight of the 
terrible well, and ghastly relics found in the 
prison-house, had for a time driven all feel- 
ings of mercy from the hearts of the British ; 
and public opinion in England, as exhibited 
in the press, was all on the side of revenge, 
and no quarter to the enemy ; until at length 
Mr. Disraeli asked in Parliament whether 
the standard of morality of Nana Sahib was 
to be chosen for imitation by Englishmen in 
India. 

Vengeance on the Sepoys ; Wholesale 
Slaughter and Executions. 
What kind of retribution was exercised on 
the rebels who fell into the hands of the 
avengers of blood is shown by the report of 
the English General Cooper, at a period 
shortly subsequent to that of which we are 
writing. The General tells a plain, unvarnished 
tale of the fate of the rebel Sepoys v/ho fell 
into his hands ; — how he had them bound 
together in batches of ten, and thus shot 
down on the place of execution, where firing 
parties awaited their arrival, — how, when 
about 150 had been shot, one of the oldest 
executioners of the prison fainted away, over- 
come by the horrible din, the yells, shrieks, 
and frantic struggles of the captives, as mad- 
dened with rage and terror they were dragged 
lo the place of execution, and a pause had 
pen'orce to be made in the proceedings, — 
now, the work of death being presently re- 
sumed, and when 237 corpses lay stretched 
upon the plain, it was reported that the 
prisoners refused to quit their prison, where- 
upon orders were given to burst open the 
door ; and then it was found that the 
tragedy of the Black Hole of Calcutta had 
been repeated, and forty-five corpses of suffo- 
cated men were dragged from the loathsome 
dungeon, — how the corpses of the suffocated 
men, and of those who had been shot, were 
flung by the sweepers into a common pit, — 
how forty fugitive Sepoys, captured on the 
road to Lahore, were blown away from the 



muzzles of cannons at one time, in the pre- 
sence of disaffected native regiments,— and 
how 500 were thus speedily despatched. It 
it a gruesome report, that of General Cooper, 
and hardly seems to belong to civilization 
and the nineteenth century. 

Help in Need ; Arrival of Sir Colin 

Campbell ; Outram and Havelock at 

Lucknow. 

With an energy taxed to the utmost by the 
consciousness that the lives of the garrison 
of Lucknow depended upon speedy succour, 
and that a second Cawnpore massacre would 
but too probably be the termination of the de- 
fence unless they arrived in time, Havelock 
and his men pressed on, in spite of hardship, 
want, and disease, towards the gates of 
Lucknow. After beating the enemy in nine 
battles, Havelock at length reached Luck- 
now towards the end of September. But 
even with the reinforcement of Outram, the 
army amounted only to 5,600 men ; while 
the enemy numbered 50,000. It was not 
without heavy loss that they fought their way 
through the rebels into the citadel, where 
they were received by their countrymen with 
transports of joy and thankfulness. 

But Havelock's force, combined with that 
of Colonel Inglis, on whom the defence of 
Lucknow had devolved after Sir Henry Law- 
rence's death, was too feeble to transport the 
sick and wounded, with the women and 
children, to Cawnpore, as had been intended. 
In the hard fighting between the 19th and the 
25th of September, 535 men had been lost — 
more than a fifth of the whole army ; all that 
could be done, therefore, was to reinforce the 
exhausted garrison, and wait until fresh help 
should come ; the enemy meanwhile resum- 
ing the siege with renewed vigour, swarming 
in their thousands around the beleagured 
city, and harassing the besieged day and 
night ; while scarcity of provisions increased 
their woes by the imminent prospect of 
famine. Help was sorely needed, and it was 
coming in the most effectual shape. General 
Sir Colin Campbell, the Hero of the Alma, 
was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the 
troops in India, and ordered to proceed at 
once from London to the seat of his com- 
mand. On the very next day the stout old 
soldier was already on his way to the East. 
Napoleon's officers were accustomed to say 
that they could scent the Emperor's approach 
in the air, and the same might almost be 
said of Sir Colin Campbell. His arrival gave 
fresh courage to the sorely tried troops ; and 
from the day of his landing in India with his 
gallant little army, it was seen that the fate 
of the mutiny was sealed. Sir Colin reached 
Lucknow on the 14th of November, and re- 
lieved the little garrison of Alum Bagh, a 
cluster of buildings with an enclosed garden 



46 



INDIA'S AGONY, 



to the south of Lucknow, where Havelock on 
his arrival at Lucknow had established 400 
men with his sick and wounded, not anticipa- 
ting that he himself would be shut up within 
the city. Sir Colin's force now numbered 
some 5,000 men. and he was compelled to 
act with caution. He knew, moreover, the 
effect a check to his troops might have upon 
the rebels, who were becoming demoralised 
at the steady and resistless advance of the 
scanty bands of avengers who came upon 
them like fate, not to be turned back ; and 
he could not therefore afford to make any 
mistake that might weaken this impression. 
Accordingly, when Outram and Havelock had 
been set free, and the enemy dislodged, he 
removed the women and the sick and 
wounded to the Dilkoosha, a palace about 
five miles from the Residency, which, like the 
Alum Bagh, he had taken before entering 
Lucknow. Thereupon he established his 
troops at the Alum Bagh, for a time evacu- 
ating Lucknow. 

And here, a few days afterwards, the 
illustrious career of Havelock came to a 
close. Worn out by the incessant toils of 
the last months, by bodily and mental labour, 
and by care and sleepless nights, the old 
hero was attacked by dysentery at the Alum 
Bagh, and died quietly and calmly in the 
consciousness of duty well fulfilled, and a life 
work nobly accomplished. The news of his 
achievements had reached England, and ex- 
cited a glow of pride and sympathy in every 
breast. The Clubs rang with his praises, 
and the Queen acknowledged his services by 
apension, a baronetcy, and the K.C.B. But 
on the day when the baronetcy was conferred 
in London, the hero was already sleeping in a 
soldier's grave, in the garden of the Alum 
Ba^h, beneath a tree, on which the single 
letter "H." sufficed to show where Havelock 
was laid. A general outburst of regret arose 
in London at the news of his death. Even 
Punch, the jester of the press, recorded in 
some noble lines the loss England had sus- 
tained, telling how — 

'' He is gone : Heaven's will is best ; 
Indian turf o'erlies his breast. 
Ghoule in black, nor fool in gold, 
Laid him in that hallowed mould ; 
Borne unto a soldier's rest 
By the bravest and the best," etc. 

The Exploit of Mr. Kavan^gh of Luck- 
now ; Heroism among the Civilians. 

In connection with the defence of Lucknow, 
as with all the episodes of that troublous 
time, many individual deeds of daring and 
heroism are recorded ; but none surpasses 
the achievement of a civil functionary, Mr. 
Kavanagh, who, disguised as a native, made 
his way from Lucknow through the lines 
of the beleaguring rebel army, to carry in- 



telligence to Sir Colin Campbell of the state 
of things within the Residency. " How he 
could ever have made himselflook like a native 
I know not," says Dr. Russell, the Times 
correspondent, who met Kavanagh afterwards 
at Lucknow. " He is a square-shouldered, 
large-limbed, muscular man, a good deal over 
the middle height, with decided European 
features ; a large head, covered with hair of— 
a reddish auburn, shall 1 say? moustaches 
and beard still lighter ; and features and eyes 
such as no native that ever I saw possessed. 
He has made himself famous by an act of 
remarkable courage— not in the heat of battle 
or in a moment of impulse or excitement, but 
performed after deliberation, and sustained 
continuously through a long trial." The 
achievement was certainly a wonderful one ; 
for if any sharp-witted Hindoo or Mussul- 
man had got an inkling of the nationality of 
the stranger, his death would have been 
speedy and certain. 

The Final Throes of the Mutiny? 

Restoration of Order ; The End of 

the East India Company. 

Leaving Sir James Outram in command at 
Alum Bagh, with orders to watch the rebels 
in Lucknow, Sir Colin Campbell advanced to 
the relief of General Windham at Cawnpore. 
Sir Colin was censured in some quarters for 
evacuating Lucknow, and many spoke of the 
moral effect that would have been produced 
had he held that place at all hazards ; but as 
the Tz'wz^j judiciously observed: "The Com- 
mander-in-Chief had to consider the whole 
plan of the campaign, as well as the circum- 
stances at Lucknow, and he was compelled 
also to take into consideration the political 
objects of the Government." And the sequel 
showed how true had been the judgment of 
the gallant chief, and how fairly he earned 
the peerage that was at this time awarded 
him. During the time he waited at Cawnpore, 
the reinforcements that had been despatched 
from Calcutta and elsewhere had time to 
come forward, so that operations could be 
undertaken on a large scale and with a view 
to a result as a whole. The " moral effect " 
produced by the 'arrival of new troops in 
discouraging the rebels, and in impressing 
upon them the fact that their resistance was 
useless, was of far greater importance than 
the holding of a place that the Commander 
could retake at any time. The year 185S 
began under favourable auspices. The neck 
of the mutiny had been broken, and there 
was full confidence that Sir Colin Campbell, 
or as he must now be called, Lord Clyde, 
would successfully terminate his task. New 
reinforcements arrived at the Upper Ganges, 
from the Punjaub and Calcutta. Sir Hugh 
Rose took Kalperand Jhansi from the rebels, 
upon whom a terrible vengeance was inflicted. 



47 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



On the 19th of June he recaptured Gwahor, 
and the last hope of the insurgents was gone. 
Meanwhile, on the 5th of March, 1858, 
Lucknow finally fell into the hands of the 
English, under Lord Clyde. The slaughter 
of the rebels was great, and the plunder 
found in the city immense. The English 
soldiers rushed to and fro, offering jewels 
of enormous size and great value to who- 
soever would purchase them for a few 
gold pieces. Dr. Russell, who was present 
at the capture, relates how an excited Irish- 
man offered him a splendid necklace for a 
hundred rupees, which, alas ! the Tunes 
correspondent had not in his pocket ; and 
the soldier, though he reduced his demand 
to two mohurs and a bottle of rum, would 
not hear of sending to the camp for the 
money, and would entertain nothing but 
"ready-money" offers, on the reasonable 
ground that he himself might be dead with 
a bullet through his heart before evening. 
The necklace, it seems, fell into the hands 
of an officer, who sold it to a jeweller for 
£7,Soo. On May 5th, in the battle of Bareilly, 
another victory was scored for Lord Clyde ; 
and after that time the resistance was merely 
sporadic, though in many instances the in- 
surgents, who expected no mercy, fought 
desperately. Among the most determined of 
those who braved the EngUsh in the open 
field was the Ranee of Jhansi, who fought 
like a Boadicea at the head of her troops, 



and everywhere showed remarkable heroism. 
Tantia Topee, Nana Sahib's villainous lieu- 
tenant, was hunted down, captured, and 
most justly hanged. A proclamation was 
issued by the Governor- General granting an 
amnesty to those rebels who had not taken 
immediate part in the murder of British 
subjects, and who returned to their allegiance 
by January, 1859. At the same time it was 
announced to the people of India that Queen 
Victoria had thought fit, by the advice of her 
Parliament, to annul the charter of the East 
India Company, and that henceforth Hindo- 
stan would be governed as a direct possession 
of the British Crown, with a Viceroy in place 
of a Governor-General. This change had 
been brought about by the India Bill of 
August 2nd, 1858. 

Thus ended the rule of the East India 
Company as the governing power in India, — 
a dominion unexampled in the history of 
the world. In many respects that rule had 
been faulty, and in some even criminal. It is 
impossible to look without shame upon some 
pages in the history even of such men as 
Clive and Warren Hastings ; but on the 
other hand there had been numberless in- 
stances of the truest valour, the loftiest 
heroism, and the wisest statesmanship ; and 
at no time had these appeared more con- 
spicuously than in the period of India's 
agony, in the great Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. 

H. W. D. 







"The Well at Caunj)ore 



48 




Ridley and Latimer at the Place of Execution. 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND 

THE STORY OF ENGLISH PROTESTANTISM. 



A Typical Life— A Cambridge Fellow— Black Joan — Result of a Supper Party— An Aged Martyr — Origin of the 
Revolution — Langland and the Lollards — Burning of Cobham — Printing Press — Dean Colet — The New Learning — 
The Christian Brethren — Squire Tracy's Will— Passion and Pope -Wolsey's Fall and Prophecy — Its Progress — 
Henry's Divorce — A Married Priest as Archbishop — Sir Thomas More — England Governed by a Blacksmith's Son— 
A Memorable Parliament — Head of the English Church — The Black Book — Fall of the Monasteries — Captain 
Cobbler — Pilgrimage of Grace — John Frith, the Genuine Martyr — The First English Confessions of Faith — English 
Bible in the Churches — Whip of Six Strings — Martyrdom of Lambert and Anne Askew — Progress of Edward's Reign 
— Book of Common Prayer — Catholic Reaction— The Inquisition— Sir John Cheke — The Martyrs — Rogers, Hooper, 
Latimer, etc. — Smithfield— Protestant Recovery— Cecil and Parker— Catholic Attempts — ^The Thirty-nine Articles. 




Black Joan. 

|OUBTLESS, had he been alive, the 
Squire of Aslacton, in the famous 
hunting county of Notts, would have 
been sadly vexed on hearing that his son 
Thomas, who held a fellowship in the Uni- 
versity of Cambridge, had plunged into 
marriage with Black Joan, a niece of the 
landlady of the "Dolphin Inn," where he 
had probably been accustomed to "take 
his ease." It was a very foolish action 
of the law student, Thomas Cranmer, for 
he was compelled to resign his fellowship, 



and had thenceforth to depend upon the 
slender and precarious income derived from 
his thankless labours as a college tutor. But 
follies and accidents go to make up a great 
many of the greatest chapters in the volume 
of history. Had he remained a fellow and a 
bachelor, his name might have floated un- 
noticed down the stream of time, only turning 
up, like thousands of others, as a microscopic 
object before the eyes of some grubbing anti- 
quary. As it happened, the young wife died 
within a year in giving birth to her first child ; 
and in the deep and sanctified sorrow of his 
loss, Thomas Cranmer threw away ambition. 



49 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



entering the priesthood when nearly forty 
years of age. 

He was by no means one of the lights of 
the University in those its palmy days of 
European fame, and his twenty-five years 
of residence passed away in a monotonous 
lowliness. Although inspired by the leaven 
of the New Learning, he could not boast of 
intimacy with the famous Erasmus, who lived 
close by. This is disappointing, for we should 
have liiced to graft upon our English apostle 
the poetry of a close friendship with the Dutch 
humourist, who did so much by the thrusts 
of his bright rapier to kill the Papal power. 
We need not doubt, however, that Thomas 
Cranmer had a copy of the New Testament 
of Erasmus, double-columned for the Greek 
original and Erasmus' Latin version, and that 
he had well thumbed the bold and brilliant 
preface which said, " I wish that even the 
weakest woman should read the Gospels, 
should read the Epistles of Paul ; and I wish 
that they were translated into all languages, 
so that they might be read and understood 
not only by Scots and Irishmen, but also by 
Turks and Saracens. I long that the hus- 
bandman should sing portions of them to 
himself as he follows the plough, that the 
weaver should hum them to the tune of his 
shuttle, that the traveller should beguile with 
their stories the tedium of his journey." It 
is perhaps as true of Cranmer as of the 
Wittenberg Reformer, that Erasmus laid the 
Ggg, and Cranmer hatched it. 

A Supper Party. 
He was now forty-four years of age (1528), 
when the plague, or sweating-sickness, which 
flourished like a vigorous toadstool on medi- 
aeval dirt, proceeded to decimate the students 
by the banks of the sluggish Cam. Cranmer 
fled with his two kinsmen and pupils, settling 
down at Romeland, near Waltham Abbey, 
the residence of their father, Mr. Cressey. 
Close by, at Tytynhanger, King Henry had 
taken up his sanitary refuge. One evening 
the obscure and timid tutor had the honour 
of supping at Mr. Cressey's in the company 
of two great statesmen and churchmen, — Dr. 
Gardiner, in after days his opponent and a 
notorious persecutor, and Dr. Fox, Lord High 
Almoner. Henry and his statesmen were in 
the heart and worry of a huge trouble, spring- 
ing out of the King's determination to sever 
his marriage to Catharine of Arragon, — a de- 
) termination that arose partly from his blinding 
' passion for a sprightly maid of honour at the 
Court, partly from a superstition that the 
marriage had brought the curse of Heaven 
upon the fruits of the nuptial bed. The pro- 
posed "divorce" naturally formed the heavy 
subject of conversation at the supper table. 
The tutor was enlisted in the warm debate, 
and with his clear legal mind he expressed 



his private opinion in a manner that left a 
strong impression of his power upon the 
puzzled statesmen. 

"If the marriage of Henry with Katharine," is 
the burden of his statement as given by Dean Hook, 
" was a marriage contrary to the divine law, it was, 
in point of fact, no marriage at all. ... If there 
were no marriage at all, then the King was a 
bachelor ; if the King were a'bachelor, he might marry 
whom and when he pleased, without any reference 
to Rome, provided it were not within the forbidden 
degrees. The fact might be decided by the ordinary 
ecclesiastical courts of the National Church. Let 
then the canonists and universities declare that for a 
man to marry his deceased brother's wife is contrary 
to the divine law, let the evidence be produced 
before the ecclesiastical court that Katharine had 
been married to the King's brother, and the King's 
cause would be gained." 

While Thomas Cranmer, who had the 
peaceful instincts of a Saxon gentleman, was 
hunting or hawking — his favourite pastimes 
through life — and doing his little duty to his 
pupils in the retreat of Essex, thinking himself 
forgotten, and never dreaming of any big 
results from his pot-luck conversation at the 
pleasant supper party, his suggestion was 
reported to the King, who, with keen sagacity, 
called for the presence of the hidden genius. 
"Who is this Dr. Cranmer?" he exclaimed, | 
"where is he? Is he still at Waltham? \ 
Marry, I will speak to him ; let him be sent 
for out of hand. This man, I trow, has got 
the right sow by the ear." 

The Aged Martyr. 

Twenty-eight most memorable years have 
sunk into the womb of time ; the Bible has 
been translated, the English liturgy has been 
read in the churches of the land ; the mass 
has been doomed and abolished, monks and 
popery have been robbed and crushed ; 
Thomas Cranmer has risen to be primate of 
the English Church ; " bloody Mary " has 
ascended her father's throne, is undoing all 
her father's work, and sending the best men 
among the five millions of England to the 
scaffold and the fire. In the pelting rain a 
venerable priest, with long white beard, clad 
in a black and tattered gown, and wearing 
an old square cap on his bald but noble head, 
is walking from his prison to St. Mary's 
Church through the streets of Oxford, behind 
the magistrates of the learned city. Thou- p- 
sands have their eyes fixed upon his worn li, 
and fated form, and armed soldiers guard || I 
the streets and watch the crowds. The step \ 
of the old man is firm. The very image of 
sorrow, the tears of a child roll down his 
fatherly face, as he sits in church and 
hears the preacher denounce him as an 
heresiarch, and with a touch of ribald 
humour declares that his life should go as a 
makeweight to that of three others, so as to 
balance the death of Bishop Fisher, the 



S<^ 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. 



Catholic martyr of King Henry's reign. We 
look at him again, as he rises from the plat- 
form before the pulpit, denies the truth of 
the six recantations he had made of the 
Protestant faith, while shouts are heard from 
the astounded audience, " Traitor, dissembler, 
liar ! " — others weep for joy at the grace and 
courage of his last hour. And now he walks 
with smiling face and steady step towards the 
scaffold ; he strips off his tattered garments 
till nothing is left upon him but a long white 
shirt ; crowds press forward to press the 
hand that had waved many a benediction 
and done so many kindly deeds ; that right 
hand which had sinned is held steadily over 
the crackling flames, except when in a 
moment of awful agony it is raised to wipe 
the sweat from his heavenly brow ; steady as 
a rock stands his frame, and with the peace 
of an angel his spirit passes to the throne of 
Eternal Justice, while the last brave words 
are left behind him to spread through the 
crowd and England, and to live for ever as 
a sad and noble monument to the first Pro- 
testant Archbishop of the English Church, — a 
sad and noble sermon to England for ever : 
" Oh ! this unworthy hand ! " 

Langland and the Lollards. 

More than a hundred years before the 
birth of Cranmer, a gaunt, crazy-looking 
clerk from Shropshire, who sang for a 
pittance at the gorgeous funerals of London, 
had his "vision of Piers Plowman" by a 
burnside among the Malvern Hills. It was 
a biting satire on the priests and nobles, the 
friars who " preached the people for profit of 
their bellies," the jesters, the gluttonous 
beggars, and other "children of Judas," who 
preyed upon the poor toilers, such as the 
farmer who had only two green cheeses, a 
few curds and cream, a loaf of beans and 
bran for his children, a cow and a calf, and 
a cart mare, some parsley and kail, but " no 
salt bacon, nor no cockneys [lean chickens], 
by Christ, to make coUops." 

But at that time there also went 
through England the mightier voice of 
John de Wycliffe, a keen, bold, and stubborn 
Yorkshireman, the greatest contemporary of 
Geoffrey Chaucer. The persecuted Master 
(n Balliol College, Oxford, and priest of 
Luiierworth, hurled forth terrible denuncia- 
tions against the corruptions of the time, 
lucidly denied the Popish doctrine of the 
Eucharist, called for the return of the Church 
to the poverty of its Divine Founder, and 
sent forth his Poor Priests in russet garb to 
plant his heresies over the whole field of 
England. For rough times he used rough 
words ; his sentences were fired with a sage 
fury. Against the magic virtue of monastic 
robes he declared that " Pilate might have 
been damned in Christ's clothes ;" he in- 



veighed against prelates that were "dead 
to the world and the vanity thereof," 
for riding with fourscore horses harnessed 
with silver and gold, and against " Rome 
runners," who drained the wealth of England 
by a perpetual stream of unjust appeals. 
The year of his death was 1384 ; the birth of 
Thomas Cranmer took place just one hun- 
dred years later. He left behind him an 
English version of the Bible, a multitude of 
vehement tracts, and a vast rebellious host 
of Lollards. 

From Cobham to Colet. 

The Lollards are commonly supposed to 
have been stamped out by the brutal perse- 
cution of Henry IV., when Lord Cobham 
was hung alive in chains and murdered by a 
slow fire kindled under his feet (141 7). Cer- 
tainly the fierce organized communism of 
the Peasants was broken up, because the 
wrong of serfage — unpaid slavery — was 
gradually abolished ; but the religious root 
remained, with fibres struck deep and wide 
throughout the nation. It had its martyrs 
during the whole century of time, from the 
days of Badbie till those of bluff King Hal ; 
the furious tracts of Wycliffe were spread 
abroad in manuscript ; and when the printing 
press came they were the first leaves of 
" heresy " that flew across the land. It was 
a living force at the dawn of Henry's reign. ; 
In 1510, Colet, the great Humanist, had 
founded St. Paul's School with the wealth of 
his father, a Lord Mayor of London ; but the 
old fossil bishops looked askance at his ' 
" temple of idolatry," and More jested to his 1 
friend on its resemblance to the woodeti 
horse filled with armed Greeks for the 
destruction of barbarian Troy. When ; 
preaching at this time before Convocation, 
Ijy invitation of Archbishop Warham, the 
friend and patron of Erasmus, he sorely 
wounded his reverend hearers by declaring 
that their wicked and worldly life was a worse 
heresy than that of the two Lollards who had 
recently been burned by the Bishop of London . 
He was luckier than Cobham ; though driven 
into retirement, he died peacefully in 1519. 

Lollardism lay subdued till a royal des- 
potism emerged from the Wars of the Roses, 
and stood above the ruins of the old baron- 
age, which had thrust itself into the move- 
ment, not to help the poor, but to grasp the 
booty of the rotten- Church, — a welcome 
despotism, a cat (to use the homely mediaeval 
adage) that would keep down the rats which 
preyed upon the mice ; and till there crept 
forth the printing press, established by 
WiUiam Caxton, who by some peculiar 
chance was born in the very year in which 
John Badbie, who denied the Popish dogma 
of the Eucharist, was burned to death, in the 
presence of the Prince of Wales, in 141 1. 



51 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



WolSey's Dream and Tyndale's 
Tracts. 

The English Reformation sprang from no 
grand moral or intellectual impulse of the 
self-willed and sensual King Henry VIII. 
He lived and died professing to be the best 
of Catholics. The clergy of those times, 
says the great French humourist, came "from 
the other world, — part from a marvellous 
country called Breadless-Day, and part from 
another called Too-Many-Of-Them." The 
Church was the common bosom into which 
were thrown the younger sons and dowerless 
■daughters of the great. Children were born 
with a mitre on their head. Such was the 
destination of Henry, the second son of the 
first Tudor sovereign ; he was to ^ become 
Archbishop of Canterbury, a second A Becket, 
certainly a cardinal, and probably a pope. 
He was a friend of the New Learning that 
liad sailed from Greece after the Turkish 
capture of Constantinople, and crossing the 
Alps from Italy had raised in England a 
Colet, a Linacre, a Fisher, and a More. 

All his children were educated to the 
liighest standard ; and it is well known 
that Queen Elizabeth was one of the most 
learned and accomplished women of her 
time. But it was not within his wildest 
; dream to depart from the old Faith, and to 
separate himself from Rome. Had he not — 
in part against Sir Thomas More's protest as 
to its dangerous cringing — written a book in 
reply to the "Babylonian Captivity" of 
' Luther, and received as guerdon from the 
' Pope the title " Defender of the Faith," so 
that he stood forth in Europe on a pious level 
with the sovereigns of France and Spain, 
•who wore the dignities of " Most Christian " 
and " Catholic " Kings ? 

Neither the able, passionate, and ambitious 
Henry, nor the calm and noble More, nor 
the learned and unscrupulous Wolsey, had 
any thought of creating a religious disruption. 
Their drift was towards culture, and Wolsey 
actually founded Cardinal (now Christchurch) 
College, in Oxford, with the spoils of monas- 
teries. The masses of the people, on the 
other hand, were being fast leavened by a 
stronger ferment, by the firstfruits of the 
printing press, circulated by the " Christian 
Brethren," a secret society, composed of 
monks like Bayfield, " printers, booksellers, 
pedlers, wandering clerks, broken merchants, 
and other adventurers," who defied the man- 
dates of Wolsey and his government. They 
sowed broadcast, especially in London and 
ithe seaport towns, the tracts of Wyclifife, his 
disciple Huss, Luther, and Zwingle, and the 
ferocious onslaughts of "runagate friars" like 
the noble erelong martyr William Tyndale, 
^ho propagated such heresies as that " we 
are damned of nature, and so conceived and 



born as a serpent is a serpent, and a toad a 
toad," etc., that " Christ in all His deeds did 
not deserve heaven ; " and such alarming 
socialism, then perhaps politically dangerous, 
as that " among Christian men love maketh 
all things common." A more decided action 
was taken by Henry in 1529 for the suppres- 
sion of these often scurrilous sheets, Warham, 
More, Tunstall, Gardiner, and Latimer (what 
a conglomerate !) being appointed with others 
to report upon the books deserving of stern 
condemnation. As result, the King pro- 
claimed that his most learned men had ad- 
vised the imprudence of a translation of the 
Scriptures, as only tending to an increase of 
error, but he held out the hope that, if the 
people behaved well by departing from their 
perverse and seditious opinions and the cor- 
rupt translations were exterminated, the Holy 
Scriptures — if his Grace so pleased — "should 
be by great, learned, and Catholic persons 
translated into the English tongue." 

To Henry this proclamation was perhaps 
a joke, for the merry King laughed in private 
at the scandalously clever " Book of Beggars ;" 
while within six months of the "unanimous" 
report of the Commission, the eloquent and 
earnest Latimer, who himself indulged in the 
reproved versions, urged the King with jest 
and plea to provide a translation of the Scrip- 
tures, and charged the mischief of the con- 
demned books to the sloth, ignorance, and 
" Banbury glosses"of the priests. The bishops 
and clergy, however, did not let the procla- 
mation fall as a dead letter, although the hunt 
had to be paid for out of their own purses. 
Among those who suffered a cruel death was 
Richard Bayfield, a former monk at Bury 
St. Edmunds, " taken at his bookbinder's in 
Mark Lane, and finally burnt at Smithfield 
in November, 1531." Even the dead were 
not allowed to sleep in peace. The most 
shameless spectacle in this clerical tragi- 
comedy of persecution was that of raising 
the body of a Gloucestershire squire named 
Tracy, which had lain for two years in the 
grave, and burning it at the stake. This 
indecent act was the wretched outcome of a 
verdict by Convocation that his will contained 
heresy, paid no flattery, and left no money 
to the Church ; but in spite of the sacred 
shield that covered the enormity, the natior. 
was shocked, and the dignitary who had per- 
petrated it was fined by the King in the 
goodly sum of three hundred pounds. 

Passion and Pope. 
Already, in 1527, Henry had commenced 
his manoeuvres for a divorce from his " true 
and loyal wife," who had loved him almost 
to superstition for eighteen years. Wolsey, 
who was eager for the divorce, in order to 
bind Henry to France by another marriage, 
had the same idea with Pope Clement, that 



52 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. 



the passion for the maid of honour was only 
a transient humour, and that the cure for 
this affliction lay in its degradation into an 
illicit amour. But Wolsey had only raised 
a despotic monster that was destined to smite 
himself, and crown his last days with disgrace 
and sorrow. When Henry first announced 
to the Cardinal his intention of marrying 
Anne Boleyn, Wolsey fell upon his knees 
with horror ; but his earnest pleadings not 
only broke in vain upon the firm determina- 
tion of the King, but fell back upon himself 
in the complete ruin of his influence. The 
Pope, in fear that Henry should turn Pro- 
testant if he did not give way to his demand 
for a divorce, in fear of the strong Imperial 
army if he should do so, was at last driven 
so far in his hesitating game as to appoint 
Wolsey and another cardinal as his repre- 
sentatives to hear the case in England. 
When they had failed to coax the noble and 
fond wife into a nunnery, and were convinced 
that nothing but death would " divorce her 
from her dignities," they opened their court 
at Blackfiriars after six months of delay. She 
flung herself at the feet of her lord, who twice 
tried vainly to raise her up. In broken 
English she addressed him with a pathos 
that stirs the heart even at this far distance, 
in language that has been drawn out and 
weakened in its force by Shakespeare. 

" Sire," said the kneeling daughter of the 
mighty King of Spain, " I beseech you to 
pity me, a woman and a stranger, without 
an assured friend and without an indifferent 
counsellor. I take God to witness that I have 
always been to you a true and loyal wife, that 
I have made it my constant duty to seek your 
pleasure, that I have loved all whom you 
loved, whether I have reason or not, whether 
they are friends or foes. I have been your 
wife for years, I have brought you many 
children. God knows that when I came to 
your bed I was a virgin, and I put it to your 
own conscience to say whether it was not so. 
If there be any offence which can be alleged 
against me, I consent to depart with infamy ; 
if not, then I pray you to do me justice." 

The puzzled cardinals threw back the 
burden of decision upon the Pope. Wolsey's 
stupendous efforts for peace had failed ; his 
years of mighty toil for raising Henry to 
the pedestal of a despot were forgotten in 
view of the witching face and tempting coy- 
ness of Anne Boleyn. The courts which he 
had held as legate, with Henry's own consent, 
were now denounced by the despot as trea- 
sonable to his own supremacy ; and Wolsey, 
who had been his most loyal slave, was shorn 
of his dignities. The maid of honour won 
from her royal lover a promise that he would 
see Wolsey's face no more. The Cardinal's 
cheeks rapidly became hollow with sadness. 
The King sent him the present of a ring as a 



little consolation. Within a year the great 
old statesman, the most loyal of Englishmen 
the foremost man in Europe, was conducted 
on a charge of treason, towards the Tower 
of London. By the way he died, teUing the 
monks of Leicester that he had come to lay 
his bones among them. The words uttered 
on his deathbed are historic. " He is a 
prince," said he of the idol of brass, gold, 
and clay that he had raised, "of a most 
royal courage : sooner than miss any part 
of his will, he will endanger one half of his 
kingdom ; and I do assure you I have often 
kneeled before him, sometimes for three hours 
together, ,to persuade him from his appetite, 
and could not prevail. . . . Had I but served 
God as diligently as I have served the King, 
He would not have given me over in my grey 
hairs." 

Wolsey had discerned, with the prophetic 
vision of a true statesman, that England 
stood upon the brink of a popular revolution. 
By the study of comparative politics, he heard 
in the rebellious murmurs against the riches 
of Churchmen the voice of the re-awakened 
corpse of Lollard socialism ; he knew that 
religious change was but the herald of a 
wider revolution, that the sickle of popular 
freedom would not pause at cutting down the 
ridge of ecclesiastical power, but would sweep 
mercilessly over the whole field of despotisin 
and injustice. " Say furthermore," said the 
dying statesman, " that I request his Grace,, 
in God's name, that he have a vigilant eye to 
depress this new pernicious sect of Lutherans. 
... In the history of King Richard the 
Second, which lived in that same time of 
Wickliffe's seditious opinions, did not the 
Commons, I pray you, rise against the king; 
and the nobles of the realm of England ; 
whereof some they apprehended, whom they 
without mercy or justice put to death ? and 
did they not fall to spoiling and robbery, to 
the intent they might bring all things in 
common ? " Our trades-unions and our Land 
Bills are the historic proofs of the far-reaching 
vision of the Tudor statesman. 

Meanwhile the sparkling maid of honour 
carried matters at Court with a high hand. 
She and her family were ennobled and en- 
riched. In November (1529) the Queen was 
privileged to dine with her long-estranged 
husband. She complained of her cruel sepa- 
ration from his bed and board ; to which he 
surlily replied that she was not his wife, and 
left the room suddenly in deep dejection. | 
Clever, selfish Anne, sitting by his side at 
supper, rallied him with the following delicate 
reproach : — 

"Did I not tell you that whenever you 
disputed with the Queen she was sure to 
have the upper hand .? I see that some fine 
morning you will succumb to her reasoning, 
and that you will cast me off. I have been 



53 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



waiting long, and might in the meanwhile 
have contracted some advantageous marriage, 
out of which I might have had issue, which 
is the greatest consolation in the world ; but 
alas ! farewell to my time and youth, spent to 
no purpose at all ! " 

In this deplorable selfishness and dextrous 
self-control we see the true mother of Eliza- 
beth, "The Maiden Queen." Protestants 

; or Cathohcs, none of us can well bow to the 

\ eulogy of Gray, that — 

' ' Love could teach a monarch to be wise, 
And gospel light first dawned from BuUen's eyes."' 

Cranmer as a Tool, 

The reluctant tutor of the Cressey boys was 
brought down from Waltham and installed 
in the splendid library of Boleyn's father, in 
i Derham Place (the modern Adelphi), over- 
looking the ceaseless traffic of the Thames. 
i.There he composed a book on the King's love 
.business. Henry's bribery and Cranmer's 
■clear and earnest eloquence obtained a de- 
cision of the universities that the marriage 
was void ab initio; but the matrons of 
.England were not to be conquered by spe- 
cious arguments that only lay like gossamer 
over the heartless passion of a monster. 
I Then Cranmer had a roving commission- 
first to the Pope, who deferred the hearing of 
the plea, but made him " Grand Penitentiary 
^ of England," a sop to Cerberus ; and then to 
i Italy, France, the Princes of Germany, and 
finally to the Emperor. But the right and the 
truth remained with the women of England, 
with gentlemen whose hearts were touched 
with any spirit ofchivalry, and with old Luther, 
who declared that " separation after so many 
years of cohabitation would be an enormity 
greater than any marriage could have been, 
however improper that marriage might have 
been in the first instance." And once again 
Thomas Cranmer did a most foolish thing, 
for on the way he not only talked with the 
learned Osiander, but, unambitious Catholic 
priest that he was, made love to Osiander's 
niece, married her, and sent her across the 
sea to England to make a home for her and 
him and the children that were to be. Strange 
days those were : wife she was, and wife she 
might be privately to him, but in the cere- 
. . monies of the outer world she could be looked 
' upon in Catholic England as only the con- 
cubine of Cranmer. In 1533, Henry secretly 
\ married Anne Boleyn ; Catharine's doom was 
} sealed by the Act for the restraint of Appeals, 
which severed England cleanly from the 
Pope ; and to crown all, Thomas Cranmer, 
a married priest, was placed on the throne 
of Canterbury, to the scandal of all Catholic 
Christendom. For be it remembered the 
English Church was still thoroughly Catholic. 
This great man, this " quivering mass of 



indecision," was simply the honest tool of 
Henry's iniquity ; he was raised to the lofti- 
est pinnacle of ecclesiastical power that the 
semblance of loftiest authority might be 
thrown over the divorce of Catharine. Acting 
on an im.perious mandate of Henry, he held 
an ecclesiastical court (May 1533), at which 
the Queen did not appear ; but the case went 
on, Cranmer piously hoping that " her absence 
might be made up for to the full by the Divine 
presence ; " and on the first day of the leafy 
month of June, Anne Boleyn was crowned 
with gorgeous splendour. 

There is no apology for Henry's crinie ; 
he knew that there was no valid reason why 
Catharine should not have become his wife. 
All this was wretched enough as motive of a 
Protestant revolution, and we shall now de- 
scend into the plain to find the constitutional 
steps and the righteousness of the religious 
change. 

A Memorable Parliament; More and 
Cromwell. 

In 1529 there opened "the most memo- " 
rable Parliament that ever sat. It was 
the assembly," says Canon Dixon, "which 
transformed old England — the England of • 
Chaucer and Lydgate — into modern England. \ 
... A full generation at least of the fiercest 
hacking and hewing followed, ere the ancient 
system was spread upon the ground." 

The robes of Lord Chancellor never clothed 
a greater spirit than that of him who now 
succeeded Wolsey. This was Sir Thomas 
More, whose wisdom, wit, and gentleness 
have been household words for almost four 
hundred years. His " Utopia " was the first 
great book issued from the press by a living 
Englishman ; his name was the foremost 
among the thinkers of Europe. The friend 
of Erasmus, he had furnished the King 
with wisdom and wit for twenty years, and 
on many a starry night the merry More had 
walked the palace leads with the gay King 
Hal. But although a Humanist, he was yet 
a Catholic. His open nature, the very mirror 
of nobility, made him unfit to play the base 
game Henry had settled down to fight. The 
Cardinal was to him "a great scabbed 
wether;" and in his romance of "Utopia," 
the kingdom of Nowhere, to which the world 
is still only advancing, our English Socrates 
struck at the new despotism which rose from 
Wolsey's hands, by announcing that in his 
happy, far-off land a sovereign was " re- 
movable on suspicion of a design to enslave 
his people." He imprisoned heretics with 
mild severity ; and understanding that the 
pen was mightier than the prison and the 
sword, he met Barnes and Tyndale with 
their own weapons sharpened by his inimi- 
table ridicule ; but he was not the man who 
could now stand at the helm of the State. 



54 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. 



Alarmed at the pace of Parliament, he soon 
resigned his office, and retired with spotless 
honour into poverty and study in his Chelsea 
home, to jeer at heretics, and soon, too, to 
lay his venerable head upon the block — yes, 
even he, of whom the sorrowing Erasmus 
wrote when he heard of the terrible iniquity, 
that be was " a soul purer than snow." Let 
there be no mistake, however, as to the fact 
that this noblest and wittiest of Englishmen 
died for the Catholic Church, — for that Church 
where even the doctrine of Justification by 
Faith was not a heresy, but not for the 
" Roman Catholic Church " which arose with 
its narrowness and its Inquisition from the 
fiery debates of the Council of Trent and the 
triumph of the Society of Jesus (1545-55). 

And now Thomas Cromwell, the political 
Reformer, our English Robespierre, com- 
menced the Reign of Terror. This son of 
a Putney blacksmith, by his own confession 
a " ruffian " in youth, who had roamed abroad 
as an adventurer, and by turns had been 
soldier, cook, clerk, and money-lender, stepped 
to the front to fight the battle of Henry with 
the Church and heretics. He never halted in 
his course ; relentless as Fate itself, he struck 
down all opposition with the brawny arm of a 
political blacksmith and the delicate deftness 
of a State cook. Like his master, Wolsey, the 
student of Machiavelli sought to make Henry 
supreme in Church and State, mowing down 
all obstacles with an iron hand and an iron 
heart, fearless of Pope, fearless of every 
human being, possessed, in spite of his 
genial aspect, of that Titanic energy and 
will which might have served for the original 
of Massinger's mighty lines, — 

" I'll make a bridge arched with the bones of men, 
But I wiU reach my aims." 

And the knives of assassins glanced aside 
when aimed at his charmed life. Like 
Wolsey, he only fell before the frown of his 
despot idol. Then his head went to the 
block amid a harvest of rejoicing. Protestants 
and Papists shouted at the fall of Jaganatha. 
England, said Cromwell to the King, before 
whom he had at last been privileged to kneel, 
and who had heard of him as the fittest 
man in broad England to do his work, — 
" England is a monster with two heads. Let 
the King strike off one, the Pontiff, and stand 
alone supreme." 

Beginning of the Deluge. 

The very first act of this memorable Par- 
liament struck a blow at the Spiritual Courts 
by fixing reasonable charges for wills and 
funeral fees ; and one member of the Com- 
mons retorted to the argument from usage, 
that it was also the usage of thieves to rob 
on Shooter's Hill, and that the greedy priests 
took the dead man's only cow from his 



beggared orphans. This was followed by 
the Act against Plurality and Non-residence, 
" the first outburst of the noble indignation 
of the English laity against corruption, ra- 
pacity, and fraud," which aimed at the 
wealth and sloth of priests who, fattening 
on a dozen benefices, lounged about the 
Court, who held farms, owned tanneries, 
and dealt in wool, suffering their poor 
parishioners " to lack refreshing to the peril 
of their souls." For pretended insubordina- 
tion to the Crown (Statutes of Provisions and 
Prsemunire), the clergy were subjected to a 
penalty which drew a sum' of money nearly 
equal to two millions of our day ints the purse 
of the royal gambler ; and after a determined 
conflict they" were forced to acknowledge 
him — an ancient right of English sovereigng 
— as Supreme Head of the Church. The 
Commons charged the bishops with a Ions 
catalogue of sins ; among others with reckless 
persecution of heretics, who were increasing 
through " frantic seditious books contrary to 
the very true Catholic and Christian faith." 
The freedom of the clergy from civil trial was 
limited. In order to bully the Pope into 
consent to Henry's divorce, a secret Act was 
passed, abolishing the first fruits of all bene- 
fices paid to the Apostolic See ; and the Papal 
power was finally cut off by the Act for Re- 
straint of Appeals. The Church, through its 
bishops, was then called upon to give a formal 
renunciation of the Pope, binding itself never 
to speak of him as Pope or Universal Bishop, 
but simply as Bishop of Rome or Brother 
(1535). The first great wave of the deluge 
was the passing of the Act of Succession, in 
consequence of which the Franciscan monks 
and Carthusians were cmshed, some of their 
pious and peaceful members sent to martyr- 
dom, and two of the brightest luminaries of 
the time. Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas 
More, despatched upon the scaffold. Tough 
old Fisher, by a strange irony just exalted to 
the dignity of a cardinal, refused to take the 
oath that Anne was Henry's lawful wife, 
although he was ready to acknowledge her 
children as lawful successors to the throne, 
and perished by the axe in the bright summer 
sunshine which beat on Tower Hill (June 
1535) > liis long, lean body lay all day naked 
on the scaffold, and people thronged to 
London Bridge to see his head, which, " by 
a miracle," looked fresher every day. ^A^he^ 
it had been thrown into the river, its place 
was taken by the still nobler one of More, 
the gentle father who had given his children 
" kisses enough but stripes hardly ever." On 
the eve of the fatal blow he raised his head 
for an instant from the block to move his 
beard aside. With " a touch of the old sad 
irony" he was heard to mutter, "Pity that 
should be cut that has never committed 
treason." A shudder ran through Europe 



55 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



at the deed, to which the condemnation of 
Socrates is the only parallel in history. 

The Monasteries Dissolved. 
When the Commons authorized the King 
(1534) to have the title of Supreme Head of 
the Church of England, they armed him with 
authority "to visit and reform errors, heresies, 
contempts, and offences," in consequence of 
■which Cromwell, as his " Vicar-General," at 
once proceeded to the ruin of the monasteries, 
and the acquisition of ample funds for the 
wasteful pockets of his despot lord. The 
" visitation " carried out by his unscrupulous 
agents, of whom Layton was the liveliest, was 



of terrible enormities called forth from some 
members the cry of " Down with them ! * yet 
the Bill which conferred upon the King all 
religious houses witli a revenue less than 
^200 a year, was only complied with by the 
Commons after Henry had threatened that 
he would have some of their heads if they did 
not pass it. Three hundred and seventy 
monasteries fell by this single blow ; 10,000 
persons were thrown upon the world ; weep- 
ing nuns returned to the homes of their 
mothers, and honest labourers betook them- 
selves in hundreds to the trade of beggars, 
or even worse, of highwaymen. Although 
many were glad to escape from the bars of 




The Disgrace of Cardinal Wolsey. 



indeed a visitation in a double sense. The 
leaves of the great scholastic hair-splitter, 
Duns Scotus, were soon seen blowing about 
the quadrangles of Oxford, and his portly 
tomes, which had been supposed to reveal the 
deepest mysteries of the Faith, were put to the 
most ignoble andunnameable uses. The notes 
which were taken of the morals and moneys 
of the monks and nuns throughout the whole 
breadth of England, were laid in four months 
before Parliament, in the form of a " Black 
Book," which set forth by innumerable 
instances that the "hooded hypocrites"— 
monks and nuns alike — were as abominably 
vile as the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomor- 
rah. Although the reading of this Doomsd ay 



56 



the monastic cage, yet it was a sad spectacle 
that of monks and nuns, whose bounty had 
fed the poor, themselves reduced to beggary 
or the penury of a pitiable pension. How 
did Henry consume his immense spoils ? We 
can well imagine, when we know that the 
tuneful bells of a London steeple fell at a. 
single throw of the dice. 

Catholic Reaction, 
Catholic England shuddered, and the throne 
shook. At Louth, in Lincolnshire, the com- 
missioners of the "base-born" Cromwell 
were placed in the stocks ; a vast multitude 
rose under a shoemaker, nicknamed Captain 
Cobbler, one of whose associates was Dr. 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAJMJ. 



Mackerel, an abbot, who marched forth in A more formidable rebellion burst forth m 

full armour ; and one of the commissioners the northern counties, at the head of which 
was murdered. Henry issued his thunderous \ stood Robert Aske, a country gentleman. 




Burning a Protestakt Marytr. 



voice, and the "rude commons of a most 
brute and beastly shire" dwindled away in 
a fortnight. 



with a following of 30,000 men, over whom 
floated a banner on which was worked the 
Five Wounds of Christ. Perhaps Henry 



57 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



would have been driven from the throne had 
the Pilgrimage of Grace found a more am- 
bitious leader ; but from the moment it com- 
jnenced negotiations with the petty force of 
Henry, and Aske and others retired to their 
homes with a fair promise and a feigned par- 
don, the Catholic reaction was doomed, only 
to be opened in the reign of Mary. Cromwell 
struck them as only he knew how. Many of 
the northern rebels, even honest Aske, with 
others from among the Lincoln rebels, were 
sent to the scaffold, the stake, and the worse 
starvation of the Newgate den. Abbots and 
nobles swung upon the gallows ; butchers 
and priests were mercilessly hanged ; Lady 
Bulmer was burned alive in Smithfield. It 
remained for one of the Pilgrims, Lord Darcy, 
who perished on Tower Hill, to fulminate a 
prophecy against the ruthless maker of these 
tragedies : " Thou, Cromwell, art the very 
special and chief causer of all this releellion 
and mischief. . . . but though thou shouldest 
procure all the noblemen's heads within the 
realm to be stricken off, yet I trust that there 
shall one head remain that shall strike off thy 
head." 

By-and-by the empty Treasury was refilled 
by the dissolution of the larger monasteries. 
Yet although the greater part went to the 
greedy courtiers and the gambling table, some 
was righteously spent on ships and forts and 
new cathedrals. 

John Frith the Martyr. 
So far as Government was concerned, the 
Reformation in England — as the German 
Protestants alleged — was purely political ; 
and when it served his purpose, Cromwell, 
whose own leanings were in favour of the new 
faith, encouraged the heretics or hanged 
them. Chief among those who fought with 
sharp tongue and sharp pen in the early days 
of the great struggle shine forth the names 
of Tyndale, who from beyond the sea shot his 
rankling arrows against the clergy ; Latimer, 
the bold and honest and fervid, but coarse 
and indiscreet, who for a short time held 
a bishopric, had joined the early Cam- 
bridge Gospellers in their war with Popish 
mummeries, and had seen his comrade 
Bilney sent to martyrdom ; and the youthful 
Frith, "the most genuine martyr of the 
English Reformation." A pupil of Gardiner 
at Cambridge, a favourite of Wolsey because 
of his brilliant promise, he had fallen at 
Oxford into the evil way of studying the 
forbidden Lutheran books. For this crime 
he and others lay for months in a nasty 
cellar where the salt fish of the college was 
stored, with little food but that for their sub- 
sistence. Three of them died in the impure 
den. On his release, Frith made his way to 
London, formed a dangerous intimacy with 
Tyndale, and after many strange adventures 



58 



in Flanders and England, was betrayed by 
one of his associates among the Christian 
Brethren, and thrown into the Tower. He 
had published a work on Purgatory, which 
taught (said More) " in a few leaves, shortly, 
all the poison that Wickliffe, CEcolampadius, 
Huskin, Tyndale, and Zwinglius have taught 
in all their books before." In prison he 
courted death by issuing a powerful attack 
on the Romish dogma of the Eucharist, 
which may claim to be "the beginning, in 
this age, of the terrific controversy on the 
nature of the Presence in the Sacrament, 
which was already convulsing the Continent, 
and was destined to fill all Europe with 
blood and flame for a century to come." 
This youth of twenty-five stood unmoved 
before the King, clergy, and laymen who 
met at Lambeth to convert or condemn him; 
he had all the moral stubbornness of his great 
antagonist. Sir Thomas More, and was un- 
touched by the gentle persuasions of Cranmer 
or the friendship of Gardiner. Yet he was no 
bigot : he did not even maintain that a belief 
in Purgatory and the Real Presence laid a 
man under the "jeopardy of damnation." 
He perished at the stake, showing the most 
unshaken patience while a London parson 
attacked him with vile ribaldry, and the wind, 
sweeping the flames from him, prolonged his 
sufferings ; and by his side there fell a hum- 
bler martyr, a simple London tailor, who had 
no better reply to the puzzling questions of 
those who condemned him, than that " he 
thoughtas Frith thought." This was in (1533). 

First Confessions : Engish Bible 

IN Church. 
In July 1535, Bishop Fox produced and 
read a tiny book in Convocation, which was 
listened to and thereafter signed by Cromwell 
as Vicar- General, Cranmer as Archbishop, 
and the clergy at large. This little treasure 
was the first-born of modern Uniformity. It 
was the "Ten Articles," our first English 
Confession of Faith ; no minute and tedious 
document like those of Germany and Scot- 
land, but a true literary bud of Henry's 
compromising policy, a rebuke and a com- 
fort at once to Catholics and heretics ; 
containing the Protestant Melancthon's 
definition of Justification, and while it re- 
tained a multitude of ceremonies, yet ex- 
plaining them as " things good and laudable, 
to put us in remembrance . . . but none of 
these . . . have power to remit sin, but only 
to stir and lift up our minds unto God, by 
whom only our sins are forgiven." No ser- 
mons, however, were to be preached for three 
months until the Articles were divulged, so 
that seditious persons might be prevented 
from expounding them "according to their 
fantastic appetite." At the close of this 
period of "secret silence," the clergy received 



THE REFORM A TION IN ENGLAND. 



orders from Cromwell to recite the Creed, 
the Paternoster, and the Ten Command- 
ments in their sermons, till the whole was 
learned by their young parishioners. Two 
years, later, while the plague was raging at 
the very gate of Lambeth Palace and sweep- 
ing its victims to the other world, the second 
English Confession (" Institution of a Chris- 
' tiaii Man"), commonly known as the Bishops' 
i Book, was prepared ; and several years after 
' (1543), the third Confession, or King's Book, 
appeared, the last of Henry's reign. A later 
step towards uniformity (1545) abolished the 
Latin and English litanies in use, substi- 
tuting an English translation of a Latin litany. 
In 1536, an order was issued commanding 
" every parson and proprietary of any parish 
church within the realm to place the entire 
Bible in the choir, both in Latin and English," 
the translation referred to being that of Miles 
Coverdale, the fellow-labourer of Tyndale and 
a former friend of Cromwell. " Matthew's 
Bible," a composite of Tyndale and Cover- 
dale, received Cromwell's license in the fol- 
lowing year, at the suggestion of the primate, 
a compliment which gave Cranmer more 
delight than if he had received " a thousand 
pound." 

But the year 1538 presented one of the 
bravest sights ever witnessed in England, 
certainly the most attractive of all this 
terrible period of struggle and terror and 
debate, when an injunction came down to 
all the clergy to provide within a certain 
period one book of the whole Bible, of the 
largest volume in England, and to set it up 
in some convenient place in the churches, 
where the parishioners could most easily 
reach it. The previous command had fallen 
as a dead letter. It was no idle offer and 
order now. Crowds of unlearned men and 
women thronged the churches hour after hour, 
listening with rapture to the accents of those 
who had sufficient learning to spell out the 
words of the Great Bible ; and aged persons, 
who had longed for the blessed day, set 
themselves with diligence to learn to read, 
content to do the tasks of children, so that 
they might learn in their own heart and 
conscience the very truth of God before 
they were called away from the troubles of 
earth to meet Him face to face. And good 
old Cranmer, with whom this was a life-long 
hope, bargained with the printers that they 
should charge no more than ten shillings, 
and should state " in the end of their Bibles 
the price thereof, to the end the King's liege 
people shall not henceforth be deceived of 
their price." Cranmer's Bible continued in 
use till 1568. 

Whip with Six Strings. 
Unfortunately the Protestants, thus given 
an inch, began to take an ell, and Henry's 



policy of moderation and compromise fell 
with terrible severity upon the triumph he 
had actually placed within their hands. 

"Fresh orders," says Mr. Green, "were given to 
fling all relics from their reliquaries, and to level 
every shrine with the ground. The bones of St. 
Thomas of Canterbury were torn from the stately 
shrine . . . and his name erased from the service 
booki as that of a traitor. The introduction of 
, rtae English Bible into churches gave a new opening 
for the zeal of the Protestants. In spite of Royal 
injunctions that it should be read decently and with- 
out comment, the young zealots of the party prided 
themselves on shouting it out to a circle of excited 
hearers during the service, and accompanied their 
reading with violent expositions. ... A fiery 
outburst of popular discussion compensated for 
the silence of the pulpits. The new Scriptures, in 
Henry's bitter words of complaint, were ' disputed 
rhymed, sung, and jangled, in every tavern and ale- 
house. ' . . . Above all, the Sacrament of the Mass, 
the centre of the Catholic system of faith and 
worship, and which still remained sacred to the bulk 
of Englishmen, was attacked with a scurrility and 
profaneness which passes belief. The doctrine of 
Transubstantiation, which was as yet recognised by 
law, was held up to scorn in ballads and mystery 
plays. In one church a Protestant lawyer raised 
a dog in his hands when the priest elevated the host. 
The most sacred words of the old worship, the words 
of consecration, 'Hoc est corpus,' were travestied 
into a nickname for jugglery, as ' Hocus-pocus.' " 

Then (1539) came the "Bloody Statute," 
or "Whip with Six Strings," as the Puritans 
termed it, in sorrowful allusion to the Six 
Articles of which it was composed, sentencing 
to the flames and forfeiture any persons who 
by word or writing defended the Protestant 
doctrines openly : in fact, it showed so decided 
a reaction towards an extreme Catholic posi- 
tion that Cranmer and five bishops strenuously 
opposed the passing of the Act. Hundreds 
of Protestants were thrown into prison ; 
Latimer was also imprisoned and deprived 
of his see ; the primate himself trembled 
with fear, and was only saved from the 
bitter assault of his enemies through the 
personal friendship of the King, in whose 
heart the attempt upon Cranmer "roused 
the best passion of which it was capable." 
In fact, however, it was only a political move, 
not meant to be put in force except as a 
measure of intimidation against the extreme 
party of reform ; it was indeed passed almost 
alongside of that which appropriated the 
revenues of the larger monasteries. This 
seeming outbreak of Cromwell's wrath against 
the Protestants was only temporary ; the 
prisons were soon emptied of their booty, the 
" Word was powerfully preached, and books 
of every kind safely exposed for sale." 

In this " killing time," two noble examples 
of heroic death stand forth in brilliant relief. 
The first was William Lambert, the friend of 
the martyred Frith and Tyndale. Returning 
from the Continent to his native country, he 
settled in London as a teacher in a humble 
way, and was latterly engaged in trade. 

59 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Having indulged in the expression of his 
opinions in a manner that was considered 
dangerous to the peace of the pubhc, he was 
apprehended at the instigation of a Lutheran 
preacher. Refusing to save his hfe by sub- 
scribing to the dogma of Transubstantiation, 
as Cranmer and Latimer advised him, he 
appealed to the King; and, accordingly, a 
gorgeous display of royal luxury and theo- 
logical skill took place in the palace of 
Whitehall, the King (if we may credit Foxe, 
whose authority is most questionable in this 
matter) showing much higher capacity for 
bullying than for controversy. As night fell 
over the scene, and the torches were being 
lit, the wearied despot exclaimed, " Art thou 
not yet satisfied ? Wilt thou live or die 1 
What sayest thou?" Lambert's submission 
to the royal clemency was promptly met with 
the emphatic sentence : 
"Then die you must ; 
for a patron of heretics 
I will never be." On 
the morning of his exe- 
cution, says the "Book 
of Martyrs," " Lam- 
bert being admonished 
that the hour of his 
death was at hand, he 
was greatly comforted 
and cheered ; and being 
brought out of the 
chamber into the hall, 
he saluted the gentle- 
men, and sat down to 
breakfast with them, 
showing no manner or 
sign of fear. When the 
breakfast was ended, he 
was carried straightway 
to the place of execu- 
tion. ... Of all who 
have been burned and 
offered up at Smith- 
field, there was yet none 
so cruelly and piteously handled as he ; yet 
in the midst of his torments, lifting up his 
mangled and burning hands, he cried to the 
people : ' None but Christ, none but Christ ! '" 
It is possible that Henry, in all his zeal to 
prove himself a splendid Catholic, was far 
from anxious to have a flood of determined 
Protestants streaming towards him for judg- 
ment. The infamous " Whip '' failed in its 
purpose "to abolish diversity of opinions;" 
and about a year before his death, the 
Supreme Head of the Church addressed the 
Parliament in the true spirit of moderation 
and compromise, urging them to greater 
charity, and to cease from the dangerous 
freeness with which they bandied about 
mutual accusations of heresy and Popery. 
Henry must have known how perilous to 
the peace of the State, which still rocked 




John Foxe the Martyrologist. 



uncertain on the troubled waters, was the 
execution of women, even though they were 
assharp-tongued as Anne Askew, — a clever 
lady who had separated from her husband 
because of her religious creed, and who 
boldly declared in Newgate that "her God 
will not be eaten with teeth." Not that 
Henry troubled himself about religion in 
itself, or took pleasure in the slaughter of 
his subjects— that was left for the reign of 
his eldest daughter; but he must have 
learned and thought of the sympathy that 
gathered round a woman who was tortured 
into lameness, and was borne in a chair to 
Smithfield ; and it may have crossed his 
fancy that the spectacle of the vast crowd 
v/hich pressed against the rails within which 
the fagots blazed around her, would live for 
ever as a scandal to his reign so long as 
one spark of chivalry 
lived in the hearts of 
Englishmen. 

Protector Somerset : 
His Weakness. 

Great but mild re- 
forms had been crad- 
ling in the calm mind 
of Cranmer, before he 
was summoned to the 
death-bed of the King 
whom he had served 
with humility for almost 
twenty years, who had 
regarded him with a 
veneration that almost 
verged on friendship, 
who had been influ- 
enced by the candour 
and truthfulness of his 
nature, and who had 
felt in the support of 
his honest primate "the 
touch of greatness which 
was all there was to 
give an ideal character to a sordid revolu- 
tion." The dying despot pressed the hand of 
the aged priest, gave him one last look with 
his glazed eye, and passed away from the 
mighty troubles of his heart and country. 

The sickle of progress was now to take 
a wider sweep. Henry's power, but not his 
policy, was seized by the maternal uncle of 
the young King, Edward VI., an impetuous 
Protestant, whose religious tendencies, how- 
ever, did not prevent him from enriching him- 
self with the spoils of the monasteries, from 
converting the famous Abbey of Glastonbury 
into a factory for worsted thread, from blow- 
ing up one cliurch in London, and with its 
stones erecting upon the site of another the 
magnificent palace still known to us as 
Somerset House. The bones of the dead 
who lay in St. Paul's Churchyard were used 



60 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. 



as manure, and Westminster Abbey, though 
fortunately saved, had also been doomed to 
destruction. The spirit of compromise which 
guided the policy of Henry, and of his 
daughter Elizabeth in after years, was now 
changed into the spirit of faction ; and the 
worship of the people, of whom by far the 
greater portion still clung with veneration to 
the ancient Church, was treated with a con- 
tempt which culminated in serious rebellion. 
Had the Government been clean-handed, — 
had it gained the confidence of the toiling 
masses by scrupulous integrity, the danger 
would have been lessened ; but the enclosure 
of lands for rearing sheep was a measure of 
dire injury to the labouring people who had 
found employment in ploughing and sowing ; 
while the dissolution of colleges and chantries 
(chapels, etc., where masses were said for 
the repose of souls), put forth on the pretence 
that they were the cause of " a great part of 
superstition and error in Christian religion," 
served only to glut the greedy appetites of 
courtiers with the name of God upon their 
lips. Nor was this all : the suppression of 
one see, and the seizure of half the revenue 
of every other, although supposed to be done 
for "godly uses," were nothing more than 
acts of spoliation perpetrated by a weak 
Government, so as to gain support from un- 
just and unscrupulous magnates. But we 
must not ignore that England had still some 
true and fearless preachers of righteousness, 
such as Ridley and Latimer, who told these 
robbers in high places that they should blush 
for very shame at their iniquity, and demanded 
that they should restore what they had stolen 
by trickery or violence. 

The Real Progress ; Common Prayer. 
A cordial friendship could not possibly 
exist between the noble primate and the 
plundering Somerset, much less between 
him and Somerset's successor, Northumber- 
land, who was simply a rabid hypocrite, and 
who, Cranmer himself declared, had com- 
passed his destruction. Amid the roar of 
discontent from the masses, and the sacri- 
legious pretensions of the nobles, real Chris- 
tian courage was doubly needed by men of 
candour, truth, and nobleness, like Latimer 
, and Cranmer ; but the movement was 
^ steadily and faithfully maintained by these 
!| and other spiritual chiefs, who were soon 
to find their reward in the blaze of fagots 
i and the crown of martyrdom. In the main, 
however, the reforms of the Church were 
carried on in deference to the cautious 
gentleness of Cranmer and his friends : and 
the imprudent conduct of many preachers, 
the tumultuous manner in which images and 
pictures were removed and defaced, the 
abominable sacrilege of patrons in present- 
ing livings to their gamekeepers, and pocket- 



ing the stipends, — these scandals must not be 
charged on the souls of Cranmer and the old 
and tried Reformers, but on the blinking im- 
potence of the Government. Wooden tables 
were placed in the centre of the churches, as 
a substitute for the stately altars of stone to 
which the eyes of the people had been accus- 
tomed. But great reforms took place in 
spite of the heartlessness by which the leaders 
were environed, although they were far 
indeed from satisfying the demand of Calvin. 
Anabaptists, it is true, were still burned, 
even under Cranmer's notice, for instance, 
poor Joan Bocher, the Maid of Kent, who 
reviled the preacher at her death ; but the 
Whip of the Six Strings and other persecuting 
Acts were instantly repealed. Cranmer, 
after long doubt about the Real Presence, and 
much earnest talk with Ridley, mingled with 
the pastime of the chase, had at last renounced 
the Popish doctrine. A Great Bible was 
ordered to be provided within three months 
in every church, and also, as a compromise 
(a pleasant memory of Henry's time and 
Cranmer's early days of humble tutorship), 
the " Paraphrase of the Gospels " by one 
who had lived and died a Catholic, the 
strange but great Erasmus. Portions of the 
English Bible were to be read regularly at 
the services, and the "Book of Homilies" — 
a series of twelve sermons edited by Cran- 
mer — was to be used where there was no 
preacher. After a "thorough sifting," the 
celibacy of the clergy was abandoned, and 
the loving primate could at last bring back 
from Germany his dear wife and children ; 
the Book of Common Prayer, although it 
was assailed by Catholics, and on the other 
hand by Calvin and the English Calvinists, 
was welcomed with impatient joy by thou- 
sands ; and finally (1552) a second Prayer 
Book appeared, with further reforms, such as 
the excision of prayers for the dead. Our 
present liturgy, formally established in 1662, 
is substantially the same as that which 
issued from the pens of our old Reformers. 

The following year produced the Forty-two 
Articles, afterwards slightly altered into the 
Thirty-nine Articles, which need no intro- 
duction to any of our readers, for they still 
form the broad, moderate, compromising 
Confession of the English Church. The 
middle party of England, the lineal repre- 
sentatives of Henry's policy, now stood upon 
the modern platform of English orthodoxy. 

But we must read with sorrow in the 
canons of the Reformatio Legum Ecclesi- 
asticarum, happily prepared too late to 
receive the sanction of the boy-king, that 
even these men of moderation had not yet 
learned in their hearts St. Paul's last and 
greatest doctrine, charity, freedom of religious 
thought, but deemed it right to curse and 
punish all who held " heretical " opinions, 



61 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and to send the opponents of the doctrine of 
the Trinity to the lambent mercy of the 
flames. 

A Prince's Death-bed. 

The young King lay dying of consumption. 
With one exception the whole Council had 
consented to the signature of Edward's will, 
when the old primate, who had sworn to the 
succession of Mary, according to the testa- 
ment of Henry, was summoned to the bed- 
side of his godson. " I cannot set my hand," 
said he to the intimidated judges and the 
crafty Northumberland, when they requested 
him to sign the document by which the young 
sovereign willed away the crown from his 
sisters, — " I cannot set my hand to this 
instrument without committing perjury, for I 
have sworn to the succession of the Lady 
Mary." 

He was summoned again into the royal 
presence. "The dying boy, pale and cada- 
verous, lay before him, — the royal boy, his 
godson, whom he had loved as his own 
child, — the son of his benefactor and friend, 
whom he had crowned and faithfully served, 
there he lay on his death-bed, too ill to argue, 
but resolute, determined, regarding this his 
last act as an act of duty to his God, his 
country, and himself" In Cranmer's eyes 
his godson was a saint ; and when almost the 
last breath of Henry's only boy was spent in 
urging upon him the justice of an act which 
his own conscience refused to look at in this 
light, what could he do in the presence of 
that death-like face, under the touch of that 
fervid prayer of an eye bright with the last 
flame of life, but in pitying love put forth his 
hand and sign the fatal deed ? 

Was the Reformation, then, firmly and 
finally fixed in England by this "device"? 
Alas ! no fault of Cranmer's, but the 
religious progress of these last years had only 
come commended by tyranny, spoliation, and 
bloodshed, by spiritual wickedness in high 
places ; and worse than that, soldiers from 
Germany and Italy had been hired to stamp 
out the discontent of Englishmen. Had 
Edward lived, and succeeded in maintaining 
his seat upon the throne of England, the 
Calvinism of Oliver Cromwell would have 
been thrust on England a century before the 
great Revolution by his determined will. It 
was not to be so. Our Reformation was 
destined to be as English as ourselves, — a 
plain and steady growth out of the free and 
freedom-giving hearts of England. How 
could the work of Edward's reign be other 
than abortive, since Cecil himself declared 
that " the greater part of the people is not in 
favour of defending this cause, but of aiding 
its adversaries, the greater part of the nobles 
who absent themselves from Court, all the 
bishops save three or four, almost all the 



judges and lawyers, almost all the justices of 
the peace, the priests who can move their 
flocks any way, for the whole of the 
commonalty is in such a state of irritation 
that it will easily follow any stir towards 
change " .'' 

MARY; CATHOLIC REACTION. 

A once kindly woman ascended the throne 
with an embittered heart ; a narrow spirit, 
quite incompetent to grasp the struggle of 
her age. Her condemnation is written in 
that last sentence of the great Elizabethan 
statesman, in the frantic cheers and mirth 
which welcomed her, and in the terrible con- 
tempt with which the Te Deicin was sung 
upon her death. There is no excuse for her 
but that she was a persecuted woman ; and if 
that be any apology, John Knox's " Monstrous 
Blast" is amply justified ; her reign was 
simply a blunder and a scandal, and no 
Englishman can read its annals without a 
thrill of horror and a blush of shame. 

It is unnecessary that we should track out 
one by one the steps which hurried England 
backward, not only from the religious position 
she had aspired to in the reign of young 
" Josiah," but beyond the memorable Parlia- 
ment of 1529, into the arms of the Papacy, 
and into the profession of Roman Catholic 
sectarianism. Brutality marked from first 
to last the reign of the " heaven-sent dove," 
and its spirit is completely defined by the 
logic with which the vulgar and im- 
moral prolocutor. Dr. Weston, wound up 
the discussion of Convocation in October 
1553, on that awful topic, Transubstantiation : 
" Ye are well enough already ; ye have the 
word, and ive the sword." This seems a 
very strange expression, when we compare 
it with the hope entertained by Cranmer 
and other Reformers, that although some 
of the more recent measures of progress 
should be annulled, yet the independence of 
the English Church would be maintained, 
and the spread of gospel truth be still possible 
to earnest and honest men ; and more 
especially when we view it in the light of a 
speech delivered by the Queen a few weeks 
after her accession, declaring that " she 
meaned graciously not to compel or strain 
other men's consciences, otherwise than God 
should, as she trusted, put in their hearts a 
persuasion of the truth, through the opening 
of His Word unto them." 

This promise of liberty soon showed itself 
in the terror of a savage despotism. The 
only points which Mary did not succeed in 
winning from the votes of Parliament were 
the abolition of her title of Supreme Head of 
the Church, and the restoration of the lands 
and houses of which the monasteries had been 
robbed ; and these points were held to by the 
determination of the nobles that, let religion 



62 



THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND. 



swing from side to side with every storm that 
blew, they at least would never part, for the 
best or worst doctrine in Christendom, with 
their riches and estates. The Bible and 
Book of Common Prayer were abolished; 
the Statute of Heretics was revived; Cardinal 
Pole returned to England in a Catholic 
triumph, and both Houses of Parliament 
bent upon the knee before him and received 
the absolution of the Pope ; a Bill for the 
reconciliation of England to the Holy See 
swept away every reform of Cranmer under 
her father's and her brother's reign ; married 
priests were placed in the dilemma of re- 
nouncing their wives or their livings ; and 
now, instead of the milder persecution of 
More and Cranmer in the reign of Henry, 
which only asked for silence, and did not 
seek for victims, the very spirit of the Spanish 
Inquisition found a home in this freedom- 
loving England. Persecution ceased to be 
political, and became the offspring of reli- 
gious fanaticism. When Thomas Cranmer, 
the old friend of King Henry, the author of 
all the moderate reforms of the last twenty 
years, the noblest and most truthful of priests, 
the venerable representative of all that was 
best or safest in the Church of England, the 
man whose figure was known in every country 
parish as that which had its place with those 
of Cromwell and the mighty King on the 
frontispiece of the English Bible, — when he 
fell at the stake in Oxford, the hearts of 
thousands were embittered by the iniquity, 
and on every hand humble men and women, 
and even children, were eager to win the 
crown of martyrdom. When the trial of their 
faith came, the Protestants were divided into 
five classes : those like Cranmer, Ridley, and 
Latimer, who felt it their duty to God and to 
the nation to stand on English ground, and 
meekly suffer the consequences of the work 
they had chiefly promoted ; the exiles ; the 
political Reformers, such as Cecil, who could 
" bide their time ; " the zealots, who rushed 
furiously upon the officers who carried out 
the commands of their superiors, and often 
hindered the Christian cause by ribaldry and 
violence ; lastly, those avaricious and un- 
scrupulous statesmen, — the Arundels, the 
Russells,the Pembrokes, — who had no certain 
creed but their own interest. It is to these 
last, and to the "bloody Mary," more than to 
the learned Gardiner and the vulgar Bonner, 
that we must charge the abominable wrongs 
and murders of this the blackest period of 
English history. 

Sir John Cheke. 
One of the saddest stories is that of the 
learned tutor of Queen Elizabeth, the brother- 
in-law of the more renowned Cecil. Having 
obtained his release by the sacrifice of all his 
landed property, he received permission 



63 



to travel for a few years. He was tempted 
to Rome because of its classical associations,, 
but far from its religious atmosphere exerting 
any influence upon his faith, he wrote tc^ 
Cecil, on his way homeward, to " take heed 
how he did in the least warp or strain his 
conscience by any compliance for his worldly 
security." Fine advice in the fair weather of 
exile ! Soon after penning this epistle, he was 
seized by King Philip's orders, between 
Brussels and Antwerp, when on his way to 
England, bound hand and foot, thrown into 
a cart, conveyed across the Channel in a sail- 
ing vessel, and sent to the Tower. He had 
either to comply or burn. It was not suffi- 
cient that the timid man of learning should 
subscribe his assent to the doctrine of the 
Real Presence and the whole list of Romish 
articles, but with that refined spirit of cruelty 
which demanded not only profession but 
evidence of siticerity, he was compelled to 
pronounce two recantations, one before the 
Queen, and one before the Cardinal. Even 
after he had undergone several acts of 
penance, he was not yet released ; and when 
this mercy was granted, it was only to set 
him on the bench with Bonner to assist at 
the trial of the martyrs. His heart was 
broken, and in a few months he died in the 
hospitable home of an old friend, " a prey to 
shame, remorse, and melancholy." 

Rogers, Ridley, Latimer, Etc. 

It is scarcely necessary, even for the 
youngest, that we should recite the many 
and monotonous stories of the Marian 
martyrs, for are they not a.l written in that 
famous book by John Foxe, himself an exile,, 
entitled " The Book of Martyrs"? There we 
read how good John Rogers, known as the 
proto-martyr, was lodged in Newgate among 
thieves, how on the way to Smithfield he met 
his wife and eleven children,—" one sucking 
on her breast," — and yet died constantly and 
cheerfully, unmoved by this " sorrowful sight 
of his own flesh and blood ; " how Miles 
Coverdale, to whom England owed a trans- 
lation of the Bible, was begged from the jaws 
of the lions by the King of Denmark ; how 
good Rowland Taylor knelt in the dark morn- 
ing with his wife and children on the unlit 
streets of London, walked to the quiet Suffolk 
parish where he had often preached with 
faith and fervour, saying at the stake, " I am 
even at home," and gently replying to a wretch 
who threw a faggot at his face, " O friend, I 
have harm enough, what needed that ? " 

One of the first among the men who fell 
when the persecution began in deadly earnest 
in 1555, was the Puritanic bishop, John 
Hooper, taunted by two opponents on the 
bishops' bench as "hypocrite" and "beast." 
The latter he was not, although a married 
priest, like the sage Cranmer, for he was 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



" spare of diet, sparer of words, and sparest 
of time/' and his life was " so pure and good 
that no kind of slander could fasten any fault 
upon him." He was condemned to execution 
for having a wife and rejecting the Romish 
doctrine of the Real Presence. 

At Oxford there perished, within sight of 
Cranmer, who rushed to the housetop to catch 
a glimpse of his beloved fellow-labourers, the 
two bishops, meek Ridley and vehement 
Latimer. " Be of good comfort, Master 
Ridley," cried Latimer, as the flames scorched 
his aged frame ; " play the man ; we shall 
this day light such a candle, by God's grace, 
in England, as I trust shall never be put 
out." 

The light was not extinguished. From 
bishops the Inquisition descended to humbler 
victims, — to men like the old lame painter, 
Hugh Laverock, of Barking, who when he 
was chained, cast away his crutch, exclaiming 
to the blind martyr beside him, " My Lord of 
London is our good physician ; he will heal 
«s both shortly ; " to women like those of 
Guernsey, one of whom gave birth to an 
infant at the stake, which was tossed into the 
flames, and like brave Mrs. Cicely Ormes, of 
Norwich, who kissed the stake with the words, 
^' Welcome the sweet Cross of Christ," and 
perished waving her arms till the sinews were 
stiffened with the flames. 

Cambridge and Canterbury, Lewes and 
Lichfield, Rochester and Stratford-le-Bow, 
and many other spots, have their hallowed ' 
memories of the heroic men, women, and 
children who gladly laid their lives down at 
the stake for what they held to be the truth 
of God ; but there is no place more sadly 
dear in England than the market-square of 
Smithfield, London. We forget the horse- 
fair and the noisy mirth and "ruffian" duels 
of the days of Shakespeare, and think only of 
the grim tragedies enacted opposite the en- 
trance to the church of St. Bartholomew, 
where some strong oak posts and martyrs' 
bones were discovered a little over thirty 
years ago. It was there that Bayfield and 
Baynham fell ; that the noble Frith smiled 
at the brutal parson who declared he was no 
more worth praying for than a dog ; that 
John Lambert raised his mangled hands and 
shouted to the people "None but Christ!" 
In that often mirthful mart, Barnes, Rogers, 
the Scottish exile Rough — group after group 
of plain, "godly, and innocent" men and 
women from the fields of Islington and other 
places — were sacrificed like cattle to the 
insane fanaticism of the " Bloody Mary" and 
the cowardly submission of Gardiner, Bonner, 
and other weak-kneed priests. It is true 



the Protestants of London hanged a cat in 
Cheapside "apparelled like a priest to say 
mass," that they decapitated the image of 
A Becket in that same thoroughfare, and 
that Marian exiles like Bale sent provoking 
slanders from their Continental bowers of 
peace ; but no plea on earth will suffice to 
wipe away the horror of Mary's hand, or 
lessen our indignation against her monstrous 
instruments — such as that Dr. Stover, who 
boasted in the first parliament of Good Queen 
Bess : " I wish that I had done more than I 
did .... I threw a faggot in the face of an 
earwig at Uxbridge as he was singing a 
psalm, and set a bushel of thorns under his 
feet." 

The Recovery. 

This wholesale butchery carried in itself the 
death of the policy of Mary. The fierceness 
of its barbarism begot universal hate ; the 
exiles of Geneva and Frankfort boldly re- 
turned to defy the flames ; and when Mary 
died, it was no wonder that the passion of the 
people kicked priests in the kennels of Lon- 
don, and made her death a subject of triumph. 
In the Maiden Queen, who had not herself 
escaped from the heart-searching tyranny of 
Mary, the people found a sovereign abso- 
lutely untouched by the religious passion of 
Edward and her sister, eager in the truly 
English spirit of her father to raise the love 
of country above the persecuting zeal of 
creeds. She restored the royal supremacy, 
and the hateful Statutes of Heresy were 
abolished. The first Parliament of Elizabeth 
(1559) may be regarded as having really 
closed the door for ever against the hope of 
establishing the supremacy of Rome on Eng- 
lish soil, and this result was greatly due to 
the moderation of its enactments and the 
temperate prudence with which the Act of 
Uniformity was carried out. 

Gradually the work of reconciliation pro- 
gressed until the peace and unity of Eng- 
land was firmly established ; not, indeed, 
without much serious rebellion among the 
Catholics, not without a bold attack from 
Rome by the Bull of Deposition, not without 
a vigorous repression of the Jesuit priests 
who crossed from the Continent and laboured 
hard and boldly to create a Catholic re- 
action. But before this last attempt the 
work of the Reformation was practically 
accompHshed. The Bible had been again 
set free ; and in the reign of Good Queen 
Bess, in the year of our Lord 1563, the 
Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England 
were established by Convocation. 

M. M. 



64 




' Bonnie Prince Charlie." 



OUT IN THE FORTY-FIVE: 

THE STORY OF CHARLES EDWARD, THE YOUNG PRETENDER. 



The Stuarts at St. Germains and in Italy — The "Old Pretender" in Italy— His Matrimonial Difficulties — "My Dear 
Clementina" — The so-called Prince of Wales and Duke of York— Their Love of Music — Prince Charles Edward at the 
Siege of Gaeta — French Encouragement to an Expedition — Collection of a Force at Dunkirk — The Condition of the 
Scottish Highlands — Paying for Peace — The Clan Act — Jacohite Agents — Departure of the Prince for France, and 
Narrow Escape— In Hiding at Gravelines — The Expedition to Scotland — Reception by the Highlanders— Personal 

Influence — "Bonnie Prince Charlie" — At Athol, Linlithgow, and Holyrood — The Battle of Prestonpans Over the 

Border — To Derby and Back Again — Fatal CuUoden — The " Butcher Cumberland" — A Fugitive — Flora Macdon 
— Escape to France — Incognito Visits to England — Death at Florence. 



Macdonald 




The Exiled Stuarts. 

E have heard of a year they call 
the Forty-five, young gentleman, 
when the Southron heads made 
their last acquaintance with Scottish clay- 
mores," said Pate Maxwell, better known as 
Pate-in-Peril, Laird of Summertrees,to young 
Alan Fairford, in Scott's " Redgauntlet." 
It was, indeed, a memorable year, — a great 
chapter in that record of the Stuart race in 



65 



which History and Romance appear to be twin 
sisters. 

Since the memorable flight of James II. in 
December 1688, no Stuart had, in England,, 
been permitted to wear the " round and top of 
sovereignty." James made a desperate effort 
to retrieve his fortunes in Ireland, was de- 
feated at the battle of the Boyne, and after- 
wards, by gracious permission of Louis XIV. 
of France, the Grand Monarque, held a little 
court of his own at St. Germains, where he 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



died on Sept. i6th, 1701. When he quitted 
England, his son, James Francis Edward was 
about six months old. History and romance 
know that son as the Chevalier de St. George 
and as the Old Pretender, and his son, James 
Philip Louis Casimir Thomas Silvester Maria 
'Charles Edward, as Prince Charles Edward 
(he laid aside the heavy load of the six pre- 
ceding names), the Young Pretender, "Bonnie 
Prince Charlie." There had been desperate 
ifighting on behalf of the Old Pretender in 
Scotland in 171 5, and an abortive attempt to 
excite an insurrection in that country by the 
Duke of Ormond in 1719 ; and afterwards 
there were intrigues and private missions, 
spies and multitudinous correspondence, 
double traitors working for each side, Hano- 
verian and Jacobite, swearing fidelity to each 
and deceiving both. Men of brilhant talents 
and high position like BolingbrokeandAtter- 
bury, who had sworn allegiance to the new 
dynasty, reconciled it with their conscience 
to correspond with the Stuart exiles, and 
afterwards to take refuge at their court. 

The Old Pretender. 
Believing in his divine right to the crown 
of Britain, the son of James W. waited with 
patience for the time to come when the 
English should be weary of the Hanoverians, 
and ready to welcome the Stuart as their 
rightful king. He knev/ that his uncle 
Charles had been recalled after long exile, 
that there had been a great reaction in the 
public mind then, and he hoped, indeed con- 
fidently expected, that a second restoration 
was fore-ordained. He possessed many of 
the Stuart characteristics, but not of the 
worst sort. Had he been king de facto, as 
he believed himself to be dejicre^ he might 
probably have more nearly resembled his 
grandfather Charles I., than his own father 
or his profligatebutgenial-mannereduncle the 
second Charles. He lived fora time at Urbino, 
and afterwards at Rome, in the Palazzo Muti 
(now the Palazzo Savorelli), in the Piazza di 
Sant' Apostoli, keeping up a little court, and 
assuming the style of James 111., King of 
Great Britain and Ireland. President de 
Brosses (the French historian and antiquary), 
writing in 1740, in Eltalie il y a Cent Ans, 
describes James as tall and thin, with quite 
the air of the Stuart family, and very like his 
flllegitimate elder brother, James Fitzjames, 
Duke of Berwick, whose mother was Arabella 
Churchill, sister of the great Duke of Marl- 
borough. One point of difference between 
(the brothers is rather unkindly noticed by 
De Brosses — they were much alike, " except 
(that the Marshal's countenance was sad and 
severe, while that of the Pretender was sad 
and silly." This may be explained by the 
consciousness that he was playing a part, 
and found it difficult to reconcile his actual 



surroundings with the assumption of regal 
state. He was, we are told, graceful and 
noble, with dignified manners, very devout, 
and of moderate talents ; " when he sits 
down to dinner, his two sons, before taking 
their places, go and kneel before him and ask 
his blessing. To them he usually speaks in 
English ; to others, in Italian or French." 

The household in the Palazzo Muti was 
dull and decorous, but unhappy. James, with 
Stuart weakness andobstinacy,hadbeen ruled 
by favourites. At first the Earl of Mar, who 
had led the expedition of 171 5, was pre- 
dominant ; but the English Ministers found 
means to gain him over, and he deserted his 
master. Then came Colonel John Hay, 
elevated by James to the phantom dignities 
of Earl of Inverness and Seci-etary of State, 
and his wife and her brother, James Murray. 
It has been insinuated (with perhaps but 
little reason) that the influence of the 
Countess of Inverness was based on more 
than political considerations ; and it is certain 
that the ascendency of this family was so 
objectionable to James's wife, Maria Cle- 
mentina, a daughter of the family of Sobieski, 
that in 1725, seven years after their marriage, 
she left her husband and retired to the Con- 
vent of St. Cecilia at Rome. There are state- 
ments in existence as to the causes of the 
separation, according to which the wife 
accused her husband of infidelity, and he 
retorted by charging her with ill-temper. The 
marriage had been one of inclination, and 
there is a letter extant, written shortly after 
Clementina (the first name was disused) had 
left him, in which there is a curious outburst 
of natural affection, disturbing the formal 
style which James had thought it his duty con- 
sistently with regal dignity to assume. At 
the commencement he addresses his wife as 
" Madam," and he proceeds to say that he 
is " aware from experience that you are 
so prejudiced against whatever originates 
with me as not to listen tome patiently." He 
reminds her that " we have often experi- 
enced anxieties and difficulties, but these I 
should always have endured with greater equa- 
nimity had I not observed them to be oc- 
casioned less by the vivacity of your disposition 
than by your overreadiness to listen to petty 
complaints and insinuations, and to fancy 
yourself hurt in the persons of those who 
have retailed them ; and you cannot but 
recollect with what patience I have for two 
years submitted to your sullen humours, and 
h-ow, when you scarcely would speak to me 
or look at me, I had recourse only to silence.'' 
He assures her that she had at all times 
possessed his undivided affection, and went on 
in a formal strain, with abundant " Madams," 
to complain of her conduct in endeavour- 
ing to intimidate him to dismiss an " able, 
faithful, and laborious minister ;" but in the 



66 



OUT IN THE FORTY-FIVE. 



2ast paragraph his dignity breaks down, he 
addresses her as " my dear Clementina," 
and conjures her not to " resist the last 
efforts of my tenderness, which only awaits 
your return to rekindle, never again to relax 
or cease." 

The Young Princes at Rome. 
The titular Queen seems to have preferred 
the "Madam" to the more affectionate style 
of address, and persisted in her determina- 
tion to remain in the convent ; and for about 
forty years (he died in 1766), James led a 
solitary and saddened life. There were two 
children of this ill-assorted union, — Charles 
Edward, styled Prince of Wales by his 
father and his father's friends, born December 
31st, 1720; and Henry Benedict, born March 
5th, 1725 (shortly before the separation of 
his parents), who became the Cardinal York 
of later history, and the last survivor of the 
direct line of the royal house of Stuart. Of 
these two young men De Brosses says, in 
the work already quoted, " The elder is 
called the Prince of Wales, the younger the 
Duke of York. Both have a family look. 
They are amiable and graceful in their 
manners, both showing but a moderate un- 
derstanding, and less cultivated than princes 
should have been at their age. They are both 
passionately fond of music, and understand 
it well ; the eldest plays the violoncello with 
much skill, the youngest sings Italian airs 
in very good taste. Once a week they 
give an excellent concert, which is the best 
music in Rome. I hear from those who 
know them both thoroughly, that the eldest is 
much beloved by his friends ; that he has a 
kind heart and a high courage ; that he 
feels warmly for his family and misfortunes, 
and that if some day he does not retrieve 
them, it will not be for want of intrepidity. 
They tell me that, having been taken, when 
quite a stripling, to the siege of Gaeta by 
the Spaniards, one day during the voyage 
his hat blew off into the sea. The people 
round him wished to recover it ; but ' No ! ' 
cried he, ' do not take that trouble ; I will 
some day go the same way my hat has gone, 
if things remain as they are.'" He was at 
that time but fourteen years of age, — old 
enough to be well acquainted with the his- 
tory and expectations of his family, and to 
desire above all things to be the means of 
restoring its fortunes. As the Jesuit Giulio 
Cordara— a priest of noble birth and high 
attainments, who wrote a narrative of the 
expedition of 1745 — informs us, the young 
Prince " was reared from his infancy never 
to forego the desire or hope of recovering 
the crown, and even in early youth it was 
his aim to discipline to every kingly art 
those talents and regal endowments with 
which nature had furnished him." As a 



67 



boy he studied the theory of the military 
art, took deliglit in athletic and other manly 
exercises, as a preparation for a military hfe, 
and " urgently besought his father not to 
keep him lounging at home, but to send him 
where he could learn the art of war, as it 
surely was the duty of one born and bred in 
the expectancy of a crown to be a soldier 
ere he became a king, since that was the 
only path that could lead him to substantial 
sovereignty." According to some accounts 
he seems to have been troubled with very 
little education, except such as would fit him 
for a military career. Sir Thomas Sheridan, 
an Irish Roman Catholic, usually styled the 
Chevalier Sheridan, was nominally his tutor ; 
but either he was very neglectful or Charles 
Edward was a very careless pupil, so far, 
at least, as the English language was con- 
cerned ; for the Young Pretender astonished 
his Scottish friends of later times by spelling 
" sword " without the " w," and writing his 
father's Christian name " Gems." It is only 
fair, however, to say that Cordara, probably 
a very partial witness, credits him with a 
good knowledge of the Italian, Latin, English, 
and French languages, and a considei'able 
acquaintance with ancient and modern his- 
tory. His military taste was gratified by 
the permission to accompany to the siege of 
Gaeta iiis uncle, the Duke of Berwick, com- 
mander of the Spanish army, one of the 
most famous generals of the age, and in that 
respect worthy of his relationship to his 
mother's brother, the great Marlborough. 
The impetuous youth was delighted by the 
opportunity of witnessing the operations of 
actual war. " He flew to the lines," says 
Cordara, " and there so entirely devoted 
himself to the duties of a soldier, that, 
though but a novice in his fifteenth year, he 
set an example to the most steady ofScers and 
experienced veterans. Amid heat and dust, 
he galloped about the camp', reconnoitred 
the trenches, mines, and outworks, or, rush- 
ing where the shot fell thickest, was the 
foremost with voice and example to repel the 
enemy's saUies. Although all this somewhat 
disconcerted the Duke, to whom the youth's 
safety had been especially committed, and 
who blamed him for so rashly exposing him- 
self, he could not refrain from admiring such 
gallantry, and holding it up as an example to 
others." 

The Young Pretender. 
As the young Prince approached the 
years of manhood his character developed, 
and his martial tastes ripened. A great 
stake was to be played, no less than a crown 
and he knew that the task of winning it, if it 
were to be won, must devolve on him. His 
father, cold, pedantic, and unadventurous, 
and over fifty years of age, was little likely to 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



expose his own person to the chances of 
war, and Charles felt instinctively that the 
enthusiasm of Scotland and the less excita- 
ble partisanship of England, must be roused 
by an individual appeal. " Come on," not "go 
on," were the words to reach the hearts of 
the people of both countries. The time, too, 
was becoming propitious for an adventure. 
France and England were at war. Old 
Cardinal Fleury, the French minister, who 
had long endeavoured to maintain peace, 
died, in the ninetieth year of his age, in 
January 1743, and his successors were 
Count d'Argenson and Cardinal Tencin, both 
disposed to active measures. Tencin owed 
his Cardinal's hat to the influence of the 
Stuarts, and was devoted to their cause. 
George II. was pledged to support the 
Queen of Hungary, and was preparing to 
lead in person an allied army of English, 
Hanoverian, and Hessian troops across the 
Rhine against France. The French minis- 
ters conceived that an active revival of the 
Stuart claims would embarrass England, and 
that if a descent were made on Scotland, or if 
any part of the English coast were threatened, 
a diversion might be effected which would 
materially affect the position of affairs on the 
Continent ; for King George would be little 
likely to withdraw an army from England 
when his crown was threatened. 

Preparations for an Expedition. 

Early in 1743, Tencin privately communi- 
cated with James Stuart at Rome, urging 
that Prince Charles should set out at once 
for France, so as to be ready to take the 
command of the intended expedition when it 
should be prepared ; but James decided that 
his son's journey should be deferred till the 
preparations were completed, as otherwise 
the British Government would be put upon 
its guard, and. preparations be made for 
defence. The battle of Dettingen, fought on 
the i6th of June, 1743, in which George II. 
defeated the French under Marshal Nouailles 
and the Duke de Gramont, — a victory 
now best remembered as the occasion of 
Handel's magnificent Dettingen Te Deum, — 
hastened the preparations for aiding the 
Stuarts. A force of 15,000 veteran troops 
was assembled at Dunkirk, intended to be 
placed under the command of Marshal Saxe, 
an illegitimate son of the late Frederick 
Augustus, King of Poland, by the Countess 
Von Konigsmark, and at that time the most 
skilful and successful general in the French 
service. Transport ships were collected in 
the Channel, and eighteen sail of the line 
were got ready at Rochefort and Brest to act 
as convoys. On the 23rd of December the 
Old Pretender at Rome received information 
that the expedition was in readiness, and 



signed a proclamation to the British people, 
to be issued immediately on the landing of 
the troops on the British shore, and a com- 
mission appointing his son Prince Regent, 
with full power, in the absence of James 
himself. 

The State of the Highlands. 
It may be well, at this point of the narra- 

• tive, to glance at the position of affairs in this 
country, the state of which may be supposed 
to have encouraged the Jacobites to make 
another attempt to restore the Stuarts. Their 
expectations of success were mainly based on 
the loyalty to the old ideas of the Lowland 
gentry and Highland chiefs of Scotland. In 
17 1 5 there had been no lack of followers of 
the Stuart standard, or of brave gentlemen 
ready to risk property and life for the old 
cause. But the Highlanders were themselves 
divided. The chiefs had their private 
jealousies and quarrels, which not unfre- 
quently were considered of greater importance 
than any national object. When one Mac 
was affronted by another Mac, or fancied he 
was thought more or less of, the private 
quarrel must be adjusted to the satisfaction 
of the chiefs, dhuniwassels, and all the men 
of the rival clans, even if the " king over the 
water " had to wait awhile. In England the 
Stuarts had many friends open and concealed. 
The Hanoverian kings had certainly not 
made themselves attractive or popular. The 
first would not take the trouble to learn to 
speak the English language, was coarse and 
brutal in his manner, and took little trouble 
to conceal his dislike for the people he had 
been called on to rule ; but he was a consti- 
tutional king, and fairly observed his engage- 
ments, however surly he might be. The 
second George was a strutting, fussy, plucky 
little man, a stout soldier at Dettingen, and 
ruled by his wife, who did not ask too many 
questions about Lady Yarmouth or Lady 
Suffolk, and by Sir Robert Walpole and 
other ministers. The shrewd and witty Earl 
of Chesterfield is credited by Horace Walpole 
with the suggestion, " If we have a mind 
effectually to prevent the Pretender from ever 
obtaining this crown, we should make him 
Elector of Hanover, for the people of England 
will never fetch another king from thence." 
The great majority of the English, however, 
were fairly satisfied with things as they were, 
and not disposed to risk a civil war for the 
sake of placing, probably, another James II. 
on the throne. There were old people who 
could well remember the great western assize 
and the terror inspired by Jeffreys, the faith- 
lessness of the last Stuart king, and the 
shouts which greeted the arrival of William 
of Orange. There was a stronger disposition 
to support King Log in possession than 
King Stork in exile with bad family antece- 

6S 



OUT IN TH'E FORTY-FIVE. 



dents. The Hanoverians were little liked 
but the Stuarts less. 

Still less disposed were the mercantile and 
industrious classes to see a rabble of half- 
naked barbarians (for such the Highlanders 
were popularly supposed to be) acting as the 
escort of the Pretender to the throne-room 
at St. James's. The Lowland Scotch were 
not liked in England, and the country beyond 
the Forth was to most Englishmen an unknown 
land. A writer in an early number of the 
Quarterly Review, easily identified as Walter 
Scott, tells us that, " In England the know- 
ledge of the very existence of the Highlanders 
was, prior to 1745, faint and forgotten, and not 
even the recollections of the civil wars which 
they had undertaken in the years 1689, 1715, 



government by appeals to many motives of 
action ; and some of the chiefs of inferior 
power had been dextrously dealt with, as 
Breadalbane and Stair, and afterwards Wal- 
pole, knew how to deal with simple natures 
whom it was advisable to keep quiet. Some of 
the chiefs had been partially educated in 
France, had become acquainted with the ways 
of the world, and a liking for political intrigue 
was as natural to them as physical courage. 
The exiled Stuarts could promise titles and 
high offices to their adherents, and those 
promises attracted some, but English ministers 
could do more than promise, and were ready 
with hard cash. WiUiam HI. entrusted the 
Earl of Breadalbane with ^20,000 to be dis- 
tributed among the Highland chiefs. It was 




Preston Tower, near the Field of Prestonpans. 



and 17 19, had made much impression on the 
British public. Tlie more intelligent, when 
they thought of them by any chance, con- 
sidered them as complete barbarians ; and the 
mass of the people cared no more about them 
than the merchants of New York about the 
Indians who dwelt beyond the Alleghany 
Mountains." 

Statesmen and officials, of course, knew 
more about the real condition of the High- 
land men, their warlike propensities, their 
organization, their clan quarrels, their in- 
domitable courage, their loyalty to old 
traditions, and at the same time their weak- 
ness. The chiefs were proud, but many of 
them were poor. The very great men, the 
dukes and earls of Highland race, had been 
mostly attracted to the support of the existing 



not an easy task to satisfy all. Some asked for 
more ; and, says Scott in the QHarterly3x\\z\Q. 
already quoted, " It has always been supposed 
that the atrocity well-known by the name of 
the massacre of Glencoe, was devised and 
executed to gratify at once an ancient 
quarrel, to silence an intractable chief who 
had been clamorous about the division of the 
peace-offering, and to serve as a measure of 
intimidation to all others." Breadalbane's 
plan was to take the money, do with it what 
he would, and answer no questions. The 
English minister asked him to account for 
the expenditure, and he curtly answered, " My 
lord, the money is spent, the Highlands are 
quiet, and this is the only way of accounting 
between friends." 

So well had the work of pacification, by 



69 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY 



means chiefly of a judicious distribution of 
hard cash, been performed, that when, in 
17 14, the Elector of Hanover was proclaimed 
King of Great Britain as George I., more 
than a hundred " chief heritors and heads 
of clans " in the Highlands prepared, after 
much deliberation, an address to the King, 
which, however, by some court intrigue was 
prevented from being delivered to him ; and 
that fact so irritated many of the chiefs who 
had signed the document, that a year after- 
wards they took part in the rising of 17 15. 
This address, we are assured, expressed 
"the joy of our hearts at Your Majesty's 
happy accession to the Crown of Great 
Britain. . . . Your Majesty's princely virtues 
and the happy prospect we have in your 
royal family of an uninterrupted succession 
of kings to sway the British sceptre, must 
extinguish those divisions and contests which 
in former times too much prevailed, and unite 
all who have the happiness to live under your 
Majestyinto a firm olaedience and loyalty. . . . 
Pardon us, great Sir, to implore your royal 
protection against any who labour to mis- 
represent us, and who rather use their endea- 
vours to create misunderstandings than to 
engage the hearts of subjects to that loyalty 
and cheerful obedience which we owe and 
are happy to testify towards Your Majesty, . . 
Our mountains, though undervalued by some, 
ai-e nevertheless acknowledged to have at all 
times been fruitful in providing hardy and 
gallant men, and such, we hope, shall never 
be wanting amongst us, who shall be ready 
to undergo all dangers in defence of Your 
Majesty and your royal posterity's only 
right to the crown of Great Britain." 

These were fair words ; but within twelve 
months the Highlands were in a blaze of 
rebellion. 

The Highland Clans. 

Then other means were tried, and the 
loyalty of clansmen to their chiefs tampered 
with. Devotion to the head of the clan, the 
hereditary chief, was almost a sacred senti- 
ment. The great clans, or septs, mostly traced 
their origin to some renowned warrior, whose 
character and achievements were in the course 
of ages magnified to stupendous proportions 
by an enthusiastic and imaginative people, 
having Httle intercourse with the outer world. 
The names of these almost mythical heroes, 
whose praises were chanted by bards, their 
exploits growing in picturesqueness and mag- 
nitude with the record of every generation, 
were adopted with additions by the chiefs of 
the clans ; the Highland title of the Argyle 
family, for instance, the heads of the Camp- 
bells, being MacCallum More, "the son of 
the great Colin." The chief of a clan was, 
in virtue of his regular descent, looked upon 
as a father with veneration and in a spirit of 



almost blind obedience. "The clansman, 
who scrupled to save his chief's life at the 
expense of his own was regarded as a coward 
who fled from his father's side in the hour of 
peril. A word would call the Highlandman 
from his cabin and his little patch of land 
on the hill-side, or the tacksman (tenant 
farmer) from his holding, to the side of his 
chief, and neither danger nor death could 
daunt him. In a few hours a chief, or even 
petty chieftain, the head of a branch of the 
main sept, if excited by a political sentiment, 
or offended because some other " Highland 
gentleman" had cocked his bonnet a little 
higher, could assemble a band of bare-legged 
warriors who feared nothing and hesitated 
at nothing. Scott scarcely exaggerated 
when he made a host of armed men spring 
from the ground in reply to the whistle of 
RoderickDhu. This spirit of ready obedience, 
this power of rapidly collecting bands of fierce 
marauders, constituted the real danger of the 
Highlands to the English authority. Half- 
savage hordes of desperate men would appear 
no one exactly knew whence, and if defeated 
would scatter no one knew whither, and 
pursuit was hopeless. 

The Clan Act of 171 5 endeavoured to break 
this bond of feudal union by providing that 
whenever a vassal took part in a rebellion 
his property was to devolve on his liege lord, 
provided the liege lord himself remained quiet; 
and, on the other hand, that a loyal vassal 
was to receive the freehold of his lands from 
a rebellious lord. When, in 1744, the English 
Government had an inkling of the prepara- 
tions going on abroad, the Highlanders were 
ordered to deliver up their arms to General 
Wade, the English commander in Scotland. 
The disaffected clans came forward with a 
numberof rusty firelocks and other unservice- 
able weapons, having carefully hidden those 
likely to be useful, and the well-aftected gave 
up all, so that when the war broke out in 
1745 the latter were defenceless and the 
former well armed. Another Act of Parlia- 
ment relieved vassals from personal atten- 
dance on their chief when summoned for 
purposes of sport, battle, or garrisoning their 
houses ; this duty being substituted by the 
payment of a money rent. Few of the chiefs 
objected to receive the rent ; but when they 
wanted the men summoned them as before; 
and tlie men " did come when they did call 
them," so firmly fixed in their minds was 
the traditionary duty of obedience. A more 
practical measure on the part of the English 
authorities was the construction, with great 
labour and expense, of military roads over 
the Grampians and through the Highlands, 
known as Wade's roads. 

Some of the chiefs were as treacherous as 
they were influential. One whose name is 
familiar to all readers of the history of the 



70 



OUT IN THE FORTY-FIVE. 



times, Simon, Lord Lovat, is perhaps an 
extreme specimen of the class. Eai'ly in hfe 
he was accused not only of high treason, but 
of a terrible outrage perpetrated on an elderly 
woman, daughter of the Duke of Athol, and 
mother of a young lady whose hand Lovat 
had sought in marriage. He absconded ; 
and after skulking for some time in the 
hiding-places of the Highlands, contrived to 
reach St. Germains. Thence he was sent 
to England to prepare the Jacobites for a 
rising ; but he played false, and was conse- 
quently taken into favour by the English 
government, on whose behalf he headed his 
clan in the outbreak of 171 5, and afterwards 
was entrusted with the command of one 
division of the force raised to preserve order 
in the Highlands, known as the Black Watch, 
the origin of the famous Forty-second Regi- 
ment. He was an old man in 1744, but had 
found it convenient again to change his 
principles, and he maintained his callous 
effrontery when he stood on the scaffold on 
Tower Hill. 

Jacobite Agents. 

There were agents of the Stuarts, of many 
kinds and in many disguises, employed in 
England and Scotland to obtain information 
respecting the inclinations and means of the 
Jacobites, to forward confidential reports to 
head-quarters, and act generally as mediums 
of communication with adherents of the 
cause. One of these was Allan Cameron, 
who, after having been so employed in the 
Highlands, had the boldness to proceed to 
Edinburgh, to communicate with the Duke 
of Hamilton, Mr. Lockhart, and other agents 
of James in the south of Scotland. Cameron 
remained some time in Edinburgh, and al- 
though suspected, visited the taverns and other 
places of public resort. He possessed a pecu- 
liar talent, highly appreciated in those days, 
being able to outdrink all he met with, and 
never quitting a tavern till all his boon com- 
panions were dead drunk, so that " he was 
safe going home." From the information he 
obtained he was able to assure James at 
Rome that his friends had not fallen off in 
zeal, and that the people were ripe for another 
attempt ; but it should be made with a 
foreign force, which ought to land in Eng- 
land, and as near London as possible. 
Nothing more could be expected from the 
people of Scotland than a diversion to pre- 
vent the troops stationed there being called 
to England, or to intercept them if they 
marched. To assist them in doing so, a 
small body of foreign troops would be useful, 
and they would be quickly joined by the 
clans. 

The Old Pretender was not very willing 
that the expedition should be undertaken. 
He had almost outgrown ambition, and was 



tolerably happy at Rome. His little state, 
his visits to card-parties, his formal dinner- 
parties, were agreeable to him, and he had 
arrived at a time of life when danger ap- 
pears more dangerous, and peace and quiet- 
ness more acceptable, than when the hot 
blood of youth courses through the veins. 
Besides, he had learned not to trust too 
implicitly to the influence of his name on 
the turbulent chiefs of the Highlands, or of 
the traditions of his family on the spirit of the 
landed gentry ef England ; and had enjoyed 
some experience of the character of his 
selfish and profligate " dear ally," Louis XV. 
of France. After some hesitation he weakly 
released himself from the difficulty by throwing 
the responsibility upon his son, and Charles 
Edward was delighted to accept it. 

Departure of Charles Edward from 
Rome. 

Two English gentlemen, agents of the 
Jacobite party, had reached Rome, one to 
arrange the plan of action, the other provided 
with false passports to facilitate the move- 
ments of the young Prince. One of these 
gentlemen was sent back to France to inform 
Louis of the speedy arrival of Charles Edward^ 
the other to prepare for the journey through 
Genoese territory. On the 9th of January, 
1744, a great hunting party in the Pontine 
Marshes was announced. The two young 
Princes, both distinguished for their love of 
sport, arranged to meet their friends at 
Caserta, about thirty miles from Rome, and 
provisions and material for a fifteen days' 
^//^zj'j'^ were forwarded to that place, with many 
huntsmen and servants. Very early in the 
morning the Prince arose, and ordered his 
carriage to be got ready, and rode in it through 
the gate of San Giovanni, when he professed 
a sudden desire to mount a horse which his 
servant had brought with him, and to ride 
by the Albano road to Cisterna, whither the 
cari'iage was to proceed, saying in a laughing 
manner to Sheridan, who remained in it, 
"Let us see who will arrive there first." 
Away rode the Prince, accompanied by his 
first equerry, Chevalier Stafford, and a Scotch 
servant, both in the secret, and both eminently 
trustworthy. As soon as they were out of 
sight, Stafford was dismissed, and Charles 
Edward and his groom retraced their steps, 
skirted the walls of the city under cover of 
the darkness, and took the road to Florence. 
Shortly after the other party had arrived at 
Caserta, Stafford joined them, and told them 
that the Prince had fallen from his horse, 
and being slightly bruised, would rest for two 
or three days at Abano. The Duke of York 
and Sheridan acted their parts well ; the 
latter protested against leaving the Prince, 
and declared he would ride back and take 



7' 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



care of him, roundly abusing Stafford for 
coming away. But the simulated anger soon 
cooled when he was told with admirable 
gravity that nothing serious need be appre- 
hended from so slight an accident, and that 
to make a fuss about it might greatly alarm 
JCing James. 

Meanwhile the Prince had reached the 
Villa Farnese at Caprarola, the residence of 
iCardinalAcquaviva,the Spanish ambassador, 
who was in the secret, and there he was dis- 
.guised as a courier in the Cardinal's service, 
and then by travelling day and night he 
.reached the Genoese territory. The farce 
was admirably kept up by Stafford, Sheridan, 
and the Duke of York. Stafford returned to 
Albano, and transmitted fictitious messages 



A Narrow Escape. 



Charles Edward, who had joined the Eng- 
lish agent sent in advance, reached Genoa 
(a distance of about 330 miles) at noon on 
the fifth day, having ridden about eighty 
miles a day, no slight feat of endurance, not 
having changed his dress or slept since he 
quitted Rome, nor eaten more than a few 
eggs hastily swallowed by the way Having 
rested for three or four hours, he started in 
a hired carriage for Savona, where he hoped 
to find a small vessel to carry him to Antibes, 
in France, which was impossible to reach by 
land, the Liguarian passes being strongly 
guarded by the King of Sardinia, who was in 
alliance with England, and the coast being 




Carlisle Castle. 



as to the state of the Prince's health, and the 
^'hunt proceeded. Means were taken to inter- 
■ cept letters which might allude to the Prince's 
..absence; the fishermen of Fogliano (the place 
1 to which the hunting party had moved) were 
5'bribed to say nothing about it when they 
.attended the market at Rome ; and presents 
of game were sent to various persons in the 
-Prince's name. When the Prince was fairly 
■on his way, and beyond the reach of inter- 
ference, his departure was made known, and, 
we are told, "great was the bustle, infinite 
the surprise, endless the speculations of the 
R onian public ; but a warm interest in his suc- 
cess, fervent wishes and devout prayers, were 
the veiling tribute of all classes to one whom 
they regarded as the pride and ornament of 
the city." 



watched by a British fleet under Admiral 
Matthews. A great storm prevented the 
arrival of the little vessel, and nothing was 
left for the Prince but to make his way to 
the little seaside village, Finale, to which the 
boat belonged. Having accomplished this, 
he went on board, and succeeded in passing 
Villafranca, where the British fleet was 
lying ; but as he was crossing the bay from 
Monaco to Antibes, his little vessel was 
observed from the mast-head of one of the 
ships, and an armed cutter was despatched 
in pursuit. We find the remainder of the 
adventure so well told that we quote the 
words :—'■'■ The chase was continued into the 
port of Antibes, which they reached together, 
the English insisting that if the Finale boat 
were admitted, they also should be, on pretext 



72 



OUT IN THE FORTY-FIVE. 



of victualling. To get rid of the dilemma, 
the commandant ordered both off, saying 
that he could not give pratique to any boat 
from the Italian coast. Thus repulsed into 
the very jaws of the enemy, Charles with 
difficulty obtained that the English should 
start first, and when they were gone, dis- 
covered himself to the harbour-master, who, 
with many apologies, took him out of the 
Finale boat ere he sent it off again for 
Monaco, whither it was hotly pursued by the 
English cutter. It was not before dusk that 
Charles ventured to leave the harbour, and 
after a few hours' halt, he hurried to Avignon 
by land, whence, after a long consultation 
with the Duke of Ormond, he resumed his 
route to Paris." 



made for the great expedition. The French 
Admiral, Roquefeuille, assumed the command 
of the united Rochefort and Brest squadrons, 
and sailed up the British Channel, with the 
view of ascertaining whether it would be safe 
for the transport ships to venture on the 
passage. With fifteen ships of the line, and 
five frigates, he reached the Isle of Wight, and 
actually came within view of Spithead, where, 
strange to say, they was not an English ship 
lying at the time. Roquefeuille immediately 
sent a swift little vessel to Dunkirk, advising 
Marshal Saxe to embark his troops at once. 
Seven thousand men went on board; the 
Prince hurried from Gravelines, and he and 
Saxe embarked together. Roquefeuille sailed 
round the south coast of England to 




Tkf. Earl of Exeter's House, Derbv, where Chari.ks Euward Lodged. 



The Expedition in the Channel. 

The French capital was reached on the 
20th of January, and the Prince naturally 
expected that he would receive a cordial 
welcome. Louis XV., however, did not 
find it convenient openly to adopt his cause, 
and refused to see him. Lord Elcho, 
Drummond of Bochaldy, and other Scotch 
refugees, warmly received him, and after 
living in concealment for a short time, the 
Prince departed quietly with Drummond for 
Gravelines, from the downs of which he for the 
first time gained a glimpse of the white cliffs 
of England. There he assumed the name of 
the Chevalier Douglas, and remained un- 
recognised. He vvas soon joined by the 
exiled Earl Marshal, and the preparations were 



Dun^ieness, in Kent, where he cast anchor; 
and no sooner had he done so than the 
English Channel fleet, of the whereabouts of 
which he had had no knowledge, appeared in 
sight. The English Admiral, Sir John 
Norris, who had been in the Downs for the 
purpose of adding some ships from the 
Medway to his fleet, was a good sailor and 
brave man, but too slow and methodical for 
great enterprises. He anchored within a 
short distance of the French fleet, thinking 
that, from, the state of the tide and the ap- 
proach of night, it would be better to defer 
the attack until the morning. The French 
Admiral possessed a full share of the prudence 
which Fal staff considered to be "the better part 
of valour," and not caring to encounter a force 
greatly superior to his own, slipped his cables. 



73 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and — while Norris was enjoying his supper 
and grog, or sleeping to recruit his strength 
for the business of the morrow — bore away 
to the French coast. When the morrow 
cam-e there were the waves and the white 
cliffs only to be seen ; the French fleet had 
departed as mysteriously as the "Flying 
Dutchman" of the sailor's legend. A stiff 
breeze, which favoured Roquefeuille, drove 
back the transports ; some of the ships were 
sunk, others got on the coast among rocks 
and sandbanks, and those fortunate enough 
to get back to Dunkirk, suffered considerably 
in masts and rigging. The Prince returned, 
disappointed but not discouraged, to Grave- 
lines. The French Ministers found better 
employment for Saxe, their best general, in 
Flanders, and the troops were recalled. 

The "Chevalier Douglas." 
There was nothing to be done but to wait 
for another chance, " Chevalier Douglas " 
wrote from Gravelines to his father at Rome. 
" Nobody knows where I am, or what is be- 
come of me, so that I am entirely buried as 
to the public, and cannot but say that it is a 
very great constraint upon me, for I am 
obliged very often not to stir out of my room 
for fear of somebody noticing my face. I 
very often think that you would laugh very 
heartily if you saw me going about with a 
single servant, buying fish and other things, 
and squabbling for a penny more or less. 
Eveiybody is wondering where the Prince is ; 
some put him in one place, some in another, 
but nobody knows where he is really, and 
sometimes he is told news of himself face to 
face, which is very diverting." He was chafing 
with impatience, and offered to join the 
French army in Flanders, and fight against 
the English ; but Louis would not permit 
him, and Earl Marshal sagaciously reminded 
him that the worst means he could adopt to 
ingratiate himself with the English people 
would be fighting against them side by side 
with the French. That was an obvious truth, 
but the Prince would not see it, and com- 
plained bitterly to his father of the restraint 
placed on him. He shortly afterwards re- 
turned to Paris, in obedience to the wish of 
Louis, and lived for about a year in conceal- 
ment in a small house some distance from 
the capital. 

Departure from Franxe. 
His friends in Scotland and England were 
not idle. There was a secret association, 
having head-quarters at Edinburgh, of Scotch 
Jacobites of rank and influence. Lord James 
Drummond (commonly called Duke of 
Perth) ; his uncle. Lord John Drummond ; 
Lord Traquair ; Sir James Campbell, of 
Auchinbreck ; John Stuart, brother to Lord 
Traquair ; Cameron of Lochiel ; and as able 



and daring as any, if far less reputable, old 
Simon, Lord Lovat. English sympathisers^ 
too, were watching opportunity. The oppor- 
tunity came. The English got the worst of 
the fight at Fontenoy, near Tournay, in. 
Flanders, on the 30th of April, 1745, and the 
French had gained other, if small, successes. 
Charles Edward hastened to Paris, hoping 
to obtain funds ; but although the Ministers 
were quite willing to countenance his 
schemes, cash was not forthcoming. A 
diversion in Scotland might be favourable 
to French plans, but would not be worth any 
great sacrifices. The Prince was told by his 
Scotch friends that it would be useless for 
him to attempt the adventure unless he could 
bring with him 6,000 good troops, 10,000. 
stands of arms, and some money. He replied 
that come he would ; he had no troops, but 
he could borrow about ^13,000, and that he 
would send to Rome for his jewels and pawn 
them. " For our object," he said, — and 
perhaps he thought some value attached to 
the resolve,—" I would even pawn my shirt. " 
To his father he wrote, " Your Majesty can- 
not disapprove a son's following the example 
of his father. Let what will happen, the 
stroke is struck ; and I have taken a firm 
resolution to conquer or die." He asked for 
help from Spain, but with no result. Then 
he left Paris, where he had ceased to assume 
any incognito, and took up his residence at 
the Chateau de Navarre, near Evreux, the 
seat of one of his warmest friends, the young 
Duke de Bouillon. His great object was ta 
obtain a vessel, which the French govern- 
ment declined to furnish him with ; and he 
was fortunate enough to meet with two 
persons, named Rutledge and Walsh, of 
Irish extraction and the sons of refugees, 
who had added to the more legitimate 
occupation of trading as West Indian mer- 
chants the lucrative business of privateering. 
By their aid a passage was arranged. 
Rutledge had obtained from the French 
Court the grant of a man-of-war, the 
Elizabeth, to cruise on the coast of Scotland ; 
and on board that vessel the Prince placed 
all the war material he had been able to. 
accumulate, — 1,500 fusils, eighteen broad- 
swords, twenty small field pieces, and some 
powder, ball, and flints. This armament 
was small indeed for the purpose — that pur- 
pose being no less than the conquest of a 
powerful kingdom; but it was "his all." 
His friend Walsh provided a fast-sailing 
brig, the Dojitelle, carrying eighteen guns,, 
which went round to the mouth of the Loire ; 
and there, on the 2nd of July, received the 
Prince, who wore the dress of a student of 
the Scotch College at Paris, and allowed his 
beard to grow, the better to conceal his 
identity from the crew, who were led to 
believe that they were about to engage in an 



1 



74 



OUT IN THE FORTY-FIVE. 



ordinary privateering expedition. All the 
money Charles Edward possessed amounted 
to about ^3,000. 

A Naval Combat. 
The two ships sailed together from Belle 
Isle ; and in a very short time the Prince 
was prostrated by sea-sickness. He believed 
he could rule Britannia, but was little 
qualified to rule the waves. They had been 
at sea about four days, when they en- 
countered an English vessel of fifty-eight 
guns, the Lion, commanded by Captain 
Brett, who, in true EngHsh fashion, did not 
stay to reckon odds, but at once attacked 
the French ships. The Danielle left the 
Elisabeth to do the fighting, and made sail 
for Scotland. For about six hours the two ships 
pounded away at each other, and then both 
were so disabled that the fight ceased, 
leaving victory an open question. The 
French commander judged that the best 
course he could adopt was to return to 
France, and so he did as speedily as the 
shattered condition of his ship would permit, 
taking with him, however, the guns, the 
dozen and a half broadswords, the field 
pieces and ammunition provided for the 
expedition. 

"The Seven Men of Moidart." 
The Doutelle did not proceed unquestioned. 
Two days after she had quitted her com- 
panion and champion, she was pursued by 
an English ship of superior force, but was 
saved by her quicker sailing, and reached the 
Hebrides, casting anchor off the little island 
of Erisca, between Barra and South Uist. 
An eagle hovered over the ship (eagles were 
no novelty in western Scotland and the 
isles), and the Marquis of TuUibardine, one 
of the seven personal friends who accom- 
panied the Prince, exclaimed, " Here is the 
king of birds come to welcome your Royal 
Highness to old Scotland ! " The seven 
faithful adherents were TuUibardine (who 
would have been Duke of Athol, but for the 
bar of attainder consequent on his taking 
part in the rising of 1715, and was generally 
known by that title in the Highlands) ; Sir 
Thomas Sheridan ; Sir John Macdonald, an 
officer in the Spanish service ; Buchanan, 
who had been employed by Cardinal Tencin 
in the secret negotiation with the Pretender's 
family at Rome ; Eneas Macdonald, a banker 
of Paris, and brother of Kinloch of Moidart, 
a local chief; an English gentleman named 
Francis Strickland ; and Kelly, a nonjuring 
clergyman, who had been mixed up in the 
plots in which Bishop Atterbury engaged. 
This little band were afterwards widely 
known as "the seven men of Moidart." 

The Prince went on shore on the rocky 
island Erisca, assuming in the presence of the 
tacksman, or agent, the character of an Irish 



priest, and sent a message to MacDonald of 
Boudale, uncle of the MacDonald of Clan- 
ronald, the lord of the little group of islands. 
The shrewd old Scotchman at once declared 
that it was nothing short of madness for the 
Prince to persevere in the expedition, being 
so entirely unprovided, and flatly told him 
that Sir Alexander MacDonald and Mac- 
Leod, of MacLeod, twoleadingmenofthelsle 
of Skye, and on whose assistance the Prince 
had depended, had both declared they would 
not join him unless he brought with him a 
body of regular troops. Nothing discouraged, 
Charles Edward crossed to the mainland, 
and the Doutelle came to anchor in the bay 
of Lochnanaugh, between Moidart and 
Arisaig. MacDonald of Clanronald, and a 
kinsman, MacDonald of Kinloch Moidart, 
waited on him, and while professing their 
loyalty, endeavoured to impress on him a 
sense of the imprudence he was committing. 
The Prince noticed that a younger brother 
of Kinloch Moidart was listening eagerly to 
what passed, and exhibiting traces of emotion 
and nervous excitement, and with ready tact 
addressed himself to him : " You, at least, 
will assist me ? " The young man answered 
with eagerness, " I will, I will ; though no 
other man in the Highlands should draw a 
sword, I am ready to die for you!" His 
words sounded the first note of that marvellous 
outburst of enthusiasm and devotion which 
has scarcely a parallel in history. The other 
MacDonalds forgot the prudent counsel, and 
excitedly vowedthatthey wouid take up arms 
instantly and endeavor to engage every man 
who wore the tartan to do the same. 

The Young Chevalier in Scotland. 
The Prince remained on board th.Q Doutelle 
for three days ; and then, on the 25th of July, 
he set his foot for the first time on the main- 
land of Scotland. The Skye chiefs still held 
back; but the Glengarries and others hurried 
to the shore to greet him. Rapidly indeed, 
the enthusiastic feeling spread ; and very many 
years afterwards a word about the Prince 
would lighten the eyes and loose the tongues 
of Highlanders and Lowlanders alike. It 
must have been nearly fifty years afterwards 
when Caroline, Baroness Nairne, one of the 
most charming of Scotch poetesses, caught up 
the strain, and sang, — 

" The news from Moidart cam' yestreen, 
Will soon gar mony ferlic, 
For ships of war have just come in, 

And lanr'^id royal Charlie. 
Come thro .lie heather, around him gather, 

Ye'r a' the weleomer early ; 
Around him cling wi' a' your kin, 
For wha'U be king but Charlie ? 
Come thro' the heather, around him gather, 
Come Ronald, come Donald, come a' 

thegether. 
And crown your rightfu', lawfu' king 1 
For wha'll be king but Cnarlie ?" 



75 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Letters and messengers were despatched 
in every direction to summon the chiefs to 
meet the Prince, who took up his quarters at 
Borodale, a farm-house belonging to young 
Clanronald. Cameron, of Lochiel, — " the 
gentle Lochiel," the Bayard of the Highlands, 
— the Lochiel who, according to Campbell, 
was bidden by the wizard to " beware of the 
day when the foeman shouldmeet him in battle 
array," — was one of those who responded to 
the call, and, like others, at first considered 
the entei'prise most rash and ill-advised ; 
but the Prince was resolute, and his gallant 
bearing and handsome mien exercised an 
almost magnetic influence. Lochiel, whom 
he had been taught to consider one of his 
firmest friends, might if he chose stay at 
home, and " learn from the newspapers the 
fate of his Prince ; " but," said Charles 
Edward, " in a few days, with the few friends 
I have, I will erect the royal standard, and 
proclaim to the people of Great Britain that 
Charles Stuart is come over to claim the 
crown of his ancestors, or perish in the 
attempt." Lochiel was mastered, his chival- 
rous nature responded to the brave words, and 
he exclaimed, " No ! I will share the fate of 
my prince, and so shall every man over 
whom nature or fortune hath given me any 
power ! " The Prince then invited all who 
had gathered around him to a feast. The 
food was neither very rich nor very abundant, 
little more than frugal farm-house fare ; but 
it was enjoyed as if the occasion were a 
veritable symposium. Men, women, and 
children, we are told, crowded round the 
place to catch a glimpse of the Prince, and 
the chiefs drank cups of wine to the Gaelic 
toast, DeocJis laint ati Reogh I " God save 
the King!" 

"Charlie is My Darling." 
Doubtless some of the extraordinary per- 
sonal influence exercised by the Prince was 
due to his charm of manner and striking ap- 
pearance. Physical qualities were always 
highly appreciated by the Highlanders. " The 
Young Chevalier " was tall and well-formed, 
athletic and active. Manly amusements had 
developed his frame. He was a good shot, 
dextrous at martial exercises, a good fencer 
and dancer, and a walker of exceptional 
powers. The Highland chiefs found in him 
a leader who could march over the mountains 
and moorlands with a step as elastic as their 
own, and whose high bearing gave a warrant 
of the manly courage so de?r to the race. 
His features were strikingly handsome, his 
face oval, and his complexion ruddy. He 
did not, as the fashion was, wear a wig ; but 
his fair hair fell in curls about his neck. 
Added to these graces of body was a fine 
courtesy of manner, dignified, but yet familiar 
and kindly, which won all hearts. The 



Highland bards compared him to one of the 
Ossianic heroes ; the chiefs pronounced him 
to be "a pretty man," giving the Highland 
meaning of strong and active to the epithet ; 
the women, young and old, fell in love with M 
him. Who originated the verse, — fl| 

"Oh ! Charlie is my darling, 
My darling, my darling. 
Oh ! Charlie is my darling, 
The Young Chevalier," 

will never perhaps be known ; but the verse 
rang in Scotch ears for half-a-century or 
more, and was the refrain of verses by 
several poets. Burns supplied a version which 
he picked up somewhere — if he wrote it it 
does not appear in his collected works ; the 
Baroness Nairne, the Ettrick Shepherd, and 
Captain Charles Gray, wrote verses full of 
life and enthusiasm on the old theme. 

News of the arrival of the Prince soon 
reached the English authorities. Two com- 
panies of infantry were sent to reinforce the 
garrison at Fort William, but were attacked 
by a party of the Glengarry Highlanders and 
others, and taken prisoners. The general 
rendezvous of the clans who hurried to join 
the Prince was at Glenfinnan, a narrow 
valley between lofty mountains. There, in a 
shepherd's hut, the Prince awaited his friends. 
On the 19th of August, Lochiel arrived with 
about 600 followers, fine men, well armed ; a 
standard made of white, blue, and red silk 
(" the red, white, and blue," is not, it will be 
seen, averymodern combination) was unfurled 
by Tullibardine; and a manifesto from James 
and his commission of regency were read. 
Then Charles addressed the chiefs, and the 
clansmen, who probably did not understand 
a word he said, but could understand the 
expression of his face and his gestures, shouted 
and threw up their bonnets. A marble 
column now marks the spot where the stan- 
dard was raised. Before the day closed, Mac- 
Donald of Keppoch arrived with 300 men, 
and a detachment of the MacLeods followed ; 
and on the morrow the little but gradually 
increasing force moved southward. Before 
a couple of days had elapsed, the Prince was 
at the head of about 1,600 men, all ready to 
respond with Highland vigour to the question, 
" Wha wad na fecht for Charlie ? " 

English Preparations. 
When the news reached London, Ministers 
took measures to meet the danger, which did 
not seem to be very alarming. As a first 
step a reward of ^30,000 was offered for the 
Prince's apprehension ; but they hesitated, 
as the King was in Hanover, to send more 
troops to Scotland, although Sir John Cope, 
the English commander there, asked for re- 
inforcements. Cope concentrated his forces 
near Stirling ; and then the Marquis of 
Tweeddale, Secretary of State for Scotland, 



76 



OUT IN THE FORTY-FIVE. 



and the Lords of the Regency, ordered him to 
march into the Highlands. With about 1,500 
infantry and four field-pieces, Cope set out 
from Stirling for Crieff, intending to reach 
Fort Augustus, one of the three forts built to 
curb the Highlands. He left his cavalry, 
the dragoons commanded by Gardiner and 
Hamilton, behind, the country to be traversed 
being almost inpracticable to horsemen. The 
General thought that he would be joined by a 
considerable force of loyal subjects at Crieff, 
but none appeared. He received information 
that the Prince's forces intended to oppose 
him at Corryarrak, an immense mountain, 



Highlanders would have pursued, but the 
cooler leaders saw the advantage that had 
been gained. Cope had gone northwards, 
and the road to Stirling and Edinburgh 
was open. Highlanders continued to join 
the Prince's standard — not the less eagerly, 
some said, because there was now a prospect 
of a profitable raid on the Lowlands. Blair 
Castle was reached on the 30th of August, 
and the Whig Duke having fled, Tullibardine 
took possession as rightful owner, and grandly 
feasted the Prince and his friends. James 
Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, — one of those 
who inherited the poetic traditions of the 




Flora Macdonald. 



traversed by a steep and extremely difficult 
military road, between him and Fort Augustus. 
His most experienced officers warned him of 
the danger of attempting to cross the moun- 
tain, when even a very small force of High- 
landers could bar his way and inflict great 
damage ; and the astute President Duncan 
Forbes advised him, from his knowledge of 
the locality, that disaster awaited him. Cope 
was either amazingly obstinate or afraid to dis- 
obey Tweeddale's orders. At Dalwhinnie the 
Highlanders were seen on the hills, and then 
Cope, realizing the difficulties of his situation, 
abandoned the zig-zag military road, and 
directed his march towards Inverness. The 



Jacobite times — has commemorated the 
gathering at Athol in memorable verses : — 
' ' Cam' ye by Athol, lad wi' the philabcg, 

Down by the Tummel or banks of the Garry, 
Saw ye our lads wi' their bonnets and white cockades, 

Leaving their mountains to follow Prince Charlie? 
Follow thee ? follow thee ? who wadna follow thee ? 

Long hast thou loved and trusted us fairly ! 
Charlie, Charlie, wha wadna follow thee. 

King of the Highland hearts, bonnie Prince 
Charlie? " 

On the 4th of September the Prince arrived 
at Perth. His money was spent. It is stated 
that he had only one Lonis-d'or left ; but he 
gaily remarked he would soon get more. 
Armed parties were sent through Angus and 



77 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Fife, and having proclaimed King James, the 
English public money was seized and taxes 
levied. The city of Perth gave ^500 ; and 
some ardent adherents in Edinburgh and 
other places advanced money, to be repaid 
when the " King should come to his own 
again." A ball was given to the ladies in a 
large old mansionbelongingto Lord Stormont, 
and there the handsome young Prince showed 
that he could dance admirably, and the 
" bonnie Charlie" was bonnier than ever. 
James Drummond, known to the Jacobites 
as the Duke of Perth, joined the Chevalier, 
and so did a much more important adherent, 
Lord George Murray, a brother of Tulli- 
bardine, who had "been out" in 1715, — a 
soldier of great experience and ability, who, 
although he had been pardoned by the 
English Government and allowed to live 
peaceably on his estates, could not resist the 
call to support "the cause;" but who soon 
quarrelled with Sheridan and others, for 
whom he expressed, with little reserve, great 
contempt. A printing press was set up at 
Perth, and a burlescfue reward of ^30 offered 
for " the apprehension of the Elector of 
Hanover." 

On the nth of September the Highland 
army left Perth, and on the next day pushed 
on to Dunblane, and thence to the Firth of 
Forth, which they prepared to cross at Frew, 
where the river is fordable at low water. About 
eight miles above Stirling, Gardiner's dra- 
goons were on the opposite bank ; but at the 
sight of the Highlanders they retreated to- 
wards Leith. The river was crossed, Stirling 
Castle passed,the famous field of Bannockburn 
traversed, and Falkirk reached, the Prince 
passing the night at Callendar, the seat of 
the Earl of Kilmarnock. Lord George 
Murray, with a thousand Highlanders made 
a rapid march to Linlithgow, hoping to 
come up with the dragoons, but the valiant 
horsemen preferred to hurry away when they 
heaid John Highlandman was coming. 

At Linlithgow and Edinburgh. 
On the evening of Sunday the TJth of 
September, the Prince took up his quarters 
in the old royal palace so intimately associ- 
ated with his ancestors of the kingly house 
of Stuart, within sixteen miles of Edinburgh, 
where a panic reigned. Volunteers were 
enrolled, mostly tradesmen and young 
students, animated by the best intentions, but 
extremely deficient in military knowledge. 
Some efforts were hurriedlymade tostrengthen 
the walls, and application was made to 
General Guest, the commandant at the Castle, 
for assistance ; but the garrison was small, and 
he could not spare a man. The Highlanders 
were the " bogies " of the peaceful Edinboro' 
folk, and the most terrible consequences were 
predicted to follow should they enter the 



town. The Prince sent a messenger to the 
city to tell the people that, if they admitted 
him peaceably all would be well, but other- 
wise, they must make up their minds for the 
worst. At Colt's Bridge, on the road to 
Corstorphine, now almost a suburb of Edin- 
burgh, Gardiner had posted a detachment of 
dragoons, but they retreated, at first leisurely, 
but afterwards with great rapidity, and the 
" canter of Colt's Bridge" was for long after- 
wards a popular jocular reference. Very ex- 
aggerated estimates of the Prince's force were 
made, and the Provost resolved to send a de- 
putation which could only bring back a reply 
that the Prince demanded to be received into 
the city as the representative of his father the 
lawful king, and that he would only wait a few 
hours for their answer. A second' deputation 
was sent, but the Prince would not see the 
messenger, who returned in a desponding 
state. Some of the Highlanders reached 
Edinburgh before them, and when the old 
gate of the Netherbow was opened to allow 
their coach to pass, Lochiel and 800 High- 
landers rushed in. 

Edinburgh was won, and the officials were 
compelled to proclaim, in high state, with 
heralds in their showy dresses, King James, 
at the Market Cross, to read the commission 
from James, and the manifesto of the young 
Prince. Chiefly through the exertions of 
Lochiel, the Highlanders were kept from 
plundering, and even, it is said, from drinking 
whisky. In the evening Holyrood was lighted 
up, and in the long gallery, adorned with 
that wonderful collection of manufactured 
portraits of a hundred Scottish kings (the 
hundred a very unhistorical number), " each 
and every one painted with a nose like the 
knocker of a door,'' according to Scott, the 
Prince gave a ball, well attended, for there 
was a strong latent element of Jacobitism in 
the old city, and the ladies were delighted 
with the gracious manners and graceful 
dancing of the young Chevalier. 

Cope had landed with his troops, artillery, 
and stores, at Dunbar, and on the 19th of 
September, started for Edinburgh, moving 
slowly along the main road, and encountering 
no opposition. He and his officers appear to 
have thought that the Pretender's forces would 
advance and meet them ; but the High- 
landers liked to fight in their own fashion. 
While Cope was advancing in regular military 
order, the Highlanders were making their 
way over the hills ; and when the English 
general had reached Prestonpans, near Seaton, 
and about ten miles from Edinburgh, the 
hostile forces came in sight of each other. 
The Prince had been joined by the Earl of 
Kellie, Lord Balmerino, Sir Stewart Threip- 
land. Sir David Murray, and some other 
Lowland gentlemen. More Highlanders had 
arrived in hot haste ; and Sir Walter Scott 

78 



OUT IN THE FORTY-FIVE. 



relates how one of the chiefs, Grant of Glen- 
moriston, rushed into the Prince's presence 
at Holyrood with unceremonious speed, 
without having attended to the duties of his 
toilet. The Prince, who was disposed to 
insist a little on etiquette in a royal palace, 
received him kindly, but not without a hint 
that a previous interview with the barber 
would have been advantageous. " It is not 
beardless boys," answered the displeased 
chief, " who are to do your Royal Highness's 
turn." 

The Battle of Prestonpans. 
Between the Prince's army and Cope's was 
a swamp, which did not appear to be passable, 
and for the remainder of the day both sides 
were inactive. But in the night, Robert 
Anderson, a Jacobite livinginthe neighbour- 
hood, undertook to show a way by which 
the morass could be crossed. The passage 
was accomplished before daylight ; and then 
followed the battle of Prestonpans, the defeat 
of Cope, and the death of the pious and brave 
Colonel Gardiner. The fight was short, but 
the victory was complete. The dragoons 
displayed their customary talent at running 
away. The infantry, appalled by the tremendous 
onslaught of the Highlanders with their clay- 
mores, surrendered by hundreds ; eighty officers 
were taken prisoners, and the tents, baggage, 
and military chests fell into the hands of the 
Prince's troops, whose loss was very slight. 
The Prince remained on the field till mid-day, 
giving orders for the relief of the wounded on 
both sides, and slept that night at Pinkie 
House. He found ^1,500 in Cope's military 
chest ; and as his troops had shown con- 
siderable alacrity in obtaining money, pro- 
visions, stores, and arms, from the towns- 
people and others, he was fairly well provided. 
The castle held out, and the commandant. 
Guest, even fired into the town, and did 
some damage. On his return from Pinkie, 
the Prince made a triumphant entry into 
Edinburgh, Highlanders firing into the air to 
show their joy ; and night after night there 
were gay doings at Holyrood. 

Parliament met on the i8th of October, 
and there was, of course, great excitement in 
England. The merchants of London sub- 
scribed large sums for the equipment of 
troops, and regiments were raised in various 
parts of the country. Dutch and Danish 
troops came over, and the Duke of Cumber- 
land (" the butcher," as he was afterwards 
called) arrived from Flanders to take the 
chief command. On his part, the Prince 
issued proclamations denouncing the English 
" pretended Parliament," and declaring that 
the Act of Union was abolished. A French 
ship arrived with money, experienced officers, 
about 5,000 stands of arms, and M. de 
Boyer, who brought letters of congratulation 



from Louis XV. The Prince formed a 
regular Council of State ; he was joined by 
other Highland chiefs, a.nd by the end of 
October was at the head of nearly 6,000 men, 
tolerably well appointed. 

White Cockades over the Border. 
On the 1st of November began the march 
to England. Nearly a thousand more High- 
landers joined the standard, and the army 
was divided into two columns — the first, with 
the baggage, artillery, etc., to move upon 
Carlisle ; the second, headed by Charles 
himself, to enter England by way of North- 
umberland, and meet General Wade, the 
English commander, who was posted at 
Newcastle. Many Highlanders deserted 
before the border was reached, but the 
greater number were faithful and enthu- 
siastic. Fifty years afterwards, the "screed" 
of the bagpipes seems to have rung in the 
ears of Baroness Nairne, who caught the 
tone of the wild music, and Avrote as if she 
had seen the white cockades on the march, 
and the gallant Charlie himself with all his 
brave surrounding : — 

" Wi' a hundred pipers, an a', an a,' 
Wi' a hundred pipers, an a', an a,' 
We'll up, and we'll gi'e them a blaw, a blaw, 
Wi' a hundred pipers, an a', an a'. 

" It is ower the border, awa', awa', 
It is ower the border, awa', awa'. 
Oh, we'll on, an' we'll march to Carlisle Ha ! 
Wi' its getts, its castel, an' a', an a'. 

" Oh, wha is the foremaist o' a', an' a' ? 
Who is it first follows the blaw, the blaw ? — 
Bonnie Charlie, the King o' us a', an" a', 
Wi' his hundred pipers, an' a', an' a'." 

The border was crossed, Carlisle was taken 
with little difficulty, and the Prince entered 
in triumph, but received rather a cold wel- 
come. Already dissensions and jealousies 
were breaking out in his army, and there 
were divided counsels. Some of the leaders 
advocated a direct march southwards, in 
assurance that the Lancashire men would 
join the standard ; others thought that 
General Wade should be attacked at New- 
castle ; and not a few advised a return to 
Scotland, as there were no signs of assistance 
from France. The last course would be 
attended with difficulties. Edinburgh had 
been reinforced ; the Highland Whigs were 
mustering their forces ; Glasgow, Paisley, 
Dumfries, Dundee, and other great towns 
declared for King George. Marshal Wade 
had collected a strong force and was march- 
ing against Carlisle, and the Duke of Cumber- 
land was at Lichfield, Liverpool and Chester 
were arming, and the former town furnished 
a very important addition to Cumberland's 
forces. 

Back Again ! 



79 



It is not necessary to relate all the move- 
ments of the Princes' divided, quarrelsome 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and partially despondent army. Preston, 
Wigan, and Manchester were reached, and at 
Derby the southward march was ended. The 
leaders saw that the expedition had failed, 
and a retreat was decided on. Cumberland 
was advancing with a large army, including 
many veterans of Dettingen and Fontenoy, 
and Marshal Wade was on the move. The 
retreat began with some appearance of order, 
but soon assumed the character of a disas- 
trous flight. The Highlanders robbed vil- 
lages and farmhouses, and there were many 
small fights between them and the country 
people. Major-General Oglethorpe, with a 
detachment of Wade's army, harassed the 
fugitives ; and Cumberland was in full pur- 
suit. On the 2oth of December, the Prince, 
with a fragment of his army, a mere rabble, 
crossed tlie Esk and was once more in 
Scotland. 

Then followed the light at Falkirk,— the 
Prince's troops having been strengthened and 
probably re-organized, — in which General 
Hawley, the English commander, was shame- 
fully defeated— " ran away," say the Jacobite 
song writers and anecdotists ; the retreat 
from Stirling, and at length the culminating 
disaster. The resolute, pitiless Cumberland 
was on the trail ; and at Drummossie Moor, 
better known as CuUoden, near Inverness, on 
the i6th of April, struck a blow which ended 
the rebellion. Of the friends of Charles there 
perished on that terrible day, either in action 
or in the pell-mell retreat, nearly 2,500. The 
fugitives were hunted down like wild beasts, 
the wounded were massacred in cold blood, 
women and children were killed, and for three 
months there was a "war of extermination." 

The Young Chevalier a Fugitive. 

Charles Edward himself, no more a gallant 
Prince at the head of an enthusiastic army, 
but a miserable fugitive, wandered for five 
months, trusting to the fidelity of his friends 
for concealment and safety. He hid for 
some time amid the little islands of the 
Hebrides, at times almost starved, and 
suffering terrible privations ; and when 
English ships appeared off the islands, and 
English soldiers landed to search for the 
fugitive, he escaped, disguised in woman's 
clothes, with the aid of a brave young lady. 
Flora Macdonald, whose name lives in legend 
and song. He reached Skye in safety, but 
the generous Flora was captured and taken 
prisoner to London. The Prince reached 
the mainland, was hidden for a time in a 
cave on the great mountain of Corado, 
between Kintail and Glenmoriston, protected 
by Highland " sheep-lifters," thieves by pro- 
fession, but not one unfaithful to his trust. 

Escape to France. 
At length, on the 13th of September, 



Charles Edward left the cave, having received 
a message to the effect that two French 
frigates were off the coast. Several of his old 
friends had also been communicated with ; 
and on the 20th of the month, he, with 
Lochiel, and about a hundred others, em- 
barked at Lochnanaugh, the very spot where 
fourteen months before he had landed so full 
of ambition and hope. He reached Paris 
and was well received ; but the cause of the 
Stuarts had received its deathblow. Some 
of his adherents were beheaded on Tower 
Hill, others of meaner sort were hanged. 
Feeble attempts to revive the Stuart cause 
were made from time to time, but the gallant 
young Chevalier soon became almost a 
legendary hero. Stuart selfishness, Stuart 
duplicity, Stuart profligacy, developed in his 
character. His friends fell away. English 
gentlemen would not risk their lives for a 
man who would not dismiss a mistress who 
had intimate relations with the Court of King 
George. It is believed that he more than 
once visited London secretly ; indeed, Dr. 
King, a warm adherent of the Stuarts, has 
left it on record that he met him in private at 
the house of a lady of rank. Some writers 
have averred that he was present at the 
coronation of George III. ; and the King 
himself was able to inform his Ministers, 
some years afterwards, that the young Pre- 
tender was in London. " Leave him to 
himself," added the monarch, " and when he 
tires he will go back again." 

" Let us," wrote Scott in the Quarterly, 
"be just to the memory of the unfortunate. 
Without courage, he had never made the 
attempt ; without address and military talent, 
he had never kept together his own desultory 
bands, or discomfited the more experienced 
soldiers of his enemy ; and finally, without 
patience, resolution, and fortitude, he could 
never have supported his cause so long under 
successive disappointments, or fallen at last 
with honour, by an accumulated and over- 
whelming pressure." The story of Charles 
Edward has almost created a literature. The 
Jacobite songs, unsurpassed for fire and en- 
thusiasm, form a volume in themselves ; and 
to "The Forty-five," we owe the Waverley 
Novels. 

There died at Florence, on the 31st of 
January, 1788, in his 68th year, a bloated, 
brutal, profligate man, an habitual drunkard, 
who had beaten and ill-treated his young 
wife, a Princess of Stolberg Guendern, and 
who seemed capable only of exhibiting affec- 
tion for one person, his illegitimate daughter, 
whom he styled Duchess of Albany. That 
unhappy man, who attracted no friends, a 
reprobate and a sot, was the last Stuart who 
chiimed the throne of England — " Bonnie 
Prince Charlie." 

G. R. E. 



%o 




Old London Bridge in the Eighteenth Century. 



WILKES AND LIBERTY 

THE STORY OF A POPULAR VICTORY. 



A Great Diplomatist and an Important Meeting— John Wilkes, the Best-abused Public Man of his Time— State of Affairs 
at the Death of George II. — The New King; His Ideas of Royal Prerogative— A King's Favourite; A Singular 
Prime Minister— A Lesson to Royalty— The Minister and his Novel Policy— A Government Press— The Briton and 
the Auditor^-^Wk&'i and his Early Career; The Medmenham Monks— TA^ North Briton; The Famous Forty-fifth 
Number— General Warrant— Wilkes Committed to the Tower— Liberation of Wilkes; His First Triumph— Churchill 
— Lord Temple— Successful Actions— Personal Animosity of the King; Prosecution for a Profligate Book— Culprit 
and Accusers— "Jemmy Twitcher"— A Duel— Expulsion from Parliament— Public Agitation — Rockingham Ad- 
ministration—Middlesex Elections — Wilkes a Popular Hero— Persecution and its Consequences— Important Questiori. 
—Freedom of Election- Release of Wilkes— His Return and Triumphs— His Last Years— Conclusion. 




A Great Diplomatist and an Important 
Meeting. 
jHAT fussiest and most indefatigable 
of men in the managing of small 
affairs, Tames Boswell, Esq., of 
Auchinleck, devotes a number of 
pages of his " Life of Johnson" to the relation 
of a piece of diplomacy on which the good- 
natured follower of " My illustrious friend " 
evidently prided himself not a little, and the 
success of which he seems to regard as the 
Machiavellian triumph of his life. Boswell, 
who ran after every one who was famous or 
even notorious, and was equally proud of 
being "the friend" of Paoli and ''the friend'' I 
of Johnson, had conceived the idea that the | 
Doctor, monarchist and high churchman as 
he was, and given to declare in thunderous i 
tones, " The Crown has not power enough, 
sir," might yet be induced to find some- 
thing congenial in the man who was, or at 
least had been, considered the chief dema- 

8i 



gogue of his time, and the most formidable 
opponent of the Crown, — Mr. John Wilkes, or- 
as the Doctor was accustomed less cere- 
moniously to dub him, "Jack Wilkes." He 
according devised a notable scheme to 
bring the two men together. First, by in- 
sinuating a doubt whether Johnson would 
not be offended at being asked to meet 
people he disliked at the table of a friend, he 
artfully entrapped the Doctor into a boister- 
ous declaration that a man had a right to 
invite anyone he pleased to his table, and 
that he, Johnson, would never question that 
right or call his host to account for using it ; 
then he went off and proposed to Mr. Dilly, 
the bookseller of the Poultry, that he should 
ask Johnson and Wilkes to dinner on the 
same day. " Dr. Johnson would never for- 
give me," cried the startled bibliopole. But 
Boswell persevered, and magnanimously 
offered to take all the consequences on him- 
self. He conveyed a respectful invitation 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HIS 7 OR Y. 



from Mr. Dilly to the sage, who complacently 
replied : " Sir, I am obliged to Mr. Dilly. I 
will wait upon him." But when the day 
came, Johnson had forgotten all about Dilly 
and his dinner, and Boswell calling for him, 
found him literally in the clouds, for he was 
vigorously dusting his books ; and on being 
reminded of his engagement, replied doubt- 
fully that he had promised to dine at home 
with blind Mrs. Williams. But Boswell was 
not to be put off. He boldly promised to 
win over the lady to consent ; and by 
piteously pleading the disgrace he should 
suffer if the chief guest did not put in an 
appearance at Mr. Dilly's dinner, he softened 
Mrs. WiUiams into yielding ; whereupon the 
sage, not ill-pleased, perhaps, with the change 
in the day's programme, roared out to Frank 
Barber for a clean shirt, and was presently 
carried off by Boswell, who describes his 
own elation as equal to that of a fortune- 
hunter who had secured an heiress to make 
a trip with him to Gretna Green. 

He then tells how disturbed Johnson was 
when, on arriving at Mr. Dilly's, he found 
that a certain gentleman in lace "was no 
other than Mr. Wilkes ; " and how he was 
fain to take up a book and pretend to read, to 
hide his discomfiture ; but, mindful probably 
of his own words a few days before, said 
nothing ; how the announcement of dinner 
came as a welcome relief to the awkwardness 
of the situation ; how the artful Mr. Wilkes, 
boldly taking his seat near Johnson, was 
assiduously bent on attacking him through 
one of the Doctor's weak points, his appre- 
ciation of his dinner ; perseveringly pressing 
upon him an especially good dish of veal 
with a dash of lemon or orange — until the 
sage, who had intended to wrap himself up 
in " surly virtue," was induced to respond 
with, " Sir, sir, you are very obliging, sir ; " 
and the ice having been once broken, they 
got on remarkably well together, and sepa- 
rated mutually pleased with each other, 
to the delight and triumph of diplomatic 
Boswell. 

John Wilkes, the Best- abused Public 
Man of his Time. 
The person who managed to conquer the 
sage of Bolt Court was certainly during a 
part of his career, and even to some extent 
after his death, the best-abused man in 
England. Macaulay, while acknowledging 
the illegality and foolishness of the persecu- 
tion to which he was subjected at the hands 
of George III. and His Majesty's Ministers, 
yet speaks of him as "that worthless 
demagogue, Wilkes." Lord Brougham has 
treated him with no more courtesy or con- 
sideration ; and Earl Russell has cast the 
heaviest of stones at his memory. The 
terrible caricature by Hogarth, in which he 



is depicted in squinting hideousness, has 
dwelt in men's memory, and has caused him 
to be set down as a monster whose external 
ugliness was a true indication of his mind ; 
and very few have been disposed to give him 
any credit for the real and meritorious ser- 
vice he did to the nation at large, in standing 
up for personal freedom and the liberty of 
the press at a time when both were seriously 
jeopardised. The homely proverb concern- 
ing giving a dog a bad name and hanging 
him, never had a truer illustration than in 
the case of this man, whose strange fate it 
was to be successively a borough member, 
High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire and colonel 
of militia, a prisoner in the Tower, an out- 
law, a prisoner again, alderman of the ward 
of Farringdon-without, Lord Mayor of 
London, sheriff, knight of the shire for 
Middlesex, and chamberlain of the City, 
Time, that effaces many prejudices, and puts 
forward men and things in their true colours 
at last, has done something towards award- 
ing justice to Wilkes ; and it may not be 
uninteresting to our readers, if we put before 
them briefly the facts that rendered the ex- 
member for Aylesbury for a series of years 
one of the most conspicuous men in the 
country ; his name being so much in every- 
body's mouth, that Horace Walpole records 
how a member of a mercantile firm inadver- 
tently began a business letter with the 
extraordinary exordium, "We take the Wilkes 
and liberty of informing you," etc., instead of 
the usual opening sentence. 

State of Affairs at the End of the 
Reign of George 11. 

The reign of George II. closed in a blaze 
of triumph in England. William Pitt, " the 
Great Commoner," as the people affection- 
ately called him, who had won the foremost 
place in the councils of his country without 
the aid of high birth or strong family connec- 
tion, was at the height of his power and popu- 
larity. The armies and fleets of England 
had been everywhere successful, and the 
misfortunes and tragic death of poor Byng 
had been forgotten, effaced in the glorious 
successes of army and navy in Canada, and 
on the French coast, and in distant India. 
" May our commanders have the eye of a 
Hawke and the heart of a Wolfe T'' was a 
favourite toast, in punning allusion to the 
names of two of the greatest leaders. The 
nation was more than content, and cheerfully 
paid even the annual subsidy for the army 
of the great Frederick of Prussia, who was 
then in the very midst of the gigantic struggle 
of the " Seven Years' War.'' Prosperous in 
commerce, and successful in war, with an 
old king who wisely " let well alone," and left 
the popular ministry to do its best, all went 
well till the death of George II. placed his 



82 



WILKES AND LIBERTY. 



grandson on the throne, and a new epoch 
began in the history of England. 

For the first time since the Revolution of 
1688, royal prerogative began to assert itself 
against popular liberty in England. With 
the exception of Queen Anne, who, though at 
heart a Tory, was compelled by her position 
to govern chiefly with a Whig Ministry and 
on Whig principles, every monarch in England 
since 1688 had been a foreigner, and as such 
compelled scrupulously to keep within the 
strict limits traced by the the Constitution 
and the Declaration of Rights. The first and 
second Georges had preferred Hanover to 



The New King and his Ideas of Royal 
Prerogative. 

But when George III. came to the throne, 
his position was very different. He was 
able to announce to the nation immedi- 
ately after his accession that "he gloried 
in the name of a Briton," and to point to 
the fact that he had been born and bred in 
England. Since his father's death, nine years 
before, he had been brought up in almost 
entire seclusion, under the care of his mother, 
the Princess Dowager of Wales, who has 
been credited, rightly or wrongly, with instil. 




William Hogarth, one of the Detractors of Wilkes. 



England, got away when they could from 
St. James's to Herrenhausen, and let things 
take their course. The sarcastic mock epitaph 
written on the second George, that represents 
the monarch as saying, — 

" I neither had manners, nor morals, nor wit, 
I was not much missed when I died in a fit," — 

had some truth in its scurrility ; for the first 
two Georges never had any great hold upon 
the respect or affection of their English 
subjects. They had been accepted to avoid 
the dismal alternative of a son of James II. ; 
and they fully understood the state of affairs 
in England. 



ling into her son those aspirations towards 
arbitrary power which he began to display 
almost from the day of his accession. His 
hostility towards the Ministry began to mani- 
fest itself from the very first ; and one by one 
the members of that Ministry were compelled 
to resign their positions, the great Commoner 
himself forming no exception ; though in his 
case his fall was softened by expressions of 
appreciation on the part of the young king 
for the great things he had done, and by 
substantial marks of the royal favour, such 
at the bestowal of a peerage on the wife of 
the retiring minister. The Duke of New- 
castle, the nominal head of the administra- 



^l 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



tion, clung to office with the tenacity of servile, 
all-enduring ambition, — a persistence that re- 
calls Dickens's picture of one of the Barnacle 
family "sticking to a post." He endured 
mortification and humiliation of various kinds 
from which the haughty spirit of Pitt would 
have instinctively shrunk, allowed himself to 
be insultingly reminded of the days " when 
he had the power " to promote a supporter, 
and to the great detriment of his self-respect 
put off the evil day of resignation to the very 
last, — with no result, however, but that of 
lengthening out his mortification and grief; 
he had to acknowledge at last that the game 
was lost, and to retire from a position that 
even to the most meek-spirited of men would 
have been unendurable. 

For the King had determined that none but 
his own " friends," men raised by his favour 
to power and dependent upon his good-will for 
the continuance of their offices, should hold 
great places in the Government. He was the 
resolved to emancipate himself from the 
thraldom in which he considered his grand- 
father and great grandfather to have been 
held ; and especially put forward a favourite 
of his own for the position of First Lord of the 
Treasury. 

A King's Favourite ; An Unusual 
Prime Minister. 

This favourite was John, Earl of Bute, a 
Scottish nobleman, who had been groom of 
the stole in the service of Frederick, Prince 
of Wales, and had continued to occupy a 
high place in the confidence, indeed, scandal 
said, the highest place in the affection, of the 
Princess Dowager after her husband's death. 
Lord Waldegrave, in his "Memoirs," has placed 
on record the sarcasm quoted by Macaulay, 
in which the Prince pronounced his opinon 
that Bute was the very man to be minister at 
some German Court, where there was no 
business to transact ; — hardly the man, one 
would think, to take the foremost place in an 
English government. And yet to the fore- 
most place was Bute promoted ; for, on the 
fall of Newcastle, he was made Prime 
Minister. 

The appointment seemed at first like a 
jest, and a very sorry one ; and the public, in 
its amazement, could scarcely believe the 
news to be true. Of experience in parlia- 
mentary life, Bute had actually none. He 
delivered his maiden speech from the Trea- 
sury bench as Prime Minister, acquitting him- 
self, indeed, with more dignity and self-pos- 
session than his hearers had expected, though 
his utterances were marred by the pomposity 
which Lord Waldegrave describes as 
characteristic of him on every occasion 
important or unimportant ; and a wit, amused 
by the long theatrical pauses he made in his 
sentences, called out, " Minute guns !" The 



84 



amazement was soon converted to indigna- 
tion by the system adopted, in deference to 
his master's wishes, by the new Prime 
Minister. 

George IIL had already given undoubted 
proofs of that hatred of the Whigs which 
continued to be his prevailing characteristic 
so long as life and reason remained to him. 
A system of persecution began, which after a 
time extended to all of that party — from the 
Duke of Devonshire, to whom the King sent 
so insulting a message by a page, that the 
indignant nobleman tore off the golden key 
he wore as chamberlain, and flung it on the 
ground, down to the custom-house officers, 
messengers, and housekeepers who had been 
appointed by his predecessors. It was 
wittily observ^ed that Bute turned out every- 
body who owed his place to the Whigs, 
except the King. It quickly became mani- 
fest that High Tory principles were indispen- 
sable for the securing of court favour and 
patronage ; and when it appeared that, in 
addition to this qualification, unbounded 
servihty was required, and that Scottish 
extraction was almost as necessary, the 
public indignation against the Minister 
became intense, and Bute could hardly appear 
in the streets for fear of insult or even 
personal injury. 

A Lesson to Royalty ; The Minister 
AND HIS Novel Policy. 
One instance is particularly recorded, in 
which George III. received an unmistakable 
indication of the direction public opinion 
was taking. Not long after the dismissal of 
Pitt, the King, who had recently married, 
came with the Queen to dine with the city 
magnates at Guildhall. The people took 
this opportunity to give the Court apiece of 
its mind in the shape of a tremendous 
ovation to Pitt, the fallen minister ; while 
Bute was hooted as his carriage passed 
through the streets, and the King and Queen 
were almost unnoticed. The policy of the 
Prime Minister, too, was not calculated to 
win confidence and good-will. He hastened 
to undo, with most injudicious promptitude, 
all that his predecessors in office had done. 
The subsidy paid to the King of Prussia was 
suddenly withdrawn, and Frederick was aban- 
doned to his fate, in the very midst of his 
struggle with Austria and the Powers in league 
with her. Peace was to be made with France 
and Spain, though Canada wonfromtheformer, 
and Havannah and the Philippines wrested 
from the latter, Power, had made the war a 
most popular one in England ; but these '\ 
successes had been gained under a Whig 
administration, and the war was a part of the 
Whig policy, and consequently distasteful at 
court. Pitt had declared that while he was 
in power England should never make a treaty 



WILKES AND LIBERTY. 



of Utrecht, that is, a peace in \rhich an 
ally should be abandoned, as the Archduke, 
or rather the Emperor, Charles had been 
abandoned in 1713 ; but the King was 
determined to carry out this peace, in which 
some of the most valuable acquisitions of the 
British crown were given up. Henry Fox, 
the able and unscrupulous, was induced to 
lend his powerful aid towards this object. 
Sixty thousand pounds was spent in bribing 
members of the House of Commons ; and in 
spite of the strenuous opposition of Pitt, who 
though suffering ci-uelly from gout, came 
down to the House, and spoke long and 
vehemently against the peace, the measure 
was carried by a large majority ; and great 
was the triumph of the King, the Prime 
Minister, and the Princess Dowager of Wales. 
The popular excitement and ferment caused 
by these events is amusingly illustrated in a 
passage from a letter by 
Mrs. Scott, a sister of 
Mrs. Montagu, quoted 
by Mr. Rae in his 
■*' Lives of the Opposi- 
tion Leaders under 
George HI." "If you 
order a mason to build 
an oven," this lady 
writes, " he immediately 
inquires about the pro- 
gress of the peace, and 
descants on the prelimi- 
naries. A carpenter, 
instead of putting up a 
cupboard, talks of the 
Princess Dowager, of 
Lord Treasurers, and of 
Secretaries of State. 
Neglected lie the trowel 
and the chisel, the 

mortar dries, and the John Wilkes. 

glue hardens,"— here the 
lady becomes poetical, — " while the persons 
who should use them are busy with disserta- 
tions on the Government." 

A Government Press; The "Briton" 
AND THE "Auditor." 

Since the death of Queen Anne, the various 
Ministeries had cared little for the support of 
writers in the public press ; the ascendency 
of the Whigs for a long series of years had 
been too complete to render such assistance 
necessary ; and as Lord Macaulay observes, 
Walpole would have considered as wasted 
any part of the fund of corruption turned 
aside from the direct business of buying votes 
to the payment of pamphleteers. But Bute 
was fain to call in assistance of this kind ; 
and Dr. Tobias Smollett, the author of 
*' Roderick Random" and other coarse and 
clever novels, and Murphy, the dramatist, 




85 



were called in to uphold the views and pro- 
ceedings of the Government in the Briton 
and the Auditor; and if thoroughness ol 
assertion and vehemence are to be considered 
as merits, both these gentlemen earned their 
money well. They had certainly a difficult 
task to perform ; for, added to Bute's personal 
unpopularity, the Ministry had to bear the 
odium of the vagaries of Sir Francis Dash- 
wood, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who 
imposed the detested Cider Tax, and who, 
Horace Walpole tells us, " with the familiarity 
and phrase of a fish-wife, introduced the 
humours of Wapping behind the veil of the 
Treasury." With a Prime Minister who 
could not spell, and a Finance Minister who 
could not cast up a column of figures, the 
country was strangely served ; and, indeed, 
Sir Francis was conscious of his deficiencies, 
and declared, with a ludicrous assumption of 
distress, that he would 
be pointed at by the 
street-boys as the worst 
Chancellor of the Exche- 
quer that ever was. 

Thus the Briton and 
the Auditor had to bol- 
ster up a very bad case ; 
and to add to their diffi- 
culties they had not even 
the ground to them- 
selves. For presently 
there appeared on the 
field an opponent, under 
the title of the North 
Briton, a paper written 
with considerable ability 
and still greater impu- 
dence,— confident, volu- 
ble in assertion, amus- 
ing and smart in style, 
and putting unpleasant 
truths concerning the 
Government in the plainest language, and 
heaping merciless ridicule upon the Ministry 
and all its works. The audacious new-comer 
also took a step in advance of its predecessors 
by scorning the half-concealment of initials, 
and printing every name, from that of the King 
downwards, in full. And great was the wrath 
of the King and the Ministry at the audacity 
of this graceless North Briton, whose course 
they endeavoured in vain to stop by threaten- 
ing an action for libel, which threat the pro- 
prietor turned into a convenient advertisement 
by informing his readers of it; whereupon 
the circulation of the paper increased at this 
practical proof of the annoyance it was causing 
to the Government. 

Wilkes and his early Career; The 

Medmenham Monks. 

The proprietor who contrived so deeply to 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



interest his readers, and to exasperate the 
Ministry, was John Wilkes, Member of 
Parhament for Aylesbury. He was born in 
1727, the second son of Israel Wilkes, a 
wealthy distiller of London ; and having from 
an early age shown considerable ability, had 
been well educated ; beginning his course at 
a school at Hertford, then being removed to 
Aylesbury, and completing his studies at the 
university of Leyden, in Holland. After 
travelling some time on the Continent, he 
returned to England ; and at the persuasions 
of his father, who seems to have had a con- 
siderable care for the main chance, he 
married, at the age of twenty-two, a Miss 
Mead, a young lady who had a fortune, and 
was his senior by more than ten years. 
Wilkes himself afterwards spoke of this 
union as "a sacrifice to Plutus, not to Venus." 
A daughter was born to him, of whom he 
appears to have been devotedly fond, main- 
taining a correspondence with her to the 
end of his life : she survived him five years. 

His marriage, as might have been expected, 
was not a happy one. It was a profligate age, 
and the young man was rather disposed to go 
in advance of the evil fashion of the day, than 
to lag behind it. After a short residence 
in the house of his wife's mother, in Red Lion 
Court, in London, he took up his abode with 
Mrs. Wilkes in Great George Street, West- 
minster, and there shocked his wife and the 
proprietors by becoming the associate of 
about as "fast" a set of demireps as even 
London could produce in those days when 
hard drinking, gambling, and the vices 
generally were considered desirable and even 
essential qualifications for a man of fashion. 
Among his chosen companions was Sir 
Francis Dashwood, before mentioned, the 
founder of a delectable society of so-called 
" Monks of St. Francis," at Medmenham, 
near Marlow on the Thames, an old Cistercian 
abbey, which he restored for the purpose ; 
and where a chosen company of profligates 
of fashion made blackguards of themselves 
to their hearts' content, singing blasphemous 
songs, and practising wickedness generally, 
on a scale that excited the envy of less daring 
spirits who longed in vain to be admitted to 
the orgies of the " Hellfire Club," and to join 
in the parody of religious rites and observ- 
ances which formed one of the chief attrac- 
tions at its feasts. Other members of this 
precious fraternity were Lord Sandwich, after- 
, wards First Lord of the Admiralty, and Mr. 
Thomas Potter, son of the Archbishop of 
Canterbury, a Member for Aylesbury, and 
soon afterwards Vice-Treasurer for Ireland. 
These companions, it may be supposed, were 
not to the taste of Mrs. Wilkes ; and before 
er husband joined the Medmenham brother- 
hood, the ill-assorted couple had already 
agreed to part, — the best thing under the cir- 



cumstances ; and thenceforth their lives were 
separated. 

The " North Briton " ; The Famous 
Forty-fifth Number. 

Wilkes endeavoured to find an opening 
for a parliamentary career ; and after an un- 
successful attempt at Berwick-on-Tweed, in 
1754, he succeeded in getting elected as 
Member for Aylesbury, in 1757. He must 
have been looked upon as a person of some 
consideration in the county of Buckingham, 
for he became high sheriff, and when the 
Bucks regiment of militia was formed, he was 
appointed lieutenant-colonel. He was also 
a Fellow of the Royal Society. He declared 
himself an admirer and supporter of William 
Pitt, the great Commoner ; and soon made 
himself conspicuous by hostility to the 
favourite. Lord Bute, — a sentiment in which 
the great majority of Englishmen very heartily 
joined. 

When the North Briton had reached its 
forty-fourth number, not without bringing 
considerable danger to author, publisher, and 
printer, he suspended the issue of it for a 
time, intending to bring it out in volumes as 
a complete work. Just at that time, to the 
great surprise of the public, the news had 
been suddenly spread abroad that the Prime 
Minister had resigned. Various conjectures 
were naturally made as to the reason for this 
totally unexpected and apparently inex- 
plicable step. The retiring minister himself 
alleged the wantof support from his colleagues. 
The theory put forward by Lord Macaulay, 
in his essay on the " Earl of Chatham," 
probably comes near the truth. He suggests 
that Bute, who had not gone through the 
regular parliamentary routine that hardens a 
politician, and enables him to bear with 
equanimity the obloquy that follows the foot- 
steps of an unpopular statesman, — coming 
late into the turmoil of political strife, 
probably considered the sweets of office an 
inadequate compensation for its disagreeables 
and restraints, and was glad to get rid of 
the responsibility he had unwisely assumed. 
It has been thought also that the King was 
disappointed in him, and gave him but little 
support, and that the popular idea of the in- 
fluence he possessed over George III. was 
much exaggerated. Be this as it may, it 
is certain that he retired ; and his successor 
in office was George Grenville, the brother- 
in-law of Lord Temple and of William Pitt. 
It was on the occasion of the speech from the 
throne in the middle of April, 1763, that the 
famous forty-fifth number of the North Briton 
appeared ; and in this number the writer 
denounced the Ministers as having put into 
the mouth of their royal master words that 
were not true and were calculated to mislead 
the public. Compared with many of the 



WILKES AND LIBERTY. 



utterances in earlier issues of the North 
Briton, the strongest passages in the 
famous No. 45 are not especially objection- 
able. The writer vents his sarcasm on the 
Ministers, whom he represents as duping 
the King ; but had not George III. been 
spoilt by the crawling flatter}' of the mean- 
spirited sycophants known as " The King's 
friends " ? it is difficult to understand what 
he could have seen in the words to awaken 
the burning and long enduring hatred 
cherished towards the writer, and the per- 
sistent malignity with which he endeavoured 
to ruin him. The words selected for prose- 
cution were these : — " The King's speech has 
always been considered by the legislature and 
by the public at large as the speech of the 
Minister. It has regularly, at the beginning 
of every session of Parliament, been referred 
by both Houses to the consideration of a 
committee, and has been generally canvassed 
with the utmost freedom when the Minister 
of the Crown has been obnoxious to the 
nation." The following passages contained 
the framework of the offence : — " This week 
has given the public the most abandoned 
instance of ministerial effrontery ever at- 
tempted to be imposed on mankind. The 
Minister's speech of last Tuesday is not to be 
paralleled in the annals of this country. I 
am in doubt whether the imposition is greater 
on the Sovereign or on the nation. Every 
friend of his country must lament that a 
prince of so many great and amiable qualities, 
whom England truly reveres, can be brought 
to give the sanction of his sacred name to 
the most odious measures, and to the most 
unjustifiable public declarations from a throne 
ever renowned for truth, honour, and unsullied 
virtue." 

The General Warrant ; Committal of 
Wilkes to the Tower. 
Upon this measures were taken to arrest 
the obnoxious pamphleteer, who it was 
thought had now laid himself open to an 
indictment ; and the King gave orders that 
the law officers of the Crown should be 
desired to give an opinion on the case. 
They returned a reply in due course, charac- 
terising the offending No. 45 as a most 
infamous and seditious libel, " tending to 
inflame the minds and alienate the affections 
of the people from His Majesty, and to excite 
them to traitorous insurrections against the 
government," and that the offence committed 
was one punishable in due course of law 
as a misdemeanour. They were quite clear, 
evidently, that John Wilkes had '• laid himself 
open to an indictment." 

But His Majesty's servants were a little too 
i hasty in their method of proceeding. "Above 
I all things, no zeal," was the injunction given 
I by the astute Talleyrand to a subordinate ; 



87 



and it would have been well had a similar 
caution been given to His Majesty's Secre- 
taries of State in the matter of Wilkes and 
and his paper. A httle indiscreet zeal 
involved them in very awkward conse- 
quences. Lord Halifax hastily issued a 
general warrant for the apprehension of " the 
authors, printers, and publishers of a seditious 
and treasonable paper, entitled the North 
Briton, No. 45, to search for them and their 
papers, and bring them before him for ex- 
amination. Upon this, Kearsley and Balfe, 
the printer and publisher of the incriminated 
number, were apprehended by a king's 
messenger ; and being examined before 
Lord Halifax and his fellow secretary. Lord 
Egremont, gave up the name of Mr. Wilkes 
and Charles Churchill as the authors of th-e 
North Briton generally. This Churchill was 
the clergyman, known by his dramatic satire, 
" The Rosciad," and by political satires, 
" London," etc., in the style of Juvenal, — a 
talented, disreputable cleric, who did little 
honour to his cloth. The manuscript of 
No. 45 of the North Briton was found 
among th^ papers of the printer Kearsley ; 
and Wilkes was apprehended near his house 
in Great George Street, protesting against 
the proceedings, claiming his privilege as a 
Member of Parliament, and yielding only to 
superior force. Being brought at once before 
Lord Halifax and Egremont, he assumed a 
very firm, determined tone ; protested once 
more against his forcible apprehension, 
declined to answer any questions whatever ; 
refused to state whether he was the author 
of No. 45 or not ; professed the greatest 
loyalty and attachment to the throne ; but 
avowed his detestation of the Ministry ; and 
declared that he would bring the matter 
before Parliament from his place in the 
House of Commons on the first day of the 
coming session ; whereupon he was com- 
mitted to the Tower. 

Liberation of Wilkes ; His First 
Triumph. 

It is difficult to understand how the 
Secretaries of State could have seen their 
way to so strong a measure upon what they 
had then before them, except on the assump- 
tion that they wished to please the King, and 
trusted that His Majesty's influence would 
bear them harmless in any steps they might 
take for gratifying his known wishes in this 
matter. Wilkes is said to have told them 
plainly that they were doing more than they 
could justify in arresting him ; and the sequel 
proved that he was right. The paper they 
relied on as seditious cei'tainly imputed de- 
ception to tfce ministers of the King, but 
could hardly be said to go beyond the legal 
bounds of criticism, however much it might 
sin against politeness and urbanity. Various 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



reported speeches of Pitt contain passages 
quite as strong as, or even stronger than, 
those for which the writer was here called 
forcibly to his answer ; for instance, the 
celebrated answer to the sneer of Horace 
Walpole, in which, after sarcastically apolo- 
gizing for "the atrocious crime of being a 
young man," which he declares he will not 
attempt either to paUiate or to justify, the 
orator proceeds to make charges of pro- 
fligacy and dishonesty against his opponents ; 
and at a later period, in the House of Lords, 



was searched for evidence against him ; his 
desk and drawers were broken open, and his 
private papers, letters, and memoranda 
carried away, to furnish proof that he was 
the author of the libel for which he was in 
custody. These proceedings naturally ex- 
cited profound indignation ; and even mode- 
rate men, who had little liking for the Mem- 
ber for Aylesbury, were disposed to adopt 
the words of honest Dogberry, and pronounce 
the seizure to be " flat burglary as ever was 
committed." 




The Tower of London from the Thames. 



in his celebrated speech against the conduct 
of the war with America and against the 
employment of the Red Indians in the 
struggle, he used language stronger than any 
expressions that can be found in No. 45, 
and plainly accused the King's Ministers 
of dishonesty, declaring that the smooth- 
ness of flattery cannot avail them in " this 
rugged and awful crisis," and that the 
Crown must be instructed in the language of 
truth. 

The issuing of the general warrant was a 
blunder ; but the Secretaries now followed it 
up by a greater one. The house of Wilkes 



Meanwhile Wilkes was detained in the 
Tower ; being kept, as he declared, in solitary 
confinement during part of the time. He 
applied to the Court of Common Pleas for 
a writ of Habeas Corpus, which was ob- 
tained and served upon the messengers of 
the Secretary of State ; but he was no longer 
in their custody, and accordingly they could 
not produce him before the Court. When 
on the 6th of May the case was argued 
before the Court, the prisoner's claim to 
immunity from arrest, as a Member of Parlia- 
ment, was at once admitted, and he was set 
free 



88 



WILKES AND LIBERTY. 



Churchill ; Lord Temple's Support of 
Wilkes ; Successful Actions. 

There is no doubt that he made the most 
of the opportunity affoi'ded him by the inju- 
dicious haste of his enemies, and took full 
advantage of the position they had given 
him as the champion of liberty and the 
hero of the hour. He made a speech, setting 
forth the somewhat trite proposition, that 
liberty was the precious birthright of an 
Englishman. His speech was evidently 
an oration ad captandum vtilgiis, and as 
such was a success. The great crowd in the 
streets around Westminster Hall testified 
their approval of him " with shouts and 
clamours." His enemies had foolishly shown 
a spiteful disposition, and the crowd rejoiced 
greatly in their discomfiture. 

The Reverend Mr. Churchill would have 
been arrested at the same time with Wilkes, 
but that he consulted his safety by leaving 
town. His career was a melancholy record 
of talents misdirected and wasted oppor- 
tunities. With undoubted genius and an 
energetic spirit, he was entirely incapable of 
self-control ; his excesses scandalised ever 
that free-living age ; and his ill-spent life 
came to a premature end in a foreign town, 
when, by his own fault, he became an exile 
from his country. 

Lord Temple, the brother-in-law of the 
great William Pitt and of the Prime Minis- 
ter, George Grenville, with the latter of 
whom he was on bad terms, was a restless, 
busy, and, according to various accounts of 
him, a mischievous politician. He is de- 
scribed as having led the great Commoner 
himself into various indiscretions. An 
eminent writer compares him to a mole, 
declaring that where a heap of dirt was 
found thrown up, it might be taken as 
a sign that he had been at work under- 
ground. Whatever may have been his 
motive, — the desire to annoy Grenville, the 
idea that the Member for Aylesbury was 
an ill-used man, the pleasure of thwarting 
the King, or the mere love of mischief, — 
certain it is that he openly aided Wilkes at 
this juncture with his countenance and with 
his purse ; — the latter kind of help was 
particularly useful, as the Government spent 
money freely in the endeavour to procure a 
triumph for the King. Wilkes brought 
actions against those who had been engaged 
in executing the general warrant, and against 
Lord Halifax for issuing it. He commenced 
operations by writing to the two Secretaries 
of State, informing them that his hoicse had 
beeji 7-obbed while he was a prisoner in the 
Tower ; and that their Lordships had been 
designated to him as being in possession of 
the stolen goods ; the restoration of which 
he peremptorily demanded. The indig- 



nation of the King, when these very extraor- 
dinary and somewhat insolent letters were 
put before him, may be imagined. They 
were at once sent, like No. 45 of the North 
Briton, to the law advisers of the Crown, 
"by the express command of His Majesty," 
to ascertain whether they did not contain 
matter laying the writer open to prosecution 
and punishment ; and now the King's 
Ministers seem to have become aware of 
the fact that " the dog Wilkes," as Johnson 
called him, was an ugly dog to tackle. The 
expenses for the defendants in the various 
actions brought by Wilkes were, by the King's 
command, defrayed by the Crown, to the 
extent, as was afterwards elicited from Lord 
North, of ;!^ioo,ooo ; but the irrepressible 
plaintiff gained his point, and obtained 
^ 1,000 damages from Mr. Wood the sheriff, 
for the carrying off of his papers. This was 
at the end of 1763. At a later period, in 
1769, a much larger sum, ;^4,ooo, was 
awarded to him as damages against Lord 
Halifax. As a Treasury minute had pro- 
vided " that all expenses incurred, or to be 
incurred, in consequence of actions brought 
against the Earl of Halifax, one of His 
Majesty's principal Secretaries of State, the 
Under-Secretary, and messengers, and the so- 
licitor of this office, for proceedings incurred 
by them in executing the business of their 
respective offices, against the publishers of 
several scandalous and seditious libels, 
should be defrayed by the Crown," the 
zealous Secretary of State and his subor- 
dinates were none the worse for the verdicts 
against them. 

Personal Animosity of the King ; Pro- 
secution FOR A Profligate Book. 
While these proceedings were still pending, 
the King took away from Wilkes his office 
of colonel of the Bucks militia, and from 
Lord Temple the lord-lieutenancy of 
Buckinghamshire. It was an unhappy trait 
in the character of George III., that he was 
accustomed to show personal animosity in 
this way against many who asserted their 
independence, or did anything which he 
could not reconcile with the idea of complete 
subservience to himself; as, for instance, 
when he struck the names of Charles James 
Fox and Richard Brinsley Sheridan off the 
roll of the Privy Council, because at a meet- 
ing at the Crowtt and Anchor they had drunk 
the toast, " Our Sovereign — the Majesty of 
the People ; " and notably when he wrote to 
Mr. Grenville concerning that brave, honest 
soldier General Conway, whose only offence 
was a conscientious vote in the matter of 
general warrants, that "he could not trust 
his army in the hands of a man who voted 
against him." No wonder that the party 
known as the " King's friends," knowing 



89 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



what was required of them, became notorious 
for thorough-going sycophancy. 

Though Wilkes had gained a signal victory 
in the matter of the general warrants, and 
Chief Justice Pratt, in discharging him from 
custody, had boldly declared that upon the 
maturest consideration he considered such 
instruments illegal, and that if they were 
maintained it would be as "a rod for the 
chastisement of the people," earning great 
credit with the nation for his noble impar- 
tiality, the Member for Aylesbury did not 
come off so well in the House of Commons. 
There the King and the Ministry were strong 
enough to command a majority; and by a 
vote passed on the i6th of November the 
famous No. 45 was declared to be a scanda- 
lous and seditious libel, 
and was ordered to be 
burnt by the common 
hangman. The resolution 
pronounced that the paper 
contained " expressions 
of the most unexampled 
insolence and contumely 
towards His Majesty the 
grosse?t aspersions upon 
both Houses of Parlia- 
ment, and the most au- 
dacious defiance of the 
authority of the v/hole 
Legislature," with a great 
deal more to the same 
effect. It was an in- 
stance of what a late 
great novelist, in writing 
of a criticism on a little 
book he had published, 
once happily designated 
as "thunder and small 
beer,"— a great deal of 
sound and fury wasted 
upon a very insignificant 
subject. The people 
showed their apprecia- 
tion of the whole proceeding by vehemently 
cheering Wilkes on every opportunity, and 
making a riot when the hangman attempted 
to bum the obnoxious number; a mob ga- 
thered, and amid derisive yells and laughter, 
committed to the flames a jack boot (a pun- 
ning symbol on the name of the late Prime 
Minister) and a petticoat, as indicative of 
the occult influence of the Princess Dowager 
of Wales. If the Government had wished to 
render Wilkes thoroughly popular, no better 
means could have been adopted. 

Baffled in one direction, the Government 
determined to ruin Wilkes in another. The 
difficulty of finding a printer willing to risk 
his liberty, and perhaps run the chance of the 
pillory by reprinting the North Briton, had 
induced Wilkes to establish a printing press 
in his own house; and at this press was 




Admiral Hawke. 



privately printed a portion of a scurrilous 
and immoral poem. This work was a parody 
on Pope's " Essay on Man," and was entitled 
an " Essay on Woman." It was the kind 
of production whose wit would have been 
appreciated by the precious fraternity at 
Medmenham. The printing was never* com- 
pleted, much less was the work ever published. 
But the Ministry, over-eager to demolish the 
man of the North Briton, here found matter 
for a fresh accusation. Some of the sheets 
of the poem were stolen by one Curry, the 
printer ; and at the instigation of the Ministry, 
the same individual afterwards abstracted a 
complete copy, which was deposited in the 
hands of a Secretary of State, Lord Sandwich. 
This nobleman was as notorious for profligacy 
as Sir Francis Dashwood 
himself, or as Lord March, 
afterwards Duke of 
Oueensberry (the notori- 
o'us "Old O.," who at a 
great age was pointed at 
as one of the wickedest 
old men in London) . This 
exemplary person took an 
active part in getting the 
copy of the poem, which 
was to form the basis of 
a new indictment against 
Wilkes ; for some notes 
which formed part of the 
parody were represented 
as being by Warburton, 
Bishop of Gloucester, the 
friend of Pope; and the 
use of the Bishop's name 
in this manner was said to 
be a breach of privilege. 

Culprit and Accus- 
ers ; "Jemmy Twit- 
cher"; a Duel. 
The whole proceeding 

was glaringly inconsis- 
tent. Never had a queerer set of defenders 
stood up in the cause of morality. Warburton, 
himself a scurrilous man, had used the name 
of the illustrious scholar Bentley in an intro- 
duction and notes to Pope's "Dunciad," in 
exactly the manner in which his own was 
used in the "Essay on Woman;" with this 
notable difference, that while the latter book 
was kept strictly private, the "Dunciad" had 
been circulated far and wide. As Lord 
Macaulay observes, "Pope had given his 
ribaldry to the world," which cannot be said 
of Wilkes. But Lord Sandwich read the 
poem surreptitiously obtained to the House 
of Lords, who declared its publication to be 
a breach of privilege, and that Wilkes was 
the author. Of this latter allegation there 
was no valid evidence brought forward ; and, 
indeed, in our own time, Mr. Dilke and Mr. W. 



90 



WILKES AND LIBERTY 



F. Rae, the authors of the "Life of Wilkes," 
have shown that the author was not Wilkes 
but Mr. Potter, son of the Archbishop of 
Canterbury. "The evidence," says Mr. Rae, 
"is overwhelming." Lord North introduced 
the subject into the House of Commons, and 
it was soon understood that the King took 
the strongest personal interest in the proceed- 
ings, and that every influence would be set 
to work to reverse by conviction in this 
second case the defeat the Government had 
notoriously sustained in the first. 

What the public thought of the prosecution, 
and of the sincerity of those by whom it was 
promoted, was shown by an incident at a 
London theatre. The " Beggar's Opera," that 
St. Giles's Lampoon, as Byron called it, was 
being performed. In one scene, Captain 
Macheath the highwayman, laid by the heels 
in Newgate, expresses his astonishment that 

a fellow robber should 

have turned against him. 
" That Jemmy Twitcher 
should peach, I own sur- 
prises me," he says. By 
a kind of sudden inspir- 
ation the whole audience 
applied the situation to 
that of Sandwich and 
Wilkes ; and the house 
shook with a tremend- 
ous roar of laughter from 
boxes, pit, and gallery. 
From that day '' Jemmy 
Twitcher" became the 
acknowledged nickname 
of Lord Sandwich. 

The question had not 
yet been decided in 
the House of Commons, 
when a Mr. Martin, 
whom Wilkes had treated 
somewhat roughly in the North Briton, 
provoked a duel with the proprietor of that 
publication by publicly denouncing him as a 
malignant and infamous scoundrel, and one 
who stabbed in the dark. In the encounter 
Wilkes was dangerously,it was at first thought 
fatally, wounded ; and on his partial recovery 
proceeded to France to complete the cure. 
To his constituents at Aylesbury he wrote an 
explanation, in which he seems to state his 
case fairly enough. After pointing out the 
distinction between the private opinions 
which every man is entitled to hold, and the 
public utterances which might give offence, 
he proceeds to the pith of the matter. " The 
fact is," he says, " that after the affair of the 
North Briton, the Government bribed one of 
my servants to steal a part of the ' Essay on 
Woman ' and the other pieces out of my 
house. Not quite a fourth part of the volume 
had been printed at my own private press. 
The work had been discontinued for several 




General Wolfe, 



months before I had the least knowledge of 
the theft. Of that fourth part only twelve 
copies were worked off, and I never gave one 
of those copies to any friend. In this in- 
famous manner did Government get possession 
of this new subject of accusation ; and, except 
in the case of Algernon Sidney, of this new 
species of crime." 

Expulsion from Parliament; Public 
Agitation. 
During his absence. Parliament took up 
the affair of Wilkes. He was unable to 
return on account of a relapse, and duly 
sent medical certificates of the fact ; but 
the House proceeded to try the question in 
his absence ; and on the 19th of January, 
1764, he was expelled from the Commons, as 
the author of a scandalous and seditious libel, 
and a month afterwards was tried and found 

... guilty on similar terms 

I in the Court of King's 
Bench in his absence, 
and outlawed for non- 
appearance. Sentence 
was deferred, as the 
prisoner was not pre- 
sent; but from the known 
subserviency of Lord 
Chief Justice Mansfield 
to the King, Wilkes 
knew that no mercy 
would be shown him, 
and accordingly deter- 
mined to remain abroad. 
He undertook a journey 
into Italy ; and those 
friends who still re- 
mained faithful to him 
in his adversity, among 
whom may be mentioned 
two very different men, 
Lord Temple and Sir Joshua Reynolds, con- 
sidered he had exercised a very sound discre- 
tion ; and as his pecuniary affairs were in a 
bad state, he received substantial assistance 
from them, without which he would have 
starved. It seemed that the Court party had 
completely gained their object. 

But the public mind had been deeply 
stirred on the subject of general warrants ; 
and it was felt that so long as the use of such 
weapons was allowed, no man's liberty was 
safe, and that what Pratt had designated 
as a rod for the chastisement of Englishmen 
might fall on the shoulders of any one who 
offended the Court. A member ot the House, 
Sir William Meredith, moved a resolution 
that general warrants were illegal, and in 
spite of the violent opposition of the Court 
party, found such strong support, that the 
Ministry, anticipating a defeat, were glad to 
get the question postponed for four months, 
to gain time, and even in this they barely 



9^ 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



succeeded. Soon after, George Grenville, 
whom the King never liked, and whose long 
harangues and prosy lectures were an abomi- 
nation to him, went out of office, and was 
succeeded by the Marquis of Rockingham. 

The Rockingham Administration ; The 
Middlesex Elections. 
Under the new administration, the ques- 
tion of the legality of general warrants was 
brought forward again, and those instru- 
ments, and all acts done on the strength 
of them, were declared invalid. But the 
Marquis of Rockingham did not remain long 
in office. The compact phalanx of the 
King's friends broke up his Ministry, and 
any hopes Wilkes may have cherished from 
the change of government failed. Pitt, now 
Earl of Chatham, came into power, with the 
Duke of Grafton, who succeeded on the 
retirement of his chief, who lost his popu- 
larity from the day when he ceased to be 
" the great Commoner." The Ministers 
would now have been glad to get a pardon 
for Wilkes from the King; but George III, 
was inexorable, and could not bear to hear 
the subject named. After vainly petitioning 
the King, Wilkes astonished and amazed his 
enemies, on the dissolution of Parliament, 
by offering himself as a candidate for the 
City of London, and was welcomed so 
warmly that it appeared as if he would be 
returned. Though he did not succeed in 
this, nearly 1,250 votes were recorded in his 
favour ; and encouraged by this proof of his 
continued popularity, he immediately came 
forward as a candidate for the county of 
Middlesex. Supported by the influence of 
the Vicar of Brentford, Parson Home, after- 
wards widely known as Home Tooke, and 
backed by the Duke of Portland and Lord 
Temple, Wilkes was returned by a great 
majority, polling nearly 1,300 votes, while 
the next candidate had only 827. 

The enthusiasm of the public, and the 
excitement for "Wilkes and Liberty," now 
reached a higher point than ever. The 
significance of the election was fully under- 
stood, and the general rejoicing was quite as 
much due to the discomfiture of the King as 
to the triumph of the candidate. The 
Ministers would have been only too glad to 
have buried the whole affair of No. 45 and 
the disgraceful prosecutions in oblivion, and 
knew that the general attention would be 
drawn away from Wilkes as soon as he 
received a pardon. But the King would not 
listen to reason, and insisted that Wilkes 
should be expelled from Parliament. He 
was the more determined on this point, from 
the fact that the man he pursued with such 
pertinacity of haired had succeeded in 
obtaining from Lord Mansfield a reversal 
of the decree of outlawry. He then sur- 



rendered to the Court of King's Bench to 
receive sentence for the libels in the North 
Briton and the poem ; maintaining with 
regard to the latter work that it could not 
properly be held to have ever been published 
at all. 

Wilkes a Popular Hero ; Persecution 
AND ITS Consequences. 

The sentence certainly did not err on the 
side of lenity. A fine of j^ 1,000, and im- 
prisonment of a year and eight months, and 
security for good behaviour for seven years 
afterwards, constituted a heavy penalty for 
the offences of which he had been convicted. 

The mob of London took his part as 
before, would have rescued him from cus- 
tody, and made a riot on the occasion of the 
meeting of Parliament. The soldiers were 
called out, fired upon the people, and by 
mistake bayoneted a man who had taken no 
part in the disturbance. The King took the 
opportunity of thanking the soldiers in a 
general order for their conduct during the 
riot, and promising them ample protection 
"in case any disagreeable circumstances 
should happen in the execution of their 
duty," — such a disagreeable circumstance, 
for instance, as the killing of innocent 
men. 

It appears that three weeks before that 
loth of May, on which the military had acted 
with such fatal efficiency, an official letter 
had been written by Lord Weymouth, a 
Secretary of State, to the chairman of the 
quarter sessions at Lambeth, stating that the 
soldiers would be in readiness to quell an 
expected riot, and indicating that he should 
make use of them. Wilkes procured a copy 
of this letter some months afterwards, and 
had it inserted in a London newspaper, with 
a strong introductory sentence, declaring 
that the letter showed how long beforehand 
the " horrid massacre in St. George's Fields 
had been planned," and " how long a heUish 
project can be brooded over by some infernal 
spirits without a moment's remorse." Here 
was libel No. 3, a manifest strengthening 
of the hands of the Court party. Summoned 
to the bar of the House of Commons, the 
undaunted and indomitable prisoner declared 
that whenever a Secretary of State should 
dare to write such a letter, he would dare to 
write such prefatory remarks, and to appeal 
to the nation. Thereupon it was moved 
that he should be expelled the House, and 
the second expulsion of Wilkes accordingly 
took place, by a majority of 219 to 137 votes, 
on February 3rd, 1769. 

The natural sequel to this proceeding was 
to declare the election of Wilkes for Middle- 
sex null and void ; for having been expelled 
from the House, the Ministry argued that he 
was "ineligible for being elected a member 



92 



WILKES AND LIBERTY. 



to serve in the present Parliament." Here 
was another question on which the outside 
public could join issue with the Court, and 
the temper of the Middlesex electors was 
shown by the immediate re-election of Wilkes. 
This election, which was unopposed, was 
immediately declared null and void ; and 
now three candidates came forward, — Colonel 
Luttrell, who was oacked by all the influence 
of the Government and the Court ; Mr. 
Sergeant Whittaker ; and Captain Roache. 



An Important Question; Freedom of 
Election. 
The quarrel had now assumed very diffe- 
rent proportions. It affected the parliament- 
ary privileges of the whole nation, and it was 
felt that in his endeavour to crush an oppo- 
nent he hated the King had struck a blow at 
the Constitution. Many who had cared very 
little as to the rights of the case with regard 
to No. 45 of the North Briton, or whether 




The Mansion House. 



But it was impossible to get a majority for 
Colonel Luttrell, and Mr. Roache polled 
no votes at all. Wilkes obtained nearly four 
times as many voices. In the face of all this 
the House of Commons, with its majority 
subservient to the King, though it allowed a 
deputation of Middlesex freeholders to be 
heard at the bar in support of the election of 
Wilkes, declared " Henry Lawes Luttrell, Esq., 
duly elected to serve in the present Parlia- 
ment for the county of Middlesex." 



the disreputable poem had been really " pub- 
lished " or not, looked upon this open attempt 
to interfere with the constitutional right of 
electors to choose their representatives as a 
matter deeply affecting the welfare of the 
whole state ; and the cry of " Wilkes and 
Liberty ! " had now an altogether new signifi- 
cance. With a sagacity that did him honour, 
the great Lord Chatham protested against 
the question being argued on the narrow 
ground of the personal character of an indi- 



93 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



vidual. To him it mattered little, lie said, 
whether those who lauded John Wilkes as a 
patriot, or those who denounced him as a 
profligate incendiary, were in the right ; what 
he contended for was the upholding of the 
civil rights of Enghsh subjects, which he 
contended should be measured by no power 
whatever, "or by any other rule than the 
fixed laws of the land." At a later period he 
finely declared that he considered this Mid- 
dlesex business " the alarm bell of liberty," 
which he intended to ring incessantly in the 
ears of the , people. Colonel Luttrell, he 
contended, with incontrovertible truth, was 
no representative of the people, but a mere 
nominee of a faction inimical to the Consti- 
tution. The whole principle of freedom of 
election, one of the great stipulations of the 
Declaration of Rights, was violated in this 
glaring attempt to thrust upon the electors of 
Middlesex a man who was not their repre- 
sentative, not having been chosen by a 
majority of them. Sir George Savile went 
farther still, openly declaring from his place 
in Parliament that the House of Commons, 
by passing an illegal vote, had betrayed their 
country, and professing himself ready to 
stand by his words, and to endure any punish- 
ment that might be inflicted on him for utter- 
ing them. 

Release of Wilkes ; Popular Rejoicings 
AND Civic Honours. 

The natural consequence of all this was 
that the country clamoured for the dissolu- 
tion of this Parliament, that had proved 
false to its trust, and wrested law and 
justice to please the King. The city of 
London stood forth foremost among the 
remonstrants against the proceedings of the 
majority in the House of Commons ; and 
then it was that Lord Mayor Beckford spoke 
those words to George III. that were after- 
wards inscribed upon a monument raised in 
his honour by the citizens of London, in 
which he boldly warned the angry monarch 
that the men who were alienating the 
affections of his loyal subjects from him 
by the course they were urging him to 
take, were not his true friends, but, on the 
contrary, enemies alike to His Majesty, 
the Royal Family, and the British Consti- 
tution. 

Meanwhile the prisoner in the King's 
Bench had the great advantage that all this 
struggle for the maintenance of popular 
rights and privileges was identified with his 
name. "Wilkes" and "liberty" were still 
coupled together, the more firmly as the 
importance of the issues involved became 
deeper ; and his popularity increased in 
proportion to the iniquitous injustice with 
which, not only he, but every man who 
voted for him, was treated. Of the public 



sympathy he received very substantial proofs 
in the shape of large supplies of money 
during his imprisonment ; and one sum 
significantly subscribed by one of the Ameri- 
can colonies, where discontent was fast 
gravitating towards rebellion, amounted to 
no less than ^1,500. The ward of Farring- 
don-without elected him alderman ; and 
when his sentence expired in 1770, his 
fortunes were far more promising than in 
the days when he had only the rabble to 
shout for him, — the many-headed monster who 
might applaud him one week, and hoot him 
the next. In several towns the houses were 
illuminated in honour of his release, and his 
debts were paid by a society calling itself by 
the significant name of " Supporters of the 
Bill of Rights." 

Dr. Johnson's Opinion of "Jack 
Wilkes." 

Dr. Johnson, in 1770, wrote a pamphlet, 
" The False Alarm," vehemently upholding 
the action of the Ministry in declaring 
Colonel Luttrell duly elected as member for 
Middlesex, in spite of the repeated majorities 
obtained by Wilkes. He maintained that 
the apprehensions of the country were un- 
founded. But even Boswell thinks him 
wrong ; for that arch-admirer says : " That 
it endeavoured to infuse a narcotic indif- 
ference as to pubhc concerns into the minds 
of the people, and that it broke out some- 
times into an extreme coarseness of con- 
temptuous abuse, is but too evident." 

At a later period he considerably modified 
his opinion concerning Wilkes, as is seen in 
his letter, in 1780, on the celebrated, "No 
Popery " note of Lord George Gordon ; for 
writing of the attack of the rabble on the 
Bank of England, and the fact that they 
acted, like other thieves, with no great 
resolution, the Doctor gives a little gruff 
praise. He says: "Jack Wilkes headed 
the party that drove them away. It is 
agreed that if they had seized the Bank on 
Tuesday, at the height of the panic, when 
no resistance had been prepared, they might 
have carried irrecoverably away whatever 
they found ; " and then the Doctor becomes 
slightly sarcastic ; " Jack," he says, " who 
was always zealous for order and decency, 
declares that if he be trusted with power, he 
will not leave a rioter alive." In spite of 
their former antagonism, Johnson seems to 
have had, in his great, rough, honest heart, 
something resembhng a liking for Wilkes, if 
only for his indomitable energy and his 
fascinating wit. " Did we not hear so much 
said of Jack Wilkes," he remarked, "we 
should think more highly of his conversation. 
Jack has a great variety of talk. Jack is a 
scholar, and Jack has the manners of a 
gentleman. But after hearing his name 



94 



WILKES AND LIBERTY. 



sounded from pole to pole, as the phoenix of 
convivial felicity, we are disappointed in his 
company. He has always been at me j but 
I would do Jack a kindness, rather than not. 
The contest is now over." 

Wilkes in the Sunshine. 
From that time the career of Wilkes may 
be considered a prosperous one. As an 
alderman he was energetic and efficient, and 
won the confidence of many who had before 
been opposed to him. He soon gave proof 
that the old spirit of opposition was as 
strong within him as ever by his conduct in 
the matter of the disputed right to publish a 
parliamentary report. The House of Com- 
mons had long shown itself very sensitive 
with regard to any publication of its proceed- 
ings out of doors. And 

indeed, in those days of 
unblushing bargain and 
sale, it was sometimes wo- 
fally inconvenient to mem- 
bers to have too much 
known out of doors con- 
cerning speeches, pledges, 
and measures. The House, 
finding that its doings 
were being reported to the 
public by the newspapers 
passed a resolution declar- 
ing the writing, printing, 
and publishing of any ac- 
count of its proceedings a 
breach of privilege, and 
threatening to proceed 
with the utmost severity 
against all offenders. The 
newspapers continuing 
to publish reports, in spite 
of this threat, the Speaker 
sent the deputy Sergeant- 
at arms into the city to 
execute a warrant issued 
against a persistent offender, Mr. Miller, 
of the Evening Post. Mr. Wilkes, acting 
in conjunction with the Lord Mayor and 
one of his colleagues, caused the officer 
himself to be arrested ; and so sturdily main- 
tained the rights alike of the city and of the 
newspaper press, that he obtained a victory 
over the Court for both. And when summoned 
to appear at the bar of the House to answer 
for his audacity, he boldly replied that not 
having been summoned as a member to 
attend in his place he should disregard the 
document altogether ; and though the sum- 
mons was twice repeated, he remained firm to 
his resolution, and no steps were taken to 
compel his appearance. From that time the 
right of reporting the proceedings in parha- 
ment was assumed as a foregone conclusion, 
nor was it ever called in question. " As for 
Wilkes, he is below the notice of the House," 




Charles James Fox. 



wrote the King ; but His Majesty deigned to 
bestow very particular notice on the contest 
that arose some-time later, when Wilkes, 
having served the office of sheriff, was put in 
nomination for the dignity of chief magistrate 
of the city ; and even exerted his influence 
to the utmost to prevent the return of his old 
enemy. 

At first Wilkes was baffled, and '-A was 
thought that the Court had scored a victory 
against him at last ; but the civic Antseus 
rose up again stronger from each successive 
fall ; and at length, in 1774, attained the 
dignity of Lord Mayor of London. " Thus," 
writes sententious Horace Walpole, "after so 
much persecution by the Court, after so many 
attempts on his life, after a long imprison- 
ment in a gaol, after all his own crimes and 
indiscretions, did this ex- 
traordinary man of more 
extraordinary fortunes at- 
tain the highest office in 
so grave and important a 
city as the capital of Eng- 
land. Always reviving, the 
more opposed and op- 
pressed, and unable to 
shock Fortune, and make 
her laugh at him, who 
laughed at everybody and 
everything. . . . All the 
power of the Crown, all 
the malice of the Scots, 
all the abilities of Lord 
Mansfield, all the violence 
of Alderman Townshend, 
all the want of policy and 
parts in the opposition, 
all the treachery of his own 
friends, could not demolish 
him. He equally baffled 
the King and Parson 
Home, though both neg- 
lected no latitude to com- 
pass his ruin. It is in this tenth year of his 
war on the Court that he gained so signal a 
victory." Horace Walpole, though an un- 
doubted fribble, was a keen and vigilant ob- 
server ; and this declaration of his comes 
very near the truth of the matter. 

A far greater triumph, however, was in store 
for him, when after being elected for 
Middlesex for the fifth time he took his seat 
unopposed in the House from which he had 
been twice expelled. Never was there a 
greater instance of the triumph of persever- 
ance. Even George the Third had become 
awake to the fact that nothing was to be 
gained by any further persecution of the 
indomitable " demagogue," and that it would 
be far best to leave him to himself. In fact 
His Majesty had predicted the impending 
ruin of Wilkes so often, and the prediction 
had so often failed of accomplishment, 






95 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



that he had become somewhat tired of the 
subject. 

The epithet "demagogue," indeed, had 
been so persistently applied to him through- 
out his career, and, as has been noticed, was 
repeated long after his death by Macaulay 
and others, that it was taken for granted he 
must be a man who thirsted to subvert all 
existing institutions, and overturn those 
"landmarks" and "safeguards" of the con- 
stitution, of which at times we hear so much. 
But in real fact the reverse seems to have 
been the case. The struggle with which his 
name has become inseparably connected 
arose out of an endeavour not to overturn 
but to uphold those constitutional principles 
which were being unscrupulously assailed; 
and that even grave judges, while they might 
dislike him personally, could not deny that 
the course he was taking had the sanction of 
both law and justice. 

One of his best traits was certainly his 
placable temper, and his readiness to forget 
old grievances. " Stop, you old fool ! That's 



over long ago ! " was his blunt reproof to an 
enthusiastic old market woman of Covent 
Garden, who tried to revive the old cry in 
his later days. Directly the cause he stood 
up for was gained, all the acrimony that had 
been imported into the contest was by him 
cast away. 

It should not be forgotten, moreover, by 
" readers " in the British Museum that he 
was the first to advocate the establishment 
of that admirable institution the reading-room. 
Speaking of the Vatican and of the Paris 
Library in his place in Parliament, he said : 
" They are both open at stated times with 
every proper accommodation, to all strangers. 
London has no large public library .... 
I wish, Sir, a sum were allowed by Parlia- 
ment for the purchase of the most valuable 
editions of the best authors, and an act 
passed to oblige every printer, under a certain 
penalty, to send a copy bound of every publi- 
cation he made to the British Museum." 

He died, a prosperous man, in the year 
1799. 




Lheapside in 1750. 



96 




Place de la Concorde, Paris. 



THROUGH SLAUGHTER TO A 
THRONE: 

THE STORY OF THE COUP D'ETAT OF THE 2ND DECEMBER, 1851. 



An Important Day — The President's Ride through Paris — A Dehision Dispelled — At the Elysee — Who was responsible for 
the Coup d' Etat^ — The Strasburg Enterprise — The Boulogne Expedition and its Consequences — Escape from Ham 
— Residence in London: Return to Paris in 1S48 — Louis Napoleon President — The Oath — "The Nephew of his 
"Uncle" — Bidding for Popularity — De Morny, Maupas, Persigny, Fleury, St. Arnaud — Preparations for Striking the 
Blow ; the Army — The Proclamation of December 2nQ — Seizure of Political Chiefs — The Army in Paris — Forcible 
Closing of the Assembly — Arrest of Members — Closing of the High Court of Justice — The Assembly Carried Away 
Captive — State of Paris ; Discouragement ; Committee of Resistance — Failure of the Struggle— Proceedings of the 
Government — The Cavalry Charge — The Massacre on the Boulevards — Details — Slaughter of Non-Combatants — 
Success of the CouJ> d'Eiai — Plebiscite — Testimony of an Impartial Witness — Public Feeling in England. 




An Important Day. 

HE 2nd of December is as memorable 
a date in the history of P>ance, as the 
14th of October, which witnessed, at 
an interval of more than half a century, the 
disasters of Hochkirchen and Jena, is fateful 
in the annals of the Prussian monarchy. It 
was on a 2nd of December that the great 
Napoleon was crowned in the cathedral of 
Notre Dame by Pope Pius VII. as Emperor 



of the French; it was on a 2nd of December 
that he shattered the power of Austria, and 
crippled Prussia, by the tremendous victory 
he gained at Austerlitz. It was on the 2nd of 
December, again, that the first act of the drama 
was played out, which led to the establishment 
of that second French Empire, destined to 
expire in a sea of blood, after running its fever- 
ish and fitful course ; one of those memorable 
series of events in which the superficial ob- 
server sees only the fortune of war, while the 



97 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



tlioughtful student claims to recognise the 
truth, that no more in modern times than at 
earlier epochs of the world's history can men 
gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles ; 
and that while "things bad begun make 
strong themselves by ill," the day of retribu- 
tion will surely come upon the evil-doer, that, 
as the homely old German proverb has it, — 
"Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they 

grind exceeding small ; 
Though with patience He stands waiting, with 

exactness grinds He all." 

On that 2nd of December, 1851, there sat in 
an inner chamber of the palace of the Elysee 
at Paris a man who knew that he was at the 
very crisis of his fate, as surely as any criminal 
who sits in the dock waiting until the twelve 
men shall reappear who are to pronounce the 
" guilty " or " not guilty " that will restore 
him to liberty or consign him to the scaffold. 
It was the third time in a life of little more 
than forty years that Louis Napoleon Bona- 
parte, then President of the French Republic, 
had conspired to overthrow the government 
of his country. Good fortune, the associa- 
tions connected in every Frenchman's mind 
with the great name he bore, and an almost 
inexplicable lenity on the part of the autho- 
rities whose captive he became, had enabled 
him to escape almost unpunished on the 
first occasion, and had spared his life on the 
second ; but this time the game was evidently 
one of life or death. In case of failure the 
conspirator and his accomplices would have 
to reckon not with an offended government 
but with an outraged and exasperated nation; 
and therefore it was above all things necessary 
to screw the courage to the sticking point 
" that this day the enterprise might thrive." 

The President's Ride through Paris 
Streets. 
For a blow had just been struck at the 
liberties of France, and the nation had been 
insulted in the persons of its representatives, 
in a way no king since the days of Louis 
XIV. would have ventured upon. What 
this blow was, ho\v it was struck, and how it 
was followed up, we shall have presently to 
relate. In the course of the day the President 
had ridden abroad through the streets of 
Paris, attended by a numerous staff, and 
accompanied by his uncle, Prince Jerome 
Bonaparte, the only survivor of the three 
puppet kings set up, in the insolence of 
ambition, by the Great Napoleon, on three 
European thrones. Old Jerome, ex-King of 
Westphalia, though he gave his nephew the 
countenance of his presence on that memo- 
rable ride through streets lined with troops, 
behind whom peered forth faces scowling 
with angry surprise, gravely disapproved of 
the course the President was taking ; and. 



indeed, two days later, he wrote him a manly 
letter, reminding him that there was no guar- 
antee for liberty if an assembly did not con- 
tribute to the constitution of the republic, — 
that the army was acting in a high-handed 
manner, — and that what a government could 
not do when it was beaten, it was bound to 
do when it was victorious ; conjuring him, in 
conclusion, in the name of the great founder 
of their house, and by their common horror 
of civil war, to listen to the experience of an 
aged inan, and to remember that France, 
Europe, and posterity would pass their judg- 
ment upon the President's actions, 

A Delusion Dispelled ; The President 
AT the Elysee, 
The ride through the Paris streets must 
have dispelled one delusion, at least, which 
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte was supposed 
to entertain. It furnished abundant proof 
that there was no enthusiasm for the Presi- 
dent among the Parisians, and that they were 
disposed to look upon him with a kind of 
contemptuous surprise ; that they were not 
at all anxious to accept him as the repre- 
sentativeand successor of the Great Napoleon, 
or to hail him as Emperor. For the third 
time he had presented himself for their 
suffrages in that character, and for the third 
time he had encountered looks of scorn, 
disdain, or at best indifference. The theatri- 
cal scene of the progress of a hero through 
his capital had been attempted, and had 
fallen wofuUy flat. The expected acclama- 
tions had been conspicuously absent ; and so 
it was that the chief actor in the farce so 
soon to be turned into a tragedy rode home 
and ensconced himself gloomily in the apart- 
ments of his official residence, while the blood 
of thousands was soon poured out like water 
in the streets of Paris, and a gallant nation's 
liberty was trampled beneath the heels of a 
ruthless soldiery, Mr, Kinglake, in his 
masterly "History of the War in the Crimea," 
describes him as returning from this ride, 
and " going in out of sight," " Thenceforth," 
he says, " for the most part he remained close 
shut up in the Elysee. There, in an inner 
room, still decked in red trousers, but with 
his back to the daylight, they say he sat bent 
over a fireplace for hours and hours together, 
resting his elbows on his knees, and burying 
his face in his hands." Victor Hugo, himself 
an eye-witness and an actor in the scenes which 
followed, says : " Louis Bonaparte had not 
quitted the Elysee. He remained in a cabi- 
net on the groundfloor, next to that splendid 
gilded saloon in which, in 181 5, he had been 
present, as a child, at the second abdication 
of Napoleon, He was there alone ; the 
order had been given to admit no one to his 
presence. From time to time the door was 
partly opened, and the grey head of his aide- 



Q<S 



THROUGH SLAUGHTER TO A THRONE. 



de-camp, General Roguet, appeared. General 
Roguet alone had the permission to open this 
door and to enter. He brought news, more 
and more disquieting, and frequently ter- 
minating with the words: 'It does not go,' 
or ' It goes badly.' When he had finished 
his report, Louis Bonaparte, sitting leaning 
on his elbows at a table before a large fire, 
half turned his head in his arm-chair, and 
with the most phlegmatic tone of voice, 
without apparent emotion, invariably repeated 
these words : ' Let them execute my orders.' " 
Hugo declares that General Roguet himself 
related, as an honourable testimony to his 
master's imperturbable composure, that when 
he informed the Prince how the barricades 
in the streets were increasing in number, 
how the troops were being hissed, and cries 
of " Down with the Dictator ! " were every- 
where heard, with other still more disquieting 
details, the President, half rising from his 
arm-chair, and looking fixedly at his officer, 
answered calmly, " Well, tell St. Arnaud to 
execute my orders." 

Who was Responsible for the Coup 
d'etat .? 
It is only fair, at the outset, and before tell- 
ing the story of the events of the 2nd of 
December and the subsequent days, to say 
that there is a reasonable doubt as to the 
extent of the President's knowledge of what 
was actually going on in Paris during that 
period of horror. Mr. Kinglake is of opinion 
that he was not kept accurately informed of 
the extent to which " his orders " were being 
executed; that the men associated with him 
in the enterprise, whose fortune, whose future, 
whose very lives perhaps depended upon the 
success of the coup d'etat, kept from him the 
naked truth, and only allowed such reports 
to reach him as would impress upon him the 
vital necessity of carrying out to the bitter 
end the enterprise they had begun. At the 
time of the coup d'etat there was but one 
sentiment in England concerning it, — a feeling 
of profound horror at the scenes enacted, and 
of grave reprobation of the whole scheme. 
The i)ational feeling concerning the Presi- 
dent's method of maintaining order was em- 
bodied in John Leech's clever sketch, entitled, 
" France is Tranquil," wherein France was 
represented crouching in abject terror, bound 
and gagged ; — with a French infantry soldier 
standing over her, with his bayonet at her 
throat. In later times there arose a disposi- 
tion to condone much of what passed during 
those memorable days, or to forget it in 
glorifying the success and prosperity of " our 
faithful ally ;" though Tennyson, in some well- 
known lines, written some years afterwards, 
declared, — 

'•' 'Tis true we have a faithful ally, 
But only the devil knows what he meaas." 



It is not here the purpose to attempt to 
indicate how much criminality attaches to 
the man for whom the coup d'etat was carried 
into effect. The design is simply to tell the 
story of that terrible event, stating the facts 
as they have been given, not only by those 
in whom they excited horror, but by friends 
and partisans of Louis Napoleon, such as 
M. Granier de Cassagnac and Captain Mau- 
duit, who have left records of these things, 
and can certainly not be supposed to have 
exaggerated them to their master's disadvan- 
tage. 

Louis Napoleon's First Appearance ; 
The Strasburg Enterprise. 

Up to the memorable year of revolution, 
1848, the career and the reputation of Charles 
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte had been the 
reverse of brilliant ; and people were accus- 
tomed to speak of his enterprises with a smile 
of contemptuous pity, and to consider him as 
a visionary, closely akin to a madman. Such 
was the language we find used concerning 
him, for instance, in the Greville Memoirs ; 
and " I believe he is mad," was the opinion 
openly expressed of him by more than one 
public man. It was afterwards said that his 
contemporaries made two grand mistakes 
with regard to Louis Napoleon : the first 
when they set him down as an idiot ; the 
second, when they ranked him as a statesman. 
He was the son of Louis Bonaparte, the 
brother whom Napoleon placed on the throne 
of Holland, and of Hortense de Beauharnais, 
daughter of the Empress Josephine, joined in 
an uncongenial marriage with Louis by the 
imperious mandate of the autocrat. In his 
youth he had taken part in the risings in 
Italy connected with the secret society of the 
Carbonari, — disturbances in which his elder 
brother lost his life in 1851. 

It was in 1836 that the first great enterprise 
of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte occurred. On 
Sunday the 30th of October in that year, he 
made his memorable attempt to excite a 
revolt in the garrison of Strasburg, with a 
view of restoring the Napoleonic Empire in 
France. A colonel of artillery named Vaudrey 
had been gained over and induced to join 
in the conspiracy. Vaudrey persuaded the 
soldiers under his command that there had 
been a revolution in Paris, that the Empire 
had been proclaimed, and Louis Philippe 
deposed ; and presented the Prince to them 
as the second Napoleon. The affair went so 
far that Voirol, the general commanding the 
garrison, and the Prefect of Strasburg were 
actually made prisoners by detachments of 
artillery-men ; and the Prince, who was attired 
in a costume copied from the garb of the 
victor of Marengo and Austerlitz, — whom he 
did not in the least resemble in face, — was 
introduced, with his "statf," to the men of 



9Q 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the 46th regiment, who gazed in astonishment 
and doubt on this whimsical caricature of 
a great man trying to persuade them to 
renounce their allegiance to King Louis 
Philippe. 

But now appeared on the scene Talandier, 
colonel of the 46th, irate, indignant, and reso- 
lute. He roundly denounced the pretender 
and his scheme, and caused the batch of 
conspirators to be then and there deprived of 
the decorations they wore. One account 
says that he tore off Louis Napoleon's grand 
cordon of the Legion, and likewise the 
Prince's epaulettes, with his own hand, 
trampling them under his feet, and, as the 
official report declares, " in a moment L. N. 
Bonaparte and the wretches who accom- 
panied him were arrested. Thus ignobly 
ended the first attempt to revive the Em- 
pire in France. King Louis Philippe good- 
naturedly pardoned the conspirator, from 
whom he apprehended no great danger to 
the July monarchy ; and even provided him 
with a i&'fi thousand francs wherewith to 
embark for America. 

Louis Napoleon's Second Enterprise ; 
The Boulogne Expedition. 

After a short residence in the New World, 
Prince Louis Napoleon found his way back 
to the Old, taking up his residence in Eng- 
land ; and it was from London that his second 
expedition started, to subvert the throne of 
the king who had treated him with such 
good-natured clemency and indulgence. The 
lines of the second enterprise were laid down 
similarly to those of the first. Again it was 
a garrison — that of Boulogne this time — that 
was to be won over, and the rest was to be 
left to fortune and to the feeling that was 
known to exist in favour of the " Napoleonic 
legend," — a feeling that had been greatly in- 
creased by recent events ; for it was in 1840 
that the corpse of the Great Napoleon was 
brought home by the Prince de Joinville, a 
son of Louis PhiHppe, from its solitary grave 
beneath the willow tree near Longwood, to 
rest, according to the wish expressed in the 
great Conqueror's will, " on the banks of the 
Seine, in the midst of the French people he 
had loved so well." l^he Prince and some 
fifty confederates hired a steamer wherein to 
cross the Channel, taking with them a tame 
eagle, trained to alight on the Prince's 
shoulder, a flag surm.ounted by a gilt eagle, 
and other " properties," and a sum of money 
for distribution among the wavering soldiery, 
who might be induced to declare for the second 
Empire and Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. 

The farce of 1836 at Strasburg was re- 
enacted almost scene for scene in 1840 at 
Boulogne. Again the garrison gazed be- 
wildered at the ludicrous and theatrical dis- 
play of a set of adventurers ; again a prompt 



arrest was made of the chief conspirator and 
his partisans : but this time the matter was 
taken more seriously. A soldier had been 
shot in the scuffle when the prisoner was 
captured, and for a time the life of Louis 
Napoleon was in considerable danger. But 
at his trial he had the advantage of the 
advocacy of one of the astutest lawyers in 
France, Maitre Berryer, who caused him to 
take advantage, by a masterly piece of clap- 
trap, of the recently aroused feeling in favour 
of the Empire and its glories. He was made 
to declare that he represented in France a 
memory and a defeat and an aspiration ; 
and again he escaped the full penalty of high 
treason, being condemned, however, to lifelong 
imprisonment in the fortress of Ham. Here, 
in enforced seclusion, he passed the next five 
years, occupying himself chiefly with literary 
labours. He wrote a work on artillery ; 
another entitled " Napoleonic Ideas ;" a third, 
in which he developed a scheme for that 
very desirable object, the extinction of pau- 
perism, etc. 

The Escape from Ham ; London ; 
Return to Paris in 1848. 

The world had well-nigh forgotten that 
such a man existed, when in 1845 he con- 
trived, with the help of his friend Dr. Con- 
neau, to escape very cleverly from his place 
of durance ; for he was a first-rate schemer 
where he was not brought face to face with 
a danger that required the exercise of sudden 
and quick-witted resolution. Whatever had 
been deliberately planned he could carry out 
with stolid persistency. While some repairs 
were going on at the fortress, he marched out 
of the gates in the disguise of a workman — 
carrying a plank on his shoulder further to 
deceive the sentries — and made his way once 
more to England, where he resided until the 
revolution of 1848 once more made it possible 
for him to return to France. In English 
society his reputation did not stand high. 
He was what his own countrymen would 
have described as '■'' crible de dettesj" and his 
name, frequently appearing on stamped paper, 
was considered as the reverse of " sufficient" 
among the Shylocks of the discount market. 
He was kindly received by what was known 
as the Gore House clique at Kensington ; the 
brilliant Count d'Orsay and Lady Blessing- 
ton welcoming as a friend the sombre, silent 
man, who is described as sitting at their 
assemblies quiet and self-contained, pro- 
foundly believing in himself and his destiny, 
looked upon as a harmless visionary, whose 
political chance was over and gone — but 
always patiently waiting. When London 
was threatened with a Chartist outbreak in 
April 1848, he caused himself to be enrolled 
as a special constable, and paraded the 
streets, it is said, with a policeman's trun- 



i 



THROUGH SLAUGHTER TO A THRONE. 



cheon, in the cause of order. The first offer 
of his services to Lamartine, to whom he 
wrote during that areiable patriot's three 
months' tenure of power, was dechned po- 
litely but decidedly. Nevertheless he re- 
turned to France, and was actually able, by 
the mere weight attaching to the name he 
bore, not only to put himself in nomination 
as a candidate for the ofSce of President of 
the French Republic, but actually to carry 
the election by an immense majority of votes, 
against the stern republican and able com- 
mander General Cavaignac ; — whose firmness 
and decision had probably saved Paris from 
pillage and France from anarchy by the 
resolute repression of the dreadful rising of 
the " red" faction in June ; — when the collapse 
of the impracticable scheme of Louis Blanc 
and his colleagues, 
displayed in the com- 
pulsory closing of the 
" Ateliers nationaux," 
had roused the fury of 
the most dangerous 
classes in Paris against 
the government, and 
when worthy Arch- 
bishop Affre found a 
martyr's death on the 
barricades in his noble 
endeavour to mediate 
between the enraged 
combatants. And thus 
it happened that the 
impecunious refugee of 
the beginning of the 
wonderful year 1848, 
before the close of that 
year was sitting in the 
President's chair in the 
National Assembly in 
Paris, the acknow- 
ledged head of a great 

republic, invested with 

a constitutional autho- 
rity that was to last for four years, and to 
cease and determine, according to the law, 
in the year 1852. 

Louis Napoleon Chosen President ; 
The Terms of the Oath. 
A distinguished Frenchman has said that 
unless people make up their minds to forget 
a great many things, " sans de grands onblis,^^ 
life would be impossible. Nevertheless it is 
at times not only salutary but necessary to 
look back and remember, — to show that 
pledges solemnly given on assuming an office 
are not to be cast aside so soon as their ful- 
filment becomes inconvenient to the man 
who has given them. Therefore it is well to 
point out what was the nature of the oath 
taken by Lov.is Napoleon, when on the 20tli 
of December, 1848, the National Assembly, 




Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. 



in consequence of the majority of votes ob- 
tained over the other candidates, solemnly 
proclaimed him " President of the Republic 
from this present day, until the second Sunday 
in May, 1852." 

The various articles of the Constitution 
the President, raising his right hand, as he 
faced ih^ Assembly, swore to maintain. '•' In 
the presence of God," he said, " and before 
the French people represented by the Na- 
tional Assembly, I swear to remain faithful 
to the Social and Democratic Republic, one 
and indivisible, and to fulfil all the duties 
imposed on me by the Constitution." Then 
the President of the Assembly, standing up, 
read out the various articles of the Constitu- 
tion, and Citizen Charles Louis Napoleon 
Bonaparte, raising his right hand, solemnly 
repeated his oath. 
Among these articles the 
most important were 
Art. 36 and 37, which 
declared the inviola- 
bility of the representa- 
tives of the people. 
''They may not be 
arrested on a criminal 
charge," so the words 
ran, " except in flag- 
rante delictii, nor pro- 
secuted until the As- 
sembly has authorised 
the prosecution." Art. 
68 declared that any 
measure by Avhich the 
President of the Repub- 
lic should dissolve the 
National Assembly, or 
prorogue it, or put an 
obstacle in the way of 
the fulfilment of any of 
its mandates, constituted 
thecrime of high treason; 

that such an act would 

at once deprive him of 
his authorltv, and would cause the executive 
power to pass into the hands of the National 
Assembly ; that the Judges of the High Court 
would thereupon be compelled, under penalty 
of forfeiting their offices, to immediately 
assemble to try the President and his accom- 
plices ; and that the nomination of Ministers 
would rest with them." 

"The Nephew of his Uncle." 
How the President fulfilled the obligations 
of the oath he had taken, was shown to the 
world in the events of the 2nd December, 
1 85 1, and the following days. It soon be- 
came abundantly manifest that the President 
was bent on especially cultivating the good 
will of two classes in the community, — the 
clerical and the military. The interference of 
the French in Rome for the re-establishment 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



of the Papal Government, and the mainte- 
nance of a force in the capital for the up- 
holding of the power of Pius IX., secured 
him the support of the Church, Herein he 
may be said to have followed the lead of 
the great founder of his house, who, until he 
became utterly intoxicated with pride and 
arrogance, recognised the importance of a 
good understanding with Pius VII. ; and be- 
sides restoring public worship in France, con- 
cluded a concordat with Rome, and prevailed 
on the Holy Father to crown him at Notre 
Dame. 

Still more strongly marked was the favour 
shown to the army. The President studiously 
kept up and in every way strengthened the 
remembrance of the revived Napoleonic 
legend, continually appearing in the character 
of "the nephew of his uncle." The peculi- 
arities of his august relative, indeed, as to 
costume, etc., he imitated in the earlier part 
of his career with a closeness that bordered 
■on the ludicrous, and exposed him to no little 
ridicule. 

When he made a practice of riding through 
Paris in Napoleonic style, even the Paris 
" gamins " were far two sharp-witted not to be 
struck at once with the difference between 
the nephew and the uncle, between the hero 
of a hundred fights and the holder of half-a- 
score of reviews. The nickname, " Sou- 
louque " was freely applied to the President, 
from the name of the black potentate of 
Haiti, who, making himself emperor under 
the name of Faustin I., presented in his ap- 
pearance and court arrangements a ludicrous 
caricature of the great Corsican, In a spirited 
poem that appeared in the London Ptinch, 
the situation was happily hit off in the follow- 
ing lines, referring to one of these rides 
through Paris : — 
' ' As the return from Elba to Boulogne's unlucky do, — 

As the sawdust strife of Astley's to the real Water- 
loo, — 

So is the Bonaparte of words to the Bonaparte of 
deeds ; 

He who rides there, to him who sleeps within the 
InvaMdes." 

Bidding for Popularity. 
As the time drew near when his term of office 
would expire, the President naturally strove 
to obtain increased popularity with a view to 
re-election. He was always an open-handed 
man, and careless in questions of expendi- 
ture. A progress through the provinces of 
France, while it furthered his political views, 
depleted his purse ; and he found his official 
salary entirely inadequate to cover his ex- 
penditure. An application to the Assembly 
for an increased allowance was refused ; and 
the facetious Charivari, the Pimch of Paris, 
made very merry over the embarrassments 
of the chief officer of the state, to whom it 



applied the fable of the " Grasshopper and 
the ant," with a most expressive illustration 
of Louis Napoleon in the character of " La 
Cigale." Up to the 2nd of December, 185 1, 
there was much laughter at the expense of 
Louis Napoleon Bonaparte ; but after that 
period ridicule gave way to far graver feelings. 
In the Assembly there were a number of 
the members, including some of the most 
distinguished of the people's representatives, 
bitterly hostile to the President, distrusting 
his policy and disliking him personally, and 
resolved, accordingly, to oppose, and, if pos- 
sible, to prevent, his re-election. According 
to one of the articles of the Constitution of 
1848, the President could not be re-elected 
except by a vote of three-fourths of the 
Assembly ; and, therefore, though Louis 
Napoleon might have commanded a majority, 
this law would still have been enough to lose 
him his post. He had in vain sought to 
attach to his interest the ablest m.en in the 
Assembly and the most respectable generals 
in the army. They did not believe in him 
or in his schemes ; too much of ridicule hung 
about him — for these were the days in 
which his ability was still underrated — to 
induce them to join their fortunes to his by 
giving him their aid in altering the Con- 
stitution in a peaceable manner. Failing 
this, he associated himself with men of doubt- 
ful fortunes, and in some cases of more than 
doubtful character ; and there is no question 
that by these he was urged forward when, if 
left to himself, he would have paused, as he 
did at Strasburg and Boulogne, before the 
transaction had passed from the ridiculous 
stage, and become a national concern, deeply 
affecting the welfare of the whole country. 

The President's Associates ; De 
MoRNY, Maupas, Persigny, Etc. 

Among these associates of the President, 
the most astute and not the least resolute 
was De Morny, a bold speculator on the 
Bourse, and a man equally qualified as a 
politician and a financier to make the most 
of an opportunity as it offered, and hardly 
likely to let a chance go past him, or to lose 
a prospect of advancement for want cf prompt 
and vigorous action. He afterwards became 
famous, among other things, for the astuteness 
with which, as ambassador to the Russian 
Court, he turned to his own advantage the 
custom that allows an envoy to bring in 
his horses, carriages, and other valuable 
movables to that country duty free. He 
entered Russia with a great train of vehicles, 
heavily laden with the silks and velvets 
and gay apparel of Western Europe ; and 
a few days afterwards had a great sale, at 
which he disposed of his impedimenta, 
horses, carriages, sets of harness, and all 
at a considerable advantage. He was far 



102 



THROUGH SLAUGHTER TO A THRONE. 



from being a scrupulous man. De Maupas, 
who had been recently appointed Prefect of 
Police, after having been implicated in a dis- 
graceful transaction as Prefect of the Haute 
Garonne, was another of the intimates and 
instruments of the President at the close of 
185 1. A third was Monsieur de Persigny, 
who afterwards became Ambassador of 
France at the Court of St. James's. He 
was an old associate of Louis Napoleon, 
and had taken part in the notable attempt 
at Boulogne in iS/p. The most resolute of 
the men engaged in the transactions of the 
2nd of December was Major Fleury, a man 



Preparations for Striking the Blow ; 
The Army. 

On the night of the ist of December the 
saloons of the Elysee were brilliant as usual 
with a number of guests assembled at the 
President's reception. Ministers, diplomatists, 
and many other guests were present, and 
everything went on as usual ; but the 
President spoke to General Vieyra, Chief 
of the Staff of the National Guard, whom 
he had recently appointed to that post, and 
who undertook to keep the National Guard 
from acting, — a sufficient indication that some 




French Infantry of ihk Like in 1851. 



who, after dissipating the fortune left him 
by his father, a tradesman, had enlisted as 
a private soldier in the army, gained his 
epaulets, and had become aide-de-camp to 
the Pi-esident. He was the hand, as Morny 
was in a great measure the brain, of the 
dark conspiracy then formed against the 
state. Last in the category of the intimates 
of the Elysee comes Jacques Arnaud le Roy, 
more generally known as General, afterwards 
Marshal St. Arnaud, who became commander 
of the French army in the Crimean war, and 
died soon after the battle of the Alma. St. 
Arnaud, at the time of the coup d'etat, had 
recently been made Minister of War. 



important design was to be carried out by 
the President, in which it was desirable the 
Parisians should not interfere. De Morny 
was at the theatre that night ; but after the 
guests had departed from the Elystfe, a secret 
meeting was held there of the President and 
his confederates. 

During the last few days preparations had 
been quietly made for the blow that was to be 
struck that night. Marshal Magnan had been 
informed that he might shortly have to act 
against the Parisians, and had announced 
himself as ready — stipulating only that he 
should not be called upon until the moment 
came for mounting on horseback ; and that 



103 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



for whatever he did he should have a guaran- 
tee, in the form of an order from the Minister 
of War, General St. Arnaud. 

The army was in a dangerous and savage 
temper. Several times during the last few 
years, and notably in 1830 and 1848, the 
troops had come in contact with the people, 
and had had the worst of the contest. A 
late motion, too, in the National Assembly, 
by which that body endeavoured to get part 
of the control over the army into its own 
hands, had been a further cause of anger, 
though the measure had not passed. The 
feeling among the soldiers against the 
civilians of Paris was very bitter, as was 
sufficiently indicated by the nickname of 
" Bedouins," from the Arabs in Africa, they 
bestowed upon them, thus designating them 
as enemies. Such was the disposition of the 
troops brought to Paris ; whose generals, 
to the number of twenty, had been informed 
a few days before at a meeting to which they 
were summoned, that they might be called 
on to "act" in Paris; whereupon they solemnly 
embraced, in token of readiness to fulfil the 
duty required of them. 

The Proclamations of December 2ND. 

Thus, then, having made sure of the co- 
operation of the army, the President launched 
the bolt he had artfully prepared to shatter 
the liberties of France, and pull down the 
Constitution which less than three years 
before he had solemnly sworn to defend. 
From the midnight conference at the 
Elys^e, Colonel Beville, an aide-de-camp 
of the President, was despatched with a 
packet of papers to the state printing- 
office, the director of which institution, M. 
St. George, had been bought over by Louis 
Napoleon. A large body of gendarmerie 
had been quietly collected, at dead of night, 
without exciting suspicion or remark, and 
had surrounded the state printing-office ; 
not one of the compositors assembled there 
as usual being allowed to quit the building. 
The papers brought by Colonel Beville con- 
tained some proclamations, of so startling a 
nature that it was not safe to let even one of 
the printers know their contents. Accordingly, 
the papers were cut up into small portions ; 
and compositors, closely guarded by a gen- 
darme on each side, set up these fragments, 
which separately had no sense, but were 
pieced together afterwards, and emerged 
from the printing-office in the form of various 
addresses to the nation. 

The principal of these proclamations de- 
clared that the National Assembly was 
dissolved ; that universal suffrage was re- 
established, and the law of the 31st of May 
abrogated; and that a state ot siege was 
established in the whole first military division, 
including Paris and twelve departments 



surrounding it ; that the Council of State 
was dissolved ; and that the Minister of the 
Interior was entrusted with the carrying out 
of the decree. It was dated from the Palace 
of the Elys^e, December 2nd, 1851, and 
signed Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. 

The President moreover declared that 
the Assembly was hatching conspiracies 
against him, and that it was his duty to 
baffle these conspiracies and uphold the 
Republic. 

The proclamation to the army was 
atrocious ; for it contained words especially 
calculated to stir up the ferocity of the 
military against the civil population, and 
reads simply as a direct incentive to violence. 
The following words, especially, hardly admit 
of more than one construction : " In 1830, as 
in 1848, they (the people) treated you as 
conquered men. After having disavowed 
your heroic disinterestedness, they disdained 
to consult your sympathies and your wishes, 
although you are the elite of the nation. To- 
day, in this solemn moment, I desire that 
the army will make its voice heard." And 
the army made its voice heard accord- 
ingly, in fusillade and massacre of unarmed 
citizens, — men, women, and children. 

The Minister of the Interior who was 
entrusted with the carrying out of the Presi- 
dent's decree was De Morny, who was now 
appointed to the Home Office ; the ministers 
who took no part in the conspiracy being 
dismissed. 

Seizure of the Leading Politicians ; 
The Army in Paris. 
When the day dawned, the Parisians, as 
they turned out into the streets on their 
various business, read these proclamations 
in stupefied astonishment ; but presently a 
rumour spread, of a measure taken by the 
conspirators of the Ely see, that threw all 
others into the shade by its audacity and its 
utter and wanton disregard of all law. In 
that fatal night Maupas had suddenly sum- 
moned a number of Commissaires of Police, 
to whom separate instructions were given, 
and who, accordingly, accompanied by police 
agents, proceeded in the early morning to 
arrest in their beds the most prominent 
members of the Assembly. These were con- 
veyed to various prisons, the majority of 
them being removed in the cellular vans used 
for the transport of ordinary thieveS and law- 
breakers. Some were lodged in Mazas 
prison, others in the fortress of Vincennes. 
Amongst those seized and carried off into 
captivity were some of the foremost generals 
and statesmen in France : General Cavaignac, 
who had saved Paris in the insurrection of 
June 1848 ; Generals Changarnier, Bedeau, 
and Lamoriciere, Colonel Charras, with such 
statesmen as Thiers, Roger du Nord, Baze, 



THROUGH SLAUGHTER TO A THRONE. 



Miot, and others, to the number of almost I the confidence of the nation by maintaining 
eighty, nearly a score of them being members i the Constitution to which I have sworn;" and 
of the Assembly and therefore, according to | again in his second mes-nge, on the 12th 




the Constitution which was trampled under- 
foot, inviolable, — concerning which the Pre- 
sident had written in his first message to 
the Assembly less than two years before 
("December 31st, 1849) : "I will be worthy of 



November, 1850, only a year before: "If 
the Constitution involves faults and dangers, 
you are all free to make them known in the 
face of the country ; I alone, bound by my 
oath, will keep myself within the strict 



105 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



limits it traces out to me." Again, speaking 
on a public occasion, at the opening of a 
railway, he had alluded to the events that 
led to his incarceration in the fortress of 
Ham, and had unreservedly taken blame to 
himself for his hare-brained Boulogne enter- 
prise, saying : " To-day, when by the election 
of the whole of France I have become the 
legitimate chief of this great nation, I cannot 
glorify myself on an imprisonment caused by 
an attack upon an established government." 
And over and over again he had declared, 
that in view of the terrible evils inseparable 
from even the most justifiable of revolutions, 
he could hardly understand the audacity of 
the man who could take upon himself the 
terrible responsibility of a change. Every- 
where, and on all occasions, he had paraded 
his respect for the Constitution, and the para- 
mount duty imposed on the chief of the state 
of maintaining the order of things as by law 
established. No wonder, then, that the 
people stood bewildered and indignant before 
this extraordinary commentary on those 
reiterated assurances of good faith. 

The troops assembled in Paiis were set in 
motion early in the morning, in expectation of 
the excitement these things might be expected 
to cause. As five o'clock sounded from the 
cupola of the Invalides, the troops in barracks 
there were aroused, and ordered quietly to 
take their arms. At the same hour the 
various regiments in different parts of the 
capital received the same order. The object 
of this early movement was twofold, — partly 
the troops would be required to overawe 
Paris, and enforce the decree closing the 
Assembly ; partly, in case things went wrong, 
to provide for the safety of the plotters at the 
Elys^e. The latter duty was assigned 
especially to the cavalry, of whom a division 
under General Korte, and a brigade under 
Reybell, with an infantry brigade under 
General Canrobert, were stationed near 
the palace. Other infantry brigades were 
posted at various points, such as the Place 
de la Concorde, the Ouai d'Orsay, and the 
Tuileries Gardens, under Generals Cotte, 
Forey, and Dulac. Somewhat later another 
eventuality was provided for. Three travelling 
carriages were kept in readiness, with horses 
harnessed, and postillions in waiting, ready 
to start at a moment's notice from the court- 
yard of the Elys^e. For a betrayed city, 
especially such a city as Paris, has been 
known to rise in fury against its betrayers ; 
and sudden flight might be necessary, after 
all. 

Forcible Closing of the Assembly ; 
Arrest of Members. 

The projectors of the coup d''etat evidently 
counted for success in a great measure upon 
the bewilderment of the Parisians, who would 



be very imperfectly aware of the real state of 
affairs ; the newspapers, which would have 
informed them, being promptly seized and 
stopped. Another hope was in the unpopu- 
larity of the Assembly ; for the workmen of 
Paris looked somewhat suspiciously upon re- 
presentatives paid for service at the rate of 
a pound sterling a day ; and were as likely 
to take part against as with " les vignt-cinq 
yra?/;^^," if properly manipulated, and especially 
if dazzled with anything like a Napoleonic 
spectacle ; and thus it was that the famous 
ride through Paris was undertaken, to which 
allusion has been made ; and which in itself 
fell as flat as the Strasburg and Boulogne 
attempts. 

A point of great importance was the 
closing of the Assembly ; for this could hardly 
be expected to go off without opposition on 
the part of the ejected members. At this 
parody of the i8th of Brumaire the President 
took care not to be present, warned, perhaps, 
by his experiences of the parodies of the return 
from Elba. The space outside the Hall of 
the National Assembly was occupied by 
several regiments of troops. From an early 
hour the deputies began to arrive ; in high 
indignation at the arrests that had been made, 
and anxious that a sitting should commence 
at once. But this was exactly the thing that 
Dupin, the president, appeared anxious to 
avoid. In the morning, when one of the 
deputies had come to him with the astound- 
ing news, and had conjured him immediately 
to summon the representatives at their 
houses, he had replied that he could not see 
the urgency of the case ; and now, when an 
impatient deputy asked him why the Assembly 
was not yet convoked, seeing what things 
were being perpetrated, he replied with a 
shrug of the shoulders that there was nothing 
to be done. There was no mistaking the 
purport of this answer. M. Dupin was 
thoroughly frightened, and would do nothing. 
His colleagues understood him, " That's 
enough,'' was the observation of M de 
Ressdgnier ; and Eugene Sue added : " It's 
too much." By eight o'clock a formidable 
force had invested the legislative palace, all 
the avenues of approach being guarded, and 
the doors closed. But a little entrance, called 
the Porte Noire, in the Rue de Bourgogne, 
had been left open by accident or design 
until twelve o'clock, though the street was 
crowded with troops ; and various representa- 
tives managed to pass through it into the 
Hall of Assembly. In the great avenue of the 
Champs Elysdes several cavalry regiments 
were posted. 

It has been well said, that for once the 
Assembly was thoroughly unanimous in the 
feeling of profound indignation and contempt 
at the unworthy statetrick played by Louis 
Napoleon and his accomplices. The num- 



io6 



THROUGH SLAUGHTER TO A THRONE. 



ber of armed men who were gradually- 
invading the interior, as they had already 
occupied the precincts of the palace, increased 
every minute ; and the deputies ielt sure that 
the nefarious game was being played against 
the republic, while they were wasting time, 
and that not a moment was to be lost. They 
sought Dupin, their " official man," whose 
presence was necessary to give full legal 
force to their deliberations ; but that prudent 
personage Avas nowhere to be found. He 
had consulted his own safety, and had dis- 
played the better part of valour by creeping 
away at the first opportunity ; and while 
conjecture was still busy as to the cause of 
his absence the door of the room opened, and 
an officer in uniform entered, and summoned 
the deputies to leave their own hall. 

His demand was met with a shout of in- 
dignant refusal ; and he retired. But presently 
a company of the " gendarmerie mobile," led 
on by a captain with his sword drawn, ap- 
peared in the hall to which the sixty repre- 
sentatives present had betaken themselves. 
The resolute protest made by the deputies at 
this lawless intrusion seemed to stagger the 
soldiers for a moment ; but the commanding 
officer, after announcing to the deputies that 
he had orders to desire them to withdraw, 
and, in case of their refusal, to expel them, 
proceeded, on the arrival of a fresh detach- 
ment, to put this order in force in the most 
literal manner, turning the representatives of 
the people out of their hall by violence, with 
brutal roughness and blows. Twelve of them, 
who were most energetic in their protests, 
were carried away prisoners. The rest were 
pushed into the street through the different 
doors. 

Closing of the High Court of Justice. 

Meanwhile a commissary of police had 
been despatched with a detachment of 
thirty-five municipal guards to the High Court 
of Justice, which was dispersed in the same 
unceremonious fashion, the judges being 
threatened with arrest if they hesitated to 
obey. And, yielding to the peremptory sum- 
mons, the court broke up, after passing a 
decree of impeachment to be served upon the 
President of the Republic. 

The members of the Assembly, driven from 
their hall, betook themselves to the mayor- 
alty of the loth arrondissement. There, 
amid a passionate storm of indignation, 
under the leadership of the famous advocate 
Berryer, they decreed the deposition of the 
President, Louis Napoleon ; and by a second 
decree pronounced every one guilty of a 
crime who had interfered with the inviola- 
bility of the Assembly, and peremptorily 
demanded that the imprisoned members 
should be set at liberty. While this was 



going on, a battalion of Chasseurs de Vincen- 
nes had been quietly marched into the 
garden of the mayoralty. Again the deputies 
were ordered to disperse. They refused, 
declaring they would yield only to physical 
force ; whereupon they were marched off, to 
the number of more than two hundred, as 
prisoners, between the Chasseurs de Vincen- 
nes. It is a significant fact that the courtyard 
of the mayoralty was afterwards found strewn 
with broken wine bottles ; and there is 
abundant evidence that on this occasion, as 
well as during the more tragic scenes that 
followed, the soldiers were under the influence 
of drink ; many of them being in a stupidly 
heavy condition, others fierce and brutal, and 
nearly all incapable of listening to reasoning, 
or of anything but a stolid obedience to any 
one who wore an epaulet. 

The Assembly Carried Away Captive. 

As the members of the Assembly emerged 
in the courtyard as prisoners, the National 
Guards on duty presented arms, and cried : 
" Long live the Assembly ! Long live the 
representatives of the people ! " They were 
at once disarmed by the Chasseurs de Vin- 
cennes. And then the march of the French 
Parliament, led captive through the streets 
of Paris, began. It is said that the first 
intention of those who ordered their arrest 
had been to lodge the representatives in the 
prison of Mazas ; but if so, the order was 
countermanded ; and, indeed, it would have 
been a venturesome thing to parade 'such a 
sight in broad daylight, in the eyes of the 
numerous and excitable inhabitants of the 
streets between the mayoralty of the loth 
arrondissement and Mazas. The barracks 
of the Quay D'Orsay presented a convenient 
domicile for lodging the captives ; and thither, 
accordingly, the procession took its way, 
reaching its destination at about half-past 
three in the afternoon. 

On their way they had encountered sym- 
pathizing glances, and here and there had 
iDcen saluted with encouraging cries ; but the 
general aspect of the spectators was one of 
blank astonishment as they thus saw the 
representatives of French liberty marched off 
in the custody of soldiers. The French are 
accustomed to act in masses, under leaders 
in whom they have confidence, and whom, at 
a crisis, they implicitly obey ; and the sinister 
ingenuity of the plotters of the coup d'etat 
had taken care that the accredited leaders of 
the people, those to whom the nation could 
have turned with faith and strong belief at a 
time when its liberties were invaded, — men 
like Cavaignac, Thiers, and others, — should 
be safely under lock and key, before the 
great blow against the liberty and honour of 
France was struck. 



107 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



The Prisoners and the Cellular Vans ; 
Mazas and Vincennes. 

When the prisoners had been safely de- 
posited in the barrack square, they were left 
to themselves for a time, and walked to and 
fro, discussing the situation. Community of 
misfortune is a great peacemaker ; and the 
members of the " right " and " left," bitter 
opponents until then, fraternised and ex- 
changed opinions with great cordiality. The 
number of the prisoners had been increased 
during their march by several members who 
joined them voluntarily ; and they now met 
those who had been taken prisoners in the 
'morning, so that they amounted to more than 
two hundred and thirty. They had among 
them the illustrious writer De Tocqueville, 
Thouret, Casimir, Perier, Berryer the advo- 
cate, Sainte-Beuve, and many other men of 
high standing and reputation. They put the 
best face possible on their position, jested with 
one another on the strange fortune that had 
brought them together as prisoners, managed 
to procure a dinner by a general subscription 
from the neighbouring Cafe D'Orsay, and 
prepared to sleep in the large comfortless 
laarrack-rooms on the upper storey. But a 
further indignity was in store for them. At 
ten o'clock that night there came rolling into 
the courtyard a prisoner's van, surrounded by 
an escort of gaolers, carrying torches. A 
squadron of lancers then entered the court, 
and drew up in line. Other similar vehicles 
arrived at a later hour ; and in these cellular 
vans, and in a supplementary omnibus, the 
representatives of the people were driven 
away in batches ; some to Vincennes, others 
to Mazas, and the rest to Mont Valerien. 
A more cynically insulting proceeding it 
would be difficult to imagine. At Mazas, 
especially, the imprisoned representatives 
were treated like the robbers among whom 
they were incarcerated ; threatened and 
browbeaten by the gaolers, and fed on the 
nauseous prison diet that they could scarcely 
swallow. 

State of Paris ; Discouragement ; 

Committee of Resistance. 
It might be supposed th.'at here was pro- 
vocation enough to urge a far less inflamma- 
ble population than that of Paris to insurrec- 
tion ; but the Parisians were not in a 
humour, or, indeed, in a condition, to win 
their cause by fighting. The ablest and 
fiercest barricade men had perished in the 
tremendous struggle of June 1848, or had 
been transported, or, at any rate, disarmed, 
after the defeat of that formidable rising ; 
and those who remained were unable to act 
for want of leaders ; for among the arrests 
made on the night of the ist December had 
been included Barbes and the chief democratic 



and socialist leaders. Moreover, there had 
been a widespread terror of the "spectre 
rouge," among the more respectable of the 
lower and the whole of the middle class, 
community, who were rather inclined, in spite 
of the indignation awakened by the pro- 
ceedings of the President and his accomplices^ 
rather to bear those ills they had than fly to 
others that they knew not of; especially as the 
very extravagance of illegality in the acts 
committed by the knot of conspirators at the 
Elysee seemed a guarantee that such a power 
could not last long. Some kind of armed 
opposition, however, was organised. The 
celebrated Victor Hugo, Baudin, Schoelcher, 
Duval, Malardier, and other members of the 
constituent Assembly who had escaped 
imprisonment, formed themselves into a 
committee of resistance, and attempted to 
bring about a rising in the Faubourg St. 
Antoine ; but they found the people, though 
favourably inclined to their cause, not ripe 
for resistance. A barricade was indeed con- 
structed in the Rue St. Marguerite, but it was 
slight and weak, and utterly inadequate to 
stand against an attack by regular troops. 
Baudin made a heroic but hopeless attempt 
to influence the soldiery by moral force and 
the sense of right. With six other deputies, 
all wearing scarves to show that they were 
members of the Assembly, he advanced to 
meet the approaching column of infantry, 
waving in his hand a copy of the book of the 
Constitution of 1848 ; and began to harangue 
the soldiers on the duty of obeying the law. 
For a moment they were staggered by his 
extreme boldness and heroic contempt of 
danger ; but presently, at a word or sign from 
the officer in command, the soldiers fired a 
volley, and Baudin fell dead. They then 
charged right through the row of deputies, 
who were thrown down, and the barricade 
was taken within a few minutes. 

Failure of the Struggle. 
Proclamations were issued by the com- 
mittee of resistance, declaring Louis Napoleon 
a traitor, outlawing him, and calling on all 
good citizens to support the law. Barricades 
were erected in the streets between the 
Boulevard and the Hotel de Viile ; but they 
were not the old solid constructions of paving- 
stones of former days, for in many instances 
the streets had been lately macadamized ; 
and overturned carriages, omnibuses, rail- 
ings, and hoardings, and a quantity of flimsy 
material were necessarily used. The number 
of men to defend these barricades, and the 
supply of guns and ammunition among the 
insurgents was also limited ; the troops had 
no difficulty in carrying the barricades when- 
ever they chose to charge. The absence of 
their leaders also damped the spirits of the 
insurgents. It was a puny insurrection com- 



108 



i 



IHROUGH SLAUGHTER TO A THRONE. 



pared with that of June 1848, andinthe Fau- 
bourg St. Antoine it simply died out for 
want of support. The number of troops in 
and about Paris amounted, according to the 
tabular statement of Mauduit, a partisan of 
Louis Napoleon, to 48,000. The insurrec- 
tion was confined to one quarter of the city, 
upon which troops could easily converge 
from various points. During part of the 3rd 
of December, and the morning of the 4th, 
the troops maintained an almost passive 
attitude. The men who erected the barri- 
cades were too weak in number to occupy 
the houses around, and thus lost one of the 
strongest points of street fighting. After a 
truce the troops withdrew, and made no effort 
to hold the barricades they had taken, or to 
prevent their reconstruction. This seem- 
ingly unaccountable conduct loses its strange- 
ness when looked at in the light of the 
horrible event of the afternoon of the 4th of 
December, and can only be explained as 
part of a settled plan to deal with the up- 
holders of the republic, and, indeed, with the 
Parisians generally, in a new and unheard of 
fashion. It is impossible to avoid the sus- 
picion that the massacre with which the day's 
proceedings terminated was premeditated. 

Proceedings of the Government; Dis- 
content MET BY A Cavalry Charge. 

From the early morning notices had been 
placarded by order of the government, setting 
forth that any one found with arms in his hands, 
upon, around, or in the neighbourhood of a 
barricade, would at once be shot; that any one 
found attempting to reconstruct a barricade 
would be instantly shot. Another placard 
declared that all groups or crowds of citizens, 
of whatever nature they might be, would be 
dispersed at once by force, witlioiit siunmoiis. 

The barricade fighting, it has been said, 
v/as confined to one quarter of Paris : the 
Boulevards were free ; and at about one 
o'clock on the 4th of December they were 
suddenly occupied throughout their entire 
length by cavalry and infantry ; almost an 
entire division, consisting of the five brigades 
of Cotte, Bourgon, Canrobert, Dulac, and 
Reibell, being present, to the number of 
16,400 men, extending from the Rue de la 
Paris to the Faubourg Poissonicre. Each 
brigade was accompanied by its battery of 
artillery. A great crowd on the sidewalks 
and at the windows gazed with astonishment 
upon this enormous concourse of the military. 
According to one witness, the men were 
talking and laughing ; several, including an 
old officer used to their ways and appearance, 
declared that they were intoxicated. 

The people were dissatisfied with the aspect 
of things ; and, indeed, it is considered that 
the President and his companions at the 
Elys^e were seriously disconcerted at the 



isolation in which they were left. It seemed 
to dawn on the Parisians that their position 
was humiliating. Cries were raised of "W 
bas Louis Bonaparte / Vive la Rcpicbliqiie I " 
and even the insulting words, " A bds 
Soulouque /" were heard. An officer is re- 
ported to have remarked, " Ceci va toiiriier ct 
la charciilerie " (This will turn to butcher's 
work). What was the temper of the troops 
and their officers will be seen in the following 
incident, whose occurrence has been vouched 
for by Captain Mauduit, the apologist of the 
eou/> ifetat, who complacently adds that 
" a good number of them remained on the 
field ; it was the affair of an instant." 

This affair of an instant was the follow- 
ing: — When the first regiment of Lancers, 
under the command of Colonel Rochefort, 
came on the scene, a number of the inhabi- 
tants of the quarter,— -merchants, artists, 
journalists, men and women, some of the 
latter leading young children by the hand, — 
covered the asphalte of the Boulevard. As 
the regiment went by, cries were raised of 
" Vive la Constitution / Vive la loi / Vive 
la Repnblique J " and at this entirely legal 
cry from the crowd — the narrator tells us, 
and he is confirmed by Captain Mauduit — 
the Colonel rode into the middle of the 
group, across the chairs placed on the pave- 
ment ; the lancers followed him, and men, 
women, and children were sabred indis- 
criminately. Such was Captain Mauduit's 
" affair of an instant," — a sinister token of the 
greater calamity that was immediately to 
happen. 

The Massacre on thk Boulevards. 

Near the Gymnase the.itre a little barri- 
cade, formed chiefly of planks and scenery 
taken from the theatre, and occupied by 
some twenty men, had been erected. The 
head of the column of troops was turned 
towards this little barricade. The vast 
mass of troops stretched away westward 
along the Boulevard to the Madeleine ; and 
on the southern pavement a great crowd had 
assembled, a very ordinary crowd of men, 
women, and children, looking at the military 
spectacle, and many of them no doubt won- 
dering what so imposing a display of forces 
could mean ; for though a few languid shots 
were exchanged with the barricade at the 
Gymnase, all along the western line there 
was no sign of an enemy against whom the 
troops could have to contend. Accordingly 
not only was the Boulevard itself covered 
with spectators, but all the windows of the 
houses were crowded with heads, looking 
down at the strange spectacle. 

Suddenly, at a little after three o'clock, a 
shot was fiyed near the corner of the Rue du 
Sentier. Some witnesses declare it came 
from a soldier, who fired straight up into the 



109 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



air, aivd that it was a signal ; others affirm 
that it was a pistol shot from one of the 
houses. Be this as it may, so much is 
certain, that at the firing of this shot the 
whole line of soldiers along the entire length 
of the Boulevard faced towards the south, — 
infantry, cavalry, and artillery, — and com- 
menced firing furiously upon the unarmed 
crowd who thronged the pavement; "and i 



4th of December stands alone, even in the 
history of Parisian revolutions. 

A horrible fury of drunkenness and slaugh- 
ter seemed to have taken possession of the 
soldiers. They fired and loaded and fired 
again on the crowd that fled in wild terror ; 
they pointed their guns at the windows, and 
fired into the houses killing numbers within 
the rooms, — people who had never even gone 




C\I DU \L OB JNOII C JJ^ n, i:* VI IS 



thus," says a contemporary account, " sud- 
denly, without a motive, without sitmnioHs, 
as the atrocious placards of the morning had 
announced, from the Gymnase to the Chinese 
baths, along the whole length of the richest, 
and liveliest, and most joyous boulevard of 
Paris, a butchery began.'' In its utter want 
of cause, its fierce brutality, and its prolonga- 
tion, where not a shadow of resistance was to 
be overcome, this Boulevard massacre of the 



out from their homes ; as is attested by the 
evidence of an English officer who, with his 
wife, narrowly escaped death in this manner. 
Among the heaps of dead were found young- 
men with cigars in their mouths and light 
walking canes in their hands, ladies in velvet 
dresses, clerks carrying business letters, 
checiues, and bills. A passer-by, who rushed 
with about fifty others into a wineshop for 
refuge when the firing first began, states 



THROUGH SLAUGHTER TO A THRONE. 



some particulars concerning his companions 
in misfortune, which will give an idea of the 
kind of crowd upon which the troops con- 
tinued to pour a hail of bullets for half an 
hour, until the last wretch who failed to gain 
a harbour of refuge had ceased to move or 
groan. There were v^^omen among the horri- 
fied group in the wineshop, two of whom 
had just been purchasing provisions for their 
dinner ; a little clerk despatched on an 
errand by his master ; some speculators from 
the Exchange and other men of business ; 
some workmen, hardly any of them in their 
working blouses. One of those poor fellows 
was almost mad with grief; he had been 
returning with his wife to dine with his family 
at the Faubourg Montmartre, when at the 
first discharge both he and his wife fell. The 
husband contrived to pick himself up, and was 
dragged by pitying hands into the wineshop ; 
but the poor wife was killed. The despair 
of the husband was terrible, and he could 
hardly be withheld from rushing out into the 
hail of bullets in the street in search of her. 
He was afterwards arrested and transported 
to Cayenne for uttering threats against the 
President. 

Details of the Massacre ; Slaughter 
of non-combatants. 
Various witnesses have given particulars 
as to the extent and duration of the massacre. 
The testimony of all of them coincides in 
certain particulars, namely, as to the entirely 
unexpected nature of the attack, the long 
extent of the line of boulevards on which 
it was effected, and its completely indiscri- 
minate nature. " Words cannot give an 
adequate idea of such an act of barbarism," 
says an eye-witness ; and he goes on to tell 
how he saw shots fired "by thousands" on 
inoffensive people, without the slightest 
necessity. Another describes the doubtful 
shot as having been fired in the air, as 
might be seen by the smoke rising perpen- 
dicularly ; whereupon, as on a given signal, 
the firing and the bayonet charges on the 
people commenced. One man, who took 
refuge in a gateway in the Rue Taitbout, 
and who saw a woman shot dead within ten 
paces of him, declares emphatically that 
there were neither insurgents nor barricades 
to be seen, — nothing, he says, but " hunters 
and flying game." Another witness uses 
almost the same term, declaring that the 
soldiers lay in wait for passing citizens at 
the corners of the streets, like sportsmen 
stalking game, and fired at the wounded 
who raised themselves on their hands and 
knees and attempted to crawl away. The 
soldiers fired down gratings into the cellars 
where the inhabitants of many houses had 
taken refuge. Until nightfall the cannonade 
and the fire of musketry continued. Some 



houses, like the Sallandronze warehouse, 
were completely gutted. The men could 
no longer be restrained by their officers, who, 
in some instances, sought in vain to mode- 
rate their rage ; they seemed drunk with 
fury and cruelty. Some of them made bets 
with their comrades that they would hit a 
certain man or woman flying across an open 
place. A roar of laughter arose each time 
one of these horrible wagers was won. One 
woman was found dead with a loaf of bread 
under her arm. A printer's boy dragged 
himself into an entry to die, with the proof- 
sheet he was carrying still grasped in his 
hand. A poor streetseller of lemonade, with 
his tin fountain on his back ; an errand boy 
of thirteen deliberately put up and shot, in 
spite of his childish appeal for mercy ; an 
old white-haired man, with an umbrella in 
his hand, were among the " enemies " shot 
down by the soldiery. The lesson given to 
them had borne good fruit, — they were 
quite ready to revenge the insults of 1830 
and 1848; and, among other achievements, 
signalised themselves by entering a dozen 
houses of the " Bedouins," under pretext that 
that there had been shots fired from the 
windows, and bayoneting every one of the 
inmates. 

The soldiers killed for the sake of killing. 
One who saw the dead removed for burial, 
declared that they lay in heaps — men, women, 
and children ; blouses and broad-cloth mixed 
in indescribable confusion ; heads, arms, and 
legs all mingled together. The streets were 
literally running with blood ; and each of the 
young trees, round which hollows had been 
dug to retain the water, stood in a gory pool. 

That night the troops bivouacked on the 
Boulevards, by the light of huge watch fires. 
There is good evidence, also, that distributions 
of money, generally at the rate of ten francs 
per man, were made to the troops in acknow- 
ledgment of their exertions. '"' The officers 
were breaking open rouleaux of Louis like 
sticks of chocolate," says an eye-witness. 
There were drinking and carousing and 
singing of songs among the bivouacs, — while 
mournful women were searching with lanterns 
among the heaps of corpses for lost husbands, 
brothers, and sons. 

The Success of the Coup d'etat ; The 
Plebiscite. 
With the massacre, the success of the coup 
d'etat was secured. Paris was petrified with 
horror at first ; then the feeling seemed that 
of a frightened child, mingled with a strange 
puerile curiosity. The city was full of bearers 
carrying away corpses from the hospitals and 
the places to which they had been taken 
when the blood-stained streets were cleared 
of the heaps of dead ; and yet the people 
were out again, looking with greedy curiosity 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



at the traces of the carnage, — standing in 
gaping groups in front of houses shattered by 
cannon balls, — putting their fingers in the 
pools of blood, — pointing out to each other the 
traces which showed where wounded wretches 
had dragged themselves along the pavement 
in search of some corner where they might 
sink down and die in peace. The committee 
of defence made some spasmodic efforts on 
the morning of the 5th to keep up the resist- 
ance, but it was useless ; a barricade or two 
was still defended for a time by a few indo- 
mitable workmen ; but Paris would not rise, — 
it was cowed by the atrocities that had been 
committed. The men of the Elysee had 
their way ; and Louis Napoleon could make 
his preparations at leisure for the farce called 
a '''"plebiscite" which was to raise him 
permanently to the supreme power by " the 
will of the French nation," — a nation to whose 
provinces De Morny had sent despatches 
announcing that the National Assembly had 
been dissolved amid general division, — before 
the policemen commissioned to ai-rest the 
members had fulfilled their sorry task. 

Testimony of an Impartial Witness ; 
Public Feeling in England. 
A gentleman, who has since won for him- 
self an eminent position in literature, Mr. 
George Augustus Sala, then a young man, 
happened to ai'rive in Paris just at the time 
when the coii-p detat was in full operation. 
He came upon it quite unexpectedly, and 
gave a powerful and graphic account of 
what he saw and heard in Charles Dickens's 
Household Words, under the expressive 
heading, " Liberty, Eonality, Fraternity, and 
Musketry." His account was written, it must 
be remembered, while the impression produced 
by these scenes was still fresh in his memory, 
for the occurrences described were not a 
fortnight old. He walked through Paris on 
the day after the massacre, and this is what 
he says about it : — " With the merits or de- 
merits of the struggle I have nothing to do. 
But I saw the horrible brutality and ferocity 
of this ruthless soldiery. I saw them burst- 
ing into shops to search for arms or fugitives, 
dragging the inmates forth like sheep from 
a slaughter-house, smashing the furniture 
and windows. I saw them, when making a 
passage for a convoy of prisoners, or a 



waggonful of wounded, strike wantonly at 
the bystanders with the butt ends of their 
muskets, and thrust at them with their 
bayonets. ... So much for what I saw. I 
know, as far as a man can know from trust- 
worthy persons, from eye-witnesses, from 
patent and notorious report, that the military, 
who are now the sole and supreme masters 
of that unhappy city and country, have been 
perpetrating most frightful barbarities since 
the riots were over. I know that from the 
Thursday I arrived to the Thursday I left 
Paris they were daily shooting their prisoners 
in cold blood. ... I know that in the Champ 
de Mars one hundred and fifty-six men were 
executed ; and I heard one horrible story (so 
horrible that I can scarcely credit it) that a 
batch of prisoners were tied together with 
ropes, like a faggot of wood, and that the 
struggling mass was fired into until not a 
limb moved nor a groan was uttered. I 
know — and my informant was a clerk in the 
office of the Ministry of War — that the official 
return of insurgents killed was two thonsmid 
and seven, and of soldiers fifteen. Rather 
long odds !" 

In England the news of these things 
created a profound sensation ; the feeling 
was everywhere one of indignation and horror, 
and the English newspapers spoke out in 
such frank fashion that they were promptly 
prohibited in France. The Queen wrote 
immediately to the Prime Mmister, Lord 
John Russell, to desire that nothing might 
be said by the Government that could by 
any means be made to assume an appearance 
of approval of the coup d'etat ; and Lord 
Palmerston, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, 
who had indiscreetly used some phrases that 
were interpreted by the French ambassador. 
Count Walewski, as expressions of concur- 
rence in the course adopted by the President, 
and by him reported to the French Minister, 
M. Turgot, was dismissed from his post. At 
a later period England acknowledged in the 
Emperor of the French a faithful and friendly 
ally; but the means by Avhich he attained to 
power were never forgotten, and especially 
came back to remembrance after that fatal 
day of Sedan, where, amid a scene of slaughter, 
he lost the throne to which he had mounted 
by bloodshed and wrong, 

H. W, D. 




The Birthplace of John Wesley. 

METHODISM. 

THE STORY OF A GREAT REVIVAL. 



■Great Movements and Reaction^England under George II. — Pioneers of the Revival — The Holy Club at Oxford — George 
Whitefield's Early Days — Whitefield becomes a Preacher — Whitefield in London — The Countess of Huntingdon — 
The Wesleys — The Wesleys become Itinerants — Spread of Methodism, Lay Preachers, Provincial lilobs — Illustrious 
Allies — Ireland, Scotland, Wales — Methodist Denominations^General Results — Conclusion. 




Great Movements and Reaction. 
|T is giving expression to a truism to 
say, that many of those popular 
movements which have redounded 
in blessing to mankind, have come 
as reactions against what could no longer be 
passively endured ; the tide having marked 
its lowest ebb would not remain stationary, 
but rather began to return towards those 
high-water marks which had been frequently 
touched in other days. This was so at the 
dawn of the Reformation ; the cup of papal 
iniquity was full ; and having in the printing- 
press an engine of new power to work with, 
one true man, as it were, had it in his power 
literally to chase a thousand enemies of the 
right, and so to set in motion the inevitable 
reaction against priestcraft and tyranny. It 
was so at the Revolution of 1688 ; the 
dreary and forbidding political outlook was 
at once the darkest hour of night and the 
hour before the dawn. By a beneficent 
law, evils are thus made to bring their 
own correctives, while in the end the re- 
presentatives of wrong and of oppression, 
against their personal will and design, de- 
feat their ov.'n purposes. There is, of course, 
considerable danger incurred when the 



leaders in a national movement are themselves 
too low down in the mire, or are too blinded 
by class prejudices, to see clearly in what the 
cure for grievances consists, and thus to 
realize what a suffering people really require 
for their elevation. Thfe risks and penalties 
referred to were painfully exemplified during 
the course of that French Revolution which 
alarmed and threatened Europe in the very 
days when our own more favoured country 
was beginning to taste of the grateful fruits 
resulting from the seed-sowing of the Metho- 
dist pioneers. France passed through an 
ordeal of blood and fire such as might have 
fallen to the lot of England, had not a 
determined band of religious and moral 
reformers been raised up to draw into the 
fold of the Church those classes of the people 
who were becoming dangerous to the State, 
in proportion to their ignorance and lawless- 
ness in daily life. 

England under George II. 

The triumph of the Protestant Succession 
was really ensured in 1688, as the outcome 
of the Revolution ; but nevertheless the 
enemies of Popery manifested joy both 
unfeigned and deep, when, about a quarter of 

13 I 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



a century later, the heir of the House of 
Brunswick quietly took possession of the 
crown. The friends of order and of true reli- 
gion regarded this transition as one of those 
bloodless revolutions which reveal the hand 
of God in history, and no right-minded 
person will be prepared to challenge their 
conclusion. It is true that the roseal pro- 
mises of better days which had seemed to 
tinge the horizon of the Revolution had not 
been fulfilled ; but there was at least an augury 
of good in the bare fact that the machinations 
of the enemy were defeated. Though neither 
George I. nor his successor was a pattern of 
Christian propriety, they were both repre- 
sentatives of those principles of civil and 
religious liberty which were dear to the 
English people, and beneath the ascendency 
of which true progress can alone be made. 

Still, as years passed by, it was found that 
the mere profession of Protestanism and 
nothing else was not more promising than 
trusting for fruit to a sapless and dead tree. 
The Reformation, hailed in England as a 
mighty deliverance, soon struck its roots deep 
in the national affection, and the history of 
the early and later Puritans is in itself the 
history of a great revival following close upon 
the receding darkness of Popery. When, 
however, the Puritans passed away, they left 
no successors ; and the earlier years of the 
eighteenth century were a time of religious 
deadness, of moral and political corruption 
such as could not easily be paralleled in the 
annals of our country. In the fourth decade 
of the century, under George II., progress 
was indeed made, but it was a progress from 
bad to worse ; the reaping was not worthy of 
the seed-sowing. 

In the palace, during two reigns, there had 
been domestic strife, the King and heir- 
apparent presenting a sorry example to the 
people by quarrelling with one another ; and 
while politicians, from the chief minister 
downwards, were commonly unscrupulous as 
regarded the means they used for accomplish- 
ing their purposes, the upper classes lived for 
themselves alone, indulging in sports as 
everyday pastimes which were less civilized 
than characteristic of the times. With the 
main roads too badly kept to admit of travel- 
ling with pleasure or even with safety, few 
persons knew much about the country beyond 
their own immediate locality ; but while those 
who ventured on a journey risked inconve- 
niences arising from accident and highway- 
men, those who remained behind lived in 
dread of the foot-pads and burglars- who 
swrirmed in the towns. Left to themselves, 
without day or Sunday schools, and without 
any effort being made by pastor or mission- 
ary to ameliorate their sadly degraded lot, 
the common people were then, in a sense we 
can hardly understand, the dangerous classes. 



Drinking and debauchery had risen to such 
a height in 1 736, that the Justices of Middle- 
sex petitioned Parliament to exercise its 
authority in checking the evil. In and about 
London there were 20,000 gin-shops, and 
day after day the newspapers recorded the 
fate of persons who had died suddenly from'' 
over-drinking. Parliament passed a repres- 
sive measure, but the disease lay too deep 
for surface treatment ; and thus the mob 
hooted their defiance at Government in the 
streets, subjected informers to a mud-bath 
in the gutters, and drank gin, as before, under 
fancy names. Then systematic smuggling 
was not only largely carried on, but was 
condoned by the public ; and the fate of 
Porteous, at Edinburgh, was not only a 
specimen of popular lynching, it was an 
example of how an organized lawless mob 
could revenge itself on the Legislature. 
Daily becoming more estranged from mora- 
lity and religion, the common people showed 
in other pastimes than drinking the down- 
ward tendency of human nature when parted 
from the influence of the Gospel. Savage 
sports, such as would have found favour in a 
heathen amphitheatre, were chiefly in re- 
quest, — pugilistic combats, dog- and cock- 
fights, bull-baiting and rat-worrying ; while 
on secluded and dangerous parts of the coast 
demon-like wreckers allured ships to de- 
struction for the sake of booty. The children 
of the poor, both in town and country, were 
born to a heritage of humiliation ; even 
the commonplace things of civilization, now 
the birthright of all who exemplify soberness 
and industry, were beyond their reach. The 
picture drawn by Raikes, about a genera- 
tion later, of the noise and ribaldry with 
which the children of Gloucester filled the 
streets of that town during the Sunday hours, 
was no exaggeration. Gloucester was a very 
typical case ; what occurred there was similar 
to what happened in every town throughout 
England in the reign of George II. The 
churches and chapels were as ill-attended 
as the prisons were crowded ; and on all 
hands there were longings for deliverance 
from the dominion of sin. 

The literature of any period is undoubtedly 
a mirror which correctly reflects the people's 
moral and religious life. The early part of 
the eighteenth century was something more 
than the Augustan age of English letters ; it 
represents the opening of a new epoch, when 
newspapers and periodicals began to exercise 
that influence on the popular mind which 
has now grown into one of the most potent 
forces of our modern civilization. When, 
however, we come to look into the moral 
character of the writings chiefly in vogue, 
we find little reason for satisfaction. We 
retain admiration for the galaxy of brilliant 
stars such a'sAddison and Steele, Goldsmith, 



114 



METHODISM. 



and Johnson, who sought to wean people 
from the sensual and degrading ; but these 
were hardly able to counteract the corrupt 
influence of Dryden and Congreve among 
poets, of Swift and Sterne in the Church, nor 
of the infidels Shaftesbury, Hobbs, and 
Bolingbroke, Gibbon and Hume, among 
philosophers and historians living and dead, 
whose books were widely circulated. The 
reaction against Puritanism was complete ; 
the era was one of moral and religious dead- 
ness without parallel since the Reformation. 

Pioneers of the Revival. 

Dark as the general outlook was, however, 
the picture had its light as well as shade, and 
here and there, scattered widely apart over the 
country, there were found hard-working, 
conscientious pastors, who lived faithful to 
their trust amid the general declension. 
Goldsmith, in the course of his many 
wanderings and romantic adventures, must 
have encountered a few such, or even his 
inventive genius would hardly have supplied 
materials for the charming portrayal of Dr. 
Primrose in " The Vicar of Wakefield." To 
pass from fiction to fact, we have in a private 
letter of 1754, a picture of a Lancashire 
clergyman at home, which will in some 
measure help us to understand the times. 
" I found him sitting at the head of a long 
square table," remarks the anonymous 
correspondent, "such as is commonly used 
in this country by the lower class of people, 
dressed in a coarse blue firock trimmed with 
coarse horn buttons ; a checked shirt, a 
leathern strap about his neck for a stock, a 
coarse apron, and a thick pair of great heavy 
wooden-soled shoes, plated with iron to 
preserve them, with a child upon his knee 
eating his breakfast." In regard to himself 
this good man confessed that he was situated 
greatly to his satisfaction, while his people 
not only lived in "happy ignorance of the 
vices and follies of the age," but were, as he 
believed and hoped, really sincere Christians. 

Among the names of those who were more 
widely known appear Watts and Doddridge, 
both of whom, after some exercise of caution, 
— they were entertaining a pet scheme of 
comprehension, — became steadfast friends 
of the Revival. The best hymns of both 
these worthies are still as greatly prized as 
ever; and although the first was incapacitated 
by constitutional weakness from becoming 
a travelling propagandist, the other turned 
his college at Northampton into a centre of 
evangelical influence. In one of his letters 
to the Bishop of London, Doddridge intimates 
that nearly aU the villages around North- 
ampton had some building licensed for 
religious services ; and the Doctors method 
was not only to preach himself when oppor- 
tunities offered, but to furnish students and 



others with sermons, which were preached 
far and wide over the county. Then besides 
these there was the godly rector of Epworth 
himself, who was a blessing to his own im- 
mediate district. 

In a more humble way there were some 
few who imitated this procedure throughout 
the kingdom ; they belonged to all ranks of 
life, so that the clear shining of the light, 
sometimes found in hall or cottage, seemed 
to be the more grateful on account of its 
rarity. There were also in the country at 
this time a large number of Huguenots, the 
families of those who had fled from France to 
escape the discipline of Louis the Fourteenth's 
dragoons, and these were a gain in more 
senses than one. Then, as a compact body 
zealous in the Gospel cause, the Society of 
Friends was perhaps then even stronger in 
England than at present. Facts like these 
should not be overlooked ; for they are not 
only a silver lining to the sombre shade of 
the preceding section, they show that the 
active leaders of the Methodist Revival had, 
in spite of the forbidding general outlook, 
something more than a foundation of sand to 
build upon when they inaugurated their great 
movement. 

The Holy Club at Oxford. 
The general condition of society at the two 
great universities when George II. succeeded 
to the throne very naturally partook of the 
character of the age. Each college was a 
rendezvous for young men of various social ; 
grades and aspirations, some students being ' 
as poor as Johnson and Whitefield, while ' 
others, as the scions of noble houses, were 
more desirous of the prestige which a name 
for learning would give than of any solid 
advantages arising from knowledge itself. 
Numbers, it is to be feared, knew much more 
about gaming and loose practices than of 
science, theology, or Christian morality, and 
were more thoroughly versed in the specious 
wit of Voltaire and Bolingbroke than in the 
inspired aphorisms of David and St. Paul. 
A virtuous, plodding youth, amid such sur- 
roundings was at once shunned and perse- 
cuted as a speckled bird ; for with the ma- 
jority the maintenance of wine-parties at 
night, and a constantly diversified round of 
sports by day, was a far more serious life 
business than reading for examinations. To 
a few observant people the spectacle was sad, 
if not actually alarming ; for it seemed as if 
religion had failed even in her most favoured 
seats. Others were content to look on with 
more equanimity ; for though the universities 
were not schools of morality and religion, 
they were what they had been and would 
continue to be, so that young men must go 
through the ordeal others had passed through 
before them, and take their chance. To such, 



"5 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the Church of England was a good old insti- 
tution, worthy of respect and'even affection ; 
but they very effectively wedded her to the 
world by preaching against the indiscretion 
of being righteous overmuch. 

In such an age it was hardly to be expected 
that the reaction against the prevailing god- 
lessness and indifference would set in at 
Oxford ; but so it came to pass : in a quietly 
unobtrusive manner the great university 
became the cradle of the new Reformation. 
"In November 1729," says John Wesley, 
" four young gentlemen of Oxford, — Mr. John 
Wesley, Fellow of Lincoln College ; Mr. 
Charles Wesley, Student of Christchurch ; 
Mr. Morgan, Commoner of Christchurch ; 
and Mr. Kirkham, of Merton College, — beean 



men of extraordinary parts ; but they have 
the misfortune to be taken by all who have 
ever been in their company for madmen and 
fools." Such language found its echo in the 
popular sentiment, although there were not 
wanting more impartial champions to take 
the other side. The authorities themselves 
were wisely tolerant of the new religious 
order which had arisen,— a fact the more 
remarkable and commendable since about 
forty years later, half-a-dozen students of 
Edmund-hall, in Oxford, were expelled '•' for 
holding Methodistical tenets, and taking 
upon them to pray, read, and expound the 
Scriptures, and sing hymns in a private house." 
The truth is that the members of this so- 
called Holy Club were simply a coterie of 



y:!i 







• The Holy Club. 



to spend some evenings in a week together 
in reading, chiefly the Greek Testament." 
This little company was augmented from 
time to time by other sympathetic souls ; 
and soon not only luxurious Oxford, but the 
whole of the judicious world outside, which 
prided itself in maintaining a seemly religious 
moderation, professed to be scandalized by a 
new departure from the old moorings. The 
-school of supposed fanatics were called Bible- 
moths, or the Holy Club, and by others, on 
account of their regular habits, Methodists. 

The innovation in a place like Oxford was 
so unique and surprising, that people far and 
near asked who and what the enthusiasts were; 
and the reply which came from one influential 
London newspaper was that, " Among their 
own party they pass for religious persons and 



116 



earnest young men who resolved to turn aside 
from the folly and dissipation of the age, 
while they strictly adhered to the discipline 
of the Established Church. An hour in the 
morning, and another hour on retiring for the 
night, they gave to private prayer ; they took 
the communion weekly at Christchurch ; they 
strove after every Christian grace ; fasted on 
Wednesdays and Fridays; and missed no 
opportunities of attending prayers and ser- 
mons. It was easy to call them enthusiasts, 
— and at the outset there probably was a 
mixture of Pharisaism in their profession, — 
but it was harder to gainsay their extra- 
ordinary self-denial in pursuing daily rounds 
of charity, such as more easy-going Christians 
had neglected. In those days the prisons of 
England were so notoriously bad, that per- 



METHODISM. 



sons whose nerves were equal to witnessing 
revolting scenes were not exempt from risk 
of fever when they invaded the precincts of 
a common prison ; but fears likely to deter 
weaker people weighed lighter than feathers 
with the members of the Holy Club. On a 
certain day during the summer of 1730, 
William Morgan called at the castle to see 
a malefactor who was to be hanged for killing 
his wife, when, to quote John Wesley's words, 
" from the talk he had with one of the debtors, 
he verily believed it would do much good if 
any one would be at the pains of now and 
then speaking with them." Cordially falling 
in with this new idea, John and Charles 
Wesley next turned attention to the prisoners, 
whether poor debtors or criminals; and 
once fanned, the flame of their charity soon 
extended to other classes. While the com- 
mon beggars encountered in daily walks were 
not overlooked, they began to teach the 
children of indigent cottagers, and even 
extended their solicitude to paupers in the 
workhouse. 

The names of some who early joined this 
singular fraternity are now forgotten, but one 
or two besides the brothers Wesley and George 
Whitefield are still remembered. Robert 
Kirkham was attracted from a life of jollity, 
and it is said that his fair and gifted sister 
Betsy was nearly becoming the wife of the 
founder of Methodism. Charles Morgan 
relinquished libertine ways to join the club ; 
and his unfortunate brother William, who 
lost his reason, was falsely pointed at as a 
victim of enthusiasm. John Clayton, who 
till the last remained a strict and formal 
Churchman, was complicated in the rising on 
behalf of the Stuarts in 1745. Benjamin 
Ingham ultimately joined the Moravians, and 
married Lady Margaret, sister-in-law of the 
Countess of Huntingdon. John Gambold 
also joined the Moravians, thus becoming 
associated with the erratic Zinzendorf. Better 
known than any of these was James Hervey, 
who after leaving Oxford and getting clear 
of the Pharisaic notions he had imbibed at 
the University, served for three years as 
curate at Bideford, thence removing to 
Weston Flavel to serve in the church under 
his father, whom he finally succeeded. 

Though his soul was lodged in one of the 
most fragile of bodies, Hervey was next to 
the Wesleys the most popular author of 
the Revival ; and even as a preacher in his 
two Northamptonshire parishes he did very 
effective service ; he was regarded as a clear- 
shining star in the surrounding darkness, and 
his flock looked up to him with reverent 
affection. At this time of day his laboured 
grandiloquent style is not what would take 
hold of the educated classes ; but for more 
than one generation his " Meditations " and 
kindred works were among the best read 



religious books in England. In private life 
he was among the most amiable of men, and 
notwithstanding the physical weakness \Vhich 
afflicted him, one of the most hard-working 
of pastors of that dead age in which his lot 
was cast. There can be no doubt that the 
influence of his pen in the great cause of 
Methodism was as extensive as it was bene- 
ficent. One of the most singular of his private 
letters was one he addressed to the once 
famous master of the ceremonies who reigned 
at Bath with sovereign sway over the fashion- 
able world. Alluding to a case of too late 
repentance which had come beneath his 
own notice, Hervey proceeded to draw a 
comparison. " I remembered you, sir," wrote 
the curate in that pointed style of which he 
was a master ; " for I discerned too near an 
agreement and correspondence between the 
deceased and yourself. ' They are alike,' 
said I, * in their ways, and what shall hinder 
them from being alike in their end ? ' " What 
may have been the influence of this warning 
on a hardened gamester and man of the 
world like Beau Nash cannot be told ; but 
the autocrat of fashion paid the writer the 
high compliment of never during life parting 
with the letter. 

Such were the members of the Holy Club, 
some of whom never renounced the strait- 
laced sacerdotalism of early days, while 
others advanced to the very front rank among 
English teachers and reformers of the people. 
Many old enemies, as time went on, modified 
or abandoned deep-rooted prejudices. Even 
Dr. Johnson, who was reared in a Jacobitical 
home, acknowledged that the Methodists had 
done some good; they had spread religious im- 
pressions among the vulgar part of mankind." 
In his last days the distinguished lexicogra- 
pher, by accepting the truth as preached by 
Whitefield, became a Methodist himself;, 
and that gratifying fact is perhaps the best 
commentary on the above gracious conces- 
sion, 

George Whitefield's Early Days. 

As the first of those innovators who adopted 
the practice of open-air preaching, Whitefield 
occupies the most conspicuous position in the 
van of the Methodist Revival. Several years 
the junior of the brothers Wesley, he like 
them belonged to a clerical family, although 
at the time of his birth George's parents were 
the humble proprietors of the Bell Inn at 
Gloucester. Losing his father in infancy, he 
grew up to assist one of the best of mothers in 
the public-house, and according to his own 
account, Whitefield's early days were marked 
by quite the average amount of sinful folly. 
It may be that, as has frequently occurred 
in many similar instances, the shady part of 
the picture is overcoloured, for he was only 
seventeen when he entered Pembroke College 



117 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



as a servitor, and he appears to have speedily 
joined the brotherhood known as the Holy 
Club, meanwhile outstripping all the other 
members in the vigorous strictness with 
which he observed the rules. As a boy in 
his mother's bar, Whitefield had borne him- 
self very much as other boys would have 
done in that situation ; he could laugh and 
joke, he was as fond of outdoor sports as he 
was of reading plays, and occasionally ap- 
propriated to his own use cash from the 
common till. Now all was changed ; White- 
field was a humble penitent, who in any 
passing difficulty sought counsel of John or 
Charles Wesley ; and. what with nocturnal 
vigils and prolonged fastings at holy seasons, 
he reduced his constitution until, at one time, 
he was so starved that he appeared to be on 
the verge of the grave. When in 1735, before 
he came of age, Whitefield attained to clearer 
views of Scriptural truth, all this Pharisaic 
self-righteous method of securing salva- 
tion was relinquished for ever. Three years 
later his friends and preceptors, the brothers 
Wesley, attained to similar liberty ; and all 
three were destined to take an apostolic part 
in the coming Methodist Revival. They 
Jiecessarily ceased to be legalists, endeavour- 
ing to save themselves, before they could 
render any service by instructing the ignorant 
crowds around them. 

From a very early age Whitefield was 
impressed with the idea that he would one 
•day preach sermons, and that he would do 
so in a more artistic method than " Old 
Cole," a Nonconformist worthy then labour- 
ing in Gloucester, who was not remarkable 
for any exceptional oratorical or literary 
powers. When the subject had been men- 
tioned to Mrs. Whitefield, the widow usually 
repelled the idea as presumptuous ; but both 
quickly and surely the path of duty was now 
opening. After leaving the University at the 
still early age of twenty-one, he continued 
those Christian practices of visiting the poor 
in their own cottages, and of carrying the 
Gospel to wretched prisoners in the gaols, 
and did so with much more comfort to him- 
self than he had ever before experienced. 
Conscious in a degree of the gifts he in- 
herited, while he was at the same time a 
pattern of humility, Whitefield applied to 
Benson, bishop of Gloucester, for ordination, 
and that prelate handsomely yielded what 
was required of him. At a later period the 
Bishop professed to regret this action, and 
consequently received the gentle rebuke of 
Lady Huntingdon. " Mark my words," the 
Countess said with some vehemence, " when 
you are on your dying bed that will be one 
of the few ordinations you will reflect upon 
with complacence." This turned out to be 
the case ; for in his last days Benson sent 
Whitefield a present of ten guineas, and 



requested the great preacher to remember 
his old friend in prayer. 

Whitefield Becomes a Preacher. 

Whitefield preached his first sermon, im- 
mediately after he was ordained, in the church 
of St. Mary de Crypt, Gloucester, before a 
crowded congregation of old and young, 
who had known him as a tapster at the Bell 
Tavern. "The sight at first a little awed 
me," he afterwards wrote, "but I was com- 
forted with a heartfelt sense of the Divine 
presence, and soon found the unspeakable 
advantage of having been accustomed to 
public speaking when a boy at school, and 
of exhorting and teaching the prisoners and 
poor people at their private houses whilst at 
the university. By these means I was kept 
from being daunted overmuch. As I pro- 
ceeded I perceived the fire kindled, till at 
last, though so young, and amidst a crowd 
who knew me in my childish days, I trust I 
was enabled to speak with some degree of 
Divine authority. A few mocked, but most 
for the present seemed struck ; and I have 
since heard that a complaint has been made 
to the Bishop that I drove fifteen mad. The 
worthy prelate, as I am informed, wished 
that the madness might not be forgotten 
before next Sunday." 

Now that the die was cast there was neither 
any desire or possibility of going back; and 
specially endowed both by grace and nature 
for his peculiar work, Whitefield had the 
talent as well as the temper necessary for 
taking the lead in a new and great movement. 
There must have been something startlingly 
original in his whole method of preaching to 
account for the efiect his sermons at once 
produced, the more so because doctrines 
were proclaimed which were virtually new to 
the popular mind. The fifteen he was reputed 
to have sent mad at Gloucester were typical 
of thousands of others who were to become 
similarly affected. At Bristol, in 1737, the 
whole population, from the mayor downwards, 
seems to have been carried away by the 
irresistible eloquence of the young itinerant. 
People seemed to realize that an apostle had 
been raised up to awaken a sleeping age with 
trumpet-tongue, and to call men from sin and 
folly to a more reasonable service. 

At first it seemed as if the young evangelist 
was about to take England by storm, and to 
become the most popular man in the country 
among all classes. The Earl and Countess 
of Huntingdon were already among his stead- 
fast friends ; and this pious couple brought 
into the Methodist camp such of their aristo- 
cratic friends as were willing to be impressed. 
Many great people were lastingly reformed, 
while the letters they wrote still rank among 
the curiosities. of the Revival. " God knows 
we all need mending, and none more than 



I 



Ii3 



METHODISM. 



myself," was the truthful confession of the 
dignified Duchess of Marlborough. Lady 
Hinchinbroke also wrote in a strain of deeper 
penitence ; and the Duchess of Queensbury 
was for a time among Whitefield's regular 
hearers. Even the Duchess of Buckingham, 
a natural daughter of James II., and the 
divorced wife of the Earl of Anglesey, 
went to hear, though she returned home 
shocked at having been told that her heart 
was " as sinful as the common wretches that 
crawl on the earth." Though this was "highly 
offensive and insulting" to one of her lady- 
ship's temperament, her candid confession 
testified to the power of Whitefield's searching 
words. 

This unwonted commotion occasioned by 
the action of a clergyman not much over 
twenty years of age, awakened the opposition 
of several ecclesiastical dignitaries, who soon 
won the sympathy of large numbers of the 
inferior clergy and the common people, so 
that a tide of persecution had now to be 
encountered by the great preacher. White- 
field was threatened with excommunication 
by the Chancellor of the Bristol diocese ; but 
the Chancellor soon learned to exercise a 
wiser discretion, finding that his anger did 
not prevent people coming distances of twenty 
miles to hear their favourite minister, who 
now began to gather immense audiences in 
the open air, when, with few exceptions, the 
churches of London and the provinces were 
closed against him. Whitefield discovered 
that although he had been enabled to make 
a fair start, his enemies were both strong and 
determined ; but with characteristic courage 
he resolved not to yield. " Blessed be God, 
all things happen for the furtherance of the 
Gospel," he wrote in March 1739. "I ^^^^ 
preach to ten times more people than I should 
if I had been confined to the churches." Per- 
secution drove him to revive the primitive 
practice of open-air preaching, and the fields, 
the market-cross, the village green, served 
the purpose of such a man far better than 
the limited area of even the largest churches. 
He had already paid one visit to America; 
and what was the nature of his daily work at 
this time may be gathered from the letters of 
contemporaries who shared his labours and 
joys. " Being thrust out of the synagogues, 
our brother has settled a lecture or exposition 
at Newgate every morning," wrote William 
Seward from Bristol at this time ; " the place 
being more convenient than Oxford Castle 
chapel. He generally expounds to one, two, 
or three societies every night ; and has 
preached seven or eight times on a mount 
about two miles from Bristol, where have been 
from 1,500 to 15,000 hearers. ... At one 
place, the church not being big enough, he 
preached from the cross. He preaches once 
a week on the steps of a workhouse, with 



a hall behind and a court-yard almost fuU 
before. He has preached in two other 
parts of Kingswood, among the colliers, and 
thousands come, — horsemen, coaches,chaises, 
etc. . . . You may be sure we are set up for 
being stark mad." It was now no uncommon 
thing for 20,000 persons to collect around 
the preacher, numbers climbing into trees or 
sitting in the hedges. The colliers referred 
to were those of Kingswood, a class described 
in Wesley's journal as "a people famous, 
from the beginning hitherto, for neither fear- 
ing God nor regarding man ; so ignorant of 
the things of God that they seemed but one 
remove from the beasts that perish." With 
tears furrowing their begrimed cheeks, these 
people now reverently said Amen to the 
preacher's message, and contributed to the 
fund for erecting a day-school for their 
children. One puerile critic, after referring 
to the meagre countenance, lank hair, and 
puritanical bearing of the evangelists, pre- 
dicted "a prodigious rise in the price of 
coals about the city of Bristol " if five or six 
thousand colliers at one time were thus to 
be detained from their work. The answer 
was drawn from the New Testament — The 
colliers will enter into the Kingdom of God 
before you. 

Whitefield in London. 
" Let not the adversaries say I have thrust 
myself out of their synagogues," exclaimed 
the young evangelist. " No, they have thrust 
me out ; and since the self-righteous men of 
this generation count themselves unworthy, 
I go out into the highways and hedges, and 
compel harlots, publicans, and sinners to 
come in, that my Master's house may be 
filled." He had already entered on this 
course in the provinces, and on his return to 
London in the spring of 1739, he at once 
attracted an unparalleled following. Invited 
by the vicar to preach at Islington, — the only 
church now open to him in London, — he was 
challenged by the churchwarden, and re- 
moved to the churchyard, where, as a news- 
paper reported, the crowd did " a vast deal 
of damage to the tombs and gravestones." 
In proportion to, his success the newspapers 
increased in wrath ; but their petty outbursts 
served only to increase the crowds. At Ken- 
nington-common, on May 2nd, he preached 
to ten thousand ; on the evening following 
the audience was both more numerous and 
more attentive ; and on the 5th, the numbers 
had increased to twenty thousand. What took 
place on the Sabbath, however, was still 
more wonderful, the assemblies having been 
drawn together before church time in the 
morning, and when there was no indoor 
service in the evening. " Such a sight I 
never saw before," wrote the preacher, refer- 
ring to his work on Sunday evening, May 



119 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



6th ; " I believe there were no less than fifty 
thousand people, near fourscore coaches, 
besides great numbers of horses. There 
was an awful silence among the people." 
Collections were made at these services for 
the orphans of Georgia ; and hence we are 
further told that "it would have delighted any 
one to see with what eagerness and cheerful- 
ness the people came up both sides of the 
eminence on which I stood, and afterwards 
to the coach doors, to throw in their mites." 
The crowds increased to sixty thousand, and 
over £Zo, nearly half of the amount in half- 
pence, would be collected on a single Sabbath. 
We hear of persons fainting in the crowd, 
and on one occasion a genteelly dressed man 
dropped down dead. Some idea of the 
popular excitement may be inferred from the 
fact, that during 1739 there were forty-nine 
separate publications issued respecting the 
Methodist controversy. 

Somewhat rougher, and more in keeping 
with the character of the times, was White- 
field's experience at Moor fields during Easter, 
1742. " Moorfields," he remarked, " is a 
spacious place, given, as I have been told, 
by one Madam Moore, for all sorts of people 
to divert themselves in. For many years 
past, from one end to the other, booths of all 
kinds have been erected for mountebanks, 
players, puppet-shows, and such like." At 
six in the morning the evangelist ventured 
into the midst of 10,000 people, who were 
waiting, he tells us, "not for me, but for 
Satan's instruments to amuse them." Mount- 
ing his field pulpit he preached from the 
words, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in 
the wilderness," etc. In regard to the ribald 
crowd, it is said " they gazed, they listened, 
they wept." 

At noon, when the number of people was 
increased about threefold, the experiment 
was repeated ; and anticipating that he 
would have "to fight with beasts at Ephesus," 
the preacher this time selected for his text, 
"Great is Diana of the Ephesians." His 
calculations were correct ; '• For," adds he, 
" I was honoured with having stones, dirt, 
rotten eggs, and pieces of dead cats thrown 
at me whilst engaged in calling them from 
their favourite but lying vanities." 

In no wise daunted, Whitefield announces 
that he will preach again at six, when there 
were "thousands and thousands more than 
before, still more deeply engaged in their 
unhappy diversions." The powerful voice of 
the young preacher at once attracted the 
people ; but showmen and merry-andrews, 
who saw their customers drawn off, were 
visibly enraged. One man unsuccessfully 
tried to strike the intruder with a large whip ; 
then a recruiting- sergeant was hired to march 
through the throng with a drum and band ; 
and all eJse failing, a mob banded together to 



overthrow the pulpit. All was of no avail^ 
however. Whitefield retired from the conflict 
more than conqueror ; for the awakened of 
that day became the foundation of the church 
at the Tabernacle in Moorfields. About a 
thousand notes were received from persons 
anxious to turn into a better way of life. He 
also preached with similar results in other 
parts of the suburbs, such as Charles-square, 
Hoxton, and Marylebone-fields. 

In time the spacious tabernacles at Totten- 
ham-court-road and Moorfields testified to 
the permanent hold Whitefield had obtained 
on the London population, while as chaplain 
to the Countess of Huntingdon he was asso- 
ciated with congregations at Bath and Tun- 
bridge. Did space allow, extended reference 
might be made to equally effective work 
accomplished in America, which continent 
Whitefield visited seven times — in Scotland, 
in Wales, while even Ireland did not altogether 
miss sharing in the reformation. The awaken- 
ing of drowsy ministers alone in New England 
was a permanent benefit to the Church and 
the country. The scenes in Scotland, and 
the widespread impressions produced, showed 
that the preacher's message was quite as 
cordially accepted by people who had no 
sympathy with his notions of Church order. 
In Wales one tour surpassed the preceding 
one in success. Being no sectary, he had no' 
wish to found a separate society ; but as the 
work grew upon his hands he almost neces- 
sarily accepted the aid of assistant preachers,, 
and in this manner originated the Countess 
of Huntingdon's Connexion. 

The Countess of Huntingdon. 

Though intimately associated with White- 
field, and accepting Whitefield's tenets as. 
her own, the influence of this devoted woman 
was really given to the Methodist Revival as 
a whole. Born in 1707, — the memorable 
year in which Scotland was united with 
England, — she survived until 1791 ; and forty- 
five years out of that extended period 
she lived in widowhood. Her father was 
Washington, second Earl Ferrers, and at 
the age of twenty-one he gave Selina in 
marriage to Theophilus, Earl of Huntingdon, 
by whom her Ladyship had four sons and 
three daughters. During their happy wedded 
life, the Earl and Countess had done their 
part in countenancing the Methodists ; but 
after the Earl's sudden death from apoplexy 
in 1746, Lady Huntingdon devoted her 
fortune and energies more exclusively to 
religion and philanthropy. 

While Wesley was the evangelist of the 
poor, Whitefield, in Lady Huntingdon's man- 
sion at Chelsea, preached to the first people 
in the land ; and it was there that Chesterfield 
confessed to the accomplished orator, " Sir, I 



METHODISM. 



will not tell you what I shall tell others how 
I approve you." Many striking things might 
be told respecting the aristocratic hearers 
there drawn together, many of whom gave 
their influence to the new movement. The 
Countess relinquished her carriage, sold her 
jewels, devoting from first to last ^100,000 
to the common cause, and leaving at her 
death sixty-four chapels, and a college for the 
education of ministers, which still survives at 
Cheshunt. In every available way, until her 
resources were . 
exhausted and 
aid had to be 
asked from 
others, the 
Countess pro- 
moted the com- 
mon cause. 
" She purchased 
theatres, halls, 
and dilapidated 
chapels in Lon- 
don, Bristol, 
and Dublin, and 
fitted them up 
for public wor- 
ship," says the 
accomplished 
historian, Dr. 
Stevens. " New 
chapels were 
also erected by 
her aid in many 

places in Eng- 
land, Wales, 

and Ireland. 

Distinguished 

Calvinistic 

clergymen, 

churchmen as 

well as Dissen- 
ters, co-operated 

with her plans, 

and were more 

or less under 

her direction. 

Romaine, Venn, 

Mad an, Ber- 

ridge, Toplady, 

Shirley, P'letch- 

er, Benson, 

and a host of ^thers, shared 

cent labours." ~' 

out 




Thb Rev. George Whitefield. 



her benefi- 
The kingdom was marked 
into different districts, and preachers 
were sent out in every direction to proclaim 
the Gospel in all accessible places. Bound 
by strong sympathies to the Established 
Church, the Countess was no more a Dis- 
senter than Whitefield or the Wesleys, 
necessity rather than inclination leading her 
to take advantage of the Toleration Act in 
1779. The School of the Prophets she set up 
among the mountains of Wales was hardly 



121 



less romantic in its origin than in natural 
surroundings. There stood at Trevecca a 
castle^ whose now half ruinous walls had been, 
beatfte by the storms of five hundred winters; 
and .wi'ith the assistance of some richer 
friends, this quondam stronghold was fitted 
up as a college. The founder conferred 
with Wesley, and when he approved, she also 
asked the advice of Fletcher, the godly vicar 
of Madeley, whose labours among a debased 
population constitute one of the romances 
of Methodism. 
Fletcher not 
only prayed, 
he dreamed 
about the pro- 
posed enter- 
prise, and in his 
vision a young 
collier, well 
known to him, 
appeared asking 
for admission to 
the institution. 
Strange in itself, 
the dream was 
still stranger in 
its fulfilment; 
for Glazebrook 
the collier, and 
Fletcher the 
vicar, became 
the first student 
and the first 
president of 
Trevecca. 

The Wesleys. 

Space will not 
allow of com- 
plete details 
being given of 
the history of 
this distinguish- 
ed family ; but 
as the facts are 
tolerably well 
known to the 
majority of well- 
informed read- 
ers, the omis- 
sion will not 
interfere with the progress of the narrative. 
Without betraying in youth any very extra- 
ordinary precocity, the brothers Wesley were 
reared in one of those godly and cultivated 
homes whence great men might be expected 
to come forth ; and when the straitened 
means of the parents are taken into account, 
remarkable care was bestowed upon their 
education. Born in the period of the later 
Puritans, Samuel Wesley the elder retained 
the sympathies of his order, although he had 
through conviction relinquished Nonconform- 



hPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



ity to enter the Established Church. Pass- 
ing his early days among Dissenters, Daniel 
Defoe was one of his schoolfellows : ^nd 
introduced to the family of Dr. An>P-^>ley 
by his brother-in-law Dunton the book? ller, 
he married Susannah, the fair and accom- 
plished daughter of that divine, whose 
family, according to Dr. Manton, numbered 
" either two dozen or a quarter of a hundred." 
Determined to secure a university education, 
Samuel Wesley walked to Oxford in 1683, 
with a trifle over two pounds in his pocket ; 
and although he received only five shillings 
in as many years from friends, he left college 
with honour, and with the degree of B.A. 
attached to his name. Susannah Annesley 
was in every way worthy of a man of this 
calibre and resolution. Her husband made a 
supremely happy choice, and became besides 
associated with a woman who has become a 
greater favourite with one class of biogra- 
phers than any other untitled heroine 
of modern times. As learned as Queen 
Elizabeth, she was still the model house- 
wife ; and was at once a competent teacher 
and judicious disciplinarian. 

In his childhood, John Wesley is said to 
have shown some ambition ; and until he 
was nearly eleven years of age, or until he 
entered the Charterhouse School, his educa- 
tion, as was also that of his brothers and 
sisters, was conducted by Mrs. Wesley her- 
self. For children of John's tender age, life 
at a pubUc school was then a trying ordeal ; 
but although in this instance all the average 
pains and penalties had to be endured, and 
though some vices were learned, the scholar 
never neglected his father's wise directions 
to preserve health by taking sufficient exer- 
cise ; and the observance of this habit 
throughout life will largely account for the 
vigour of John Wesley's constitution holding 
out until the extreme verge of a green old 
age. Notwithstanding some drawbacks in- 
cident to poverty and the low moral tone of 
the times, life at Oxford some few years 
later was a pleasanter experience. " Fruit is 
so very cheap that apples may be had almost 
for fetching, and other things are both plenti- 
ful and good," he writes to his mother in 
I724- Then follows a picture of the univer- 
sity city as it was in the reign of George I. : — 
" We have, indeed, something bad as well as 
good, for a great many rogues are about the 
town, insomuch that it is exceedingly unsafe 
to be out late at night. A gentleman of my 
acquaintance, standing at the door of a 
coftee-house about seven in the evening, had 
no sooner turned about, but his cap and wig 
were snatched off his head, and though he 
followed the thief a great distance, he was 
unable to recover them. I am pretty safe 
from such gentlemen ; for unless they carried 
me away, carcass and all, they would have 



but a poor purchase." And yet men of this 
calibre, who afterwards constituted the Holy 
Club, were those who set a princely example 
of liberality to the self-indulgent and the 
indifferent. The rule was to live a frugal life, 
and to give away the surplus. " One of them 
had thirty pounds a year," remarks Wesley, 
when referring to the subject at a later date ; 
" he lived on twenty-eight, and gave away 
forty shillings." Eventually that same man 
saw his income increase fourfold ; but still 
he spent no more on himself, while the poor 
were gainers by ninety-two pounds a year. 
Though this was the discipline self-imposed 
at the university, the brothers had as yet 
advanced no farther than the self-righteous- 
ness of sacerdotalism. The rector of Epworth 
died ; and on the dispersion of the family, 
John and Charles Wesley emigrated to 
Georgia, whence, however, they soon returned 
to commence with more enlightenment the 
great mission of their lives. 

The Wesleys become Itinerants. 

Whitefield having inaugurated the work of 
revival by preaching in the open air, the 
Wesleys, in 1739, followed in the path of in- 
novation ; and that year is now regarded as 
the one in which Methodism was founded. 
Strongly attached to the Established Church, 
they would gladly have availed themselves of 
its pulpits ; and not until those pulpits were 
closed against them did the Wesleys, as 
Whitefied had done before them, take to 
fields and commons. The clergy by their 
opposition really advanced the cause they 
desired to retard ; for if the efforts of the 
evangelists had been confined to the narrow 
limits of the churches, their influence over 
the population would have been correspond- 
ingly curtailed. 

As a preacher or as an orator, John 
Wesley was a marked contrast to Whitefield, 
taking care to be punctiliously correct in both 
language and action, while Whitefield did 
not distain to indulge in those " little impro- 
prieties," which, though sufficiently harmless, 
sometimes provoked a smile. We read o 
the latter preaching " like a lion," vehement 
in his earnestness, and so exhausting every 
resource in one sermon, that at the close he 
would retire from the scene sick, fainting, and 
depressed. But though Wesley sought to 
impress the people in a quieter way, the effects 
of the sermons he now began to preach t.» 
out-door audiences were really miraculous' 
He had taken in hand the colliers' school 
at Kingswood, and while attracting vast 
congregations in the vicinity of Bristol, num- 
bers of hearers "dropped on every side as 
thunderstruck." It does not devolve upon 
us to account for these phenomena, but as 
historical facts they are no less interesting 
than extraordinary to common readers. To 



122 



METHODISM. 



borrow the words of Dr. Stevens : " A tra- 
veller at one time was passing, but on pausing 
a moment to hear the preacher was directly 
smitten to the earth, and lay there apparently 
without life. A Quaker who was admonish- 
ing the bystanders against these strange 
scenes as affectation and hypocrisy, was 
himself struck down as by an unseen hand, 
while the words of reproach were yet upon 
his lips. A weaver, a great disliker of Dis- 
senters, fearing that the new excitement 
would alienate his neighbours from the 
Church, went about zealously among them 
to prove that it was the work of Satan, and 
would endanger their souls. A new convert 
lent him one of Wesley's sermons ; while 
reading it at home he suddenly turned pale, 
fell to the floor, and roared so mightily that 
the people ran into the house from the streets, 
and found him sweating, weeping, and 
screaming in anguish. He recovered his 
self-possession, and arose rejoicing in God." 
While the preachers endeavoured to repress 
rather than encourage excitement, large num- 
bers were similarly affected. We cannot 
wonder that decorous bishops and clergymen, 
who had never in their lives been guilty of 
any pulpit impropriety, were too prejudiced 
to stay to inquire into the cause of such 
manifestations. Naturally brave and magna- 
nimous, the brothers Wesley were at the 
outset nervously timid in regard to ecclesias- 
tical irregularities, but all things tended to 
their encouragement. There had been a 
time when Whitefield, in his spiritual afflic- 
tion, had looked to his friends for counsel 
as to superiors in the faith ; but now it was 
Whitefield who led the way, and it was his 
contagious courage that emboldened the 
Wesleys to overcome one prejudice after 
another which education and early associa- 
tions had implanted in their minds. At one 
time, while London and Bristol were being 
stirred to their depths by the two greatest 
of the evangelists, Charles Wesley was 
threatened with pains and penalties for pursu- 
ing a similar course in Essex. What course 
Charles would have adopted had he been 
left to himself is uncertain ; but, advised by 
WTiitefield, he replied to the Archbishop by 
preaching to ten thousand people in Moor- 
lields. 

But while bands of converts were being 
reclaimed in the open-air, the need of pro- 
\iding suitable meeting-houses for the new 
congregations became urgent ; and thus 
liristol and London saw the two first Metho- 
<iist chapels rise into existence. Some of 
Wesley's earliest successes had been won at 
Bristol ; but the head-quarters of Methodism 
u'ere established in London, — in Moorfields, 
where still greater triumphs had been 
achieved. In that open suburb there stood 
a forsaken government factory, called the 



Foundery, — a place formerly used for casting 
cannon, and which had been associated with 
at least one deplorable catastrophe in conse- 
quence of the molten metal coming in con- 
tact with water. Having stood in a ruinous 
condition for twenty years, the Methodists 
purchased the lease for ^115. Conveniently 
repaired, but not beautified, this spot became 
sacred on account of its many memorable 
associations. Thither crowds were attracted 
by the earnest eloquence of Wesley himself. 
There, at 5 a.m., and at 9 p.m., the bell 
called members of the Society to united 
prayer. The chapel had its dispensary for 
the poor, — the first charity of the kind esta- 
blished in London ; there was a home for 
widows and orphans ; and, not least, a loan 
society, by means of which many a deserving 
young beginner in life was enabled to firmly 
set his foot on the first round of the social 
ladder. Nor should it be forgotten that 
Charles Wesley stood in the pulpit at the 
Foundery on the morning of March 9th, 1750, 
when London was shaken to its foundations 
by the severest earthquake the city has ever 
known ; and that while his auditors were 
turning pale with terror, the poet of Metho- 
dism, with reassuring tact and unshaken 
courage, relinquished the text he had chosen, 
and preached from another — " Therefore will 
not we fear though the earth be removed, and 
the hills be earned into the midst of the sea; 
for the Lord of hosts is with us, the God of 
Jacob is our refuge." 

Spread of Methodism ;. Lay Preachers; 
Provincial Mobs. 

Though John Wesley had admirable ad- 
ministrative powers, he did not sit down, as 
some master architects might have done, 
deliberately to plan the fabric he reared and 
left in a flourishing condition. When the 
work grew faster than was at first supposed 
to be possible, the only alternative was to 
follow the lead of providence, even though 
innovations had to be adopted clashing with 
those notions of ecclesiastical propriety 
which, at the outset, the Wesleys had enter- 
tained. Reasonable and earnest men could 
not have done otherwise. Self-seekers might 
have adopted an opposite course ; but in 
this case that was done which promised best 
for the cause. 

Making London the base of their opera- 
tions, the preachers extended their efforts 
northward to Newcastle, and in the opposite 
direction as far as the Land's End. Wesley 
surprises us by the rapidity of his move- 
ments, especially when we take into con- 
sideration the dangerous state of the English 
roads in those times. Like a master general, 
moreover, he had his own plan of attack 
skilfully arranged beforehand, and from first 
to last he proved more than a match for 



123 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the most determined enemy. It was Wes- 
ley's custom to avoid threatening the vicious 
multitude, trying thus to frighten them out 
of their sins ; he sought rather to draw them 
by those gentle and forcible invitations 
abounding in the Bible, which are always 
the most effective arrows in the preacher's 
quiver. It is impossible in our limited space 
to follow the evangelists from place to place 
in their wonderful itinerancy ; but a part is a 
very fair sam- 
p 1 e of the 
whole ; as re- 
garded moral 
degradation 
one town was 
very like ano- 
ther, and so 
continued un- 
til the people 
were won to 
better ways 

Take as an 
example the 
case ofNew- 
castle-on-Tyne 
the surpassing 
degradation of 
which extend- 
ed from aged 
sinners to in- 
fants, who lisp- 
ed blasphemies 
when learning 
to talk. Tak- 
ing their stand 
in one of the 
worst districts, 
Wesley and a 
friend opened 
their first out- 
door service by 
singing the 
hundredth 
psalm, and the 
congregations 
sp eedily in- 
creased from 
units to hund- 
reds, from 
hundreds to 
thousands, and 




finally to multitudes greater even than those 
which had been witnessed in London. What 
was more, the hearts of the people were won; 
and in this Kingswood of the north, as Wesley 
called it, he was hailed as a deliverer. In 
other places a harsher experience had to be 
endured, the clergy, in not a few instances, 
goading the people on to mob the Methodists. 
Thus at Epworth, Wesley gave the people 
the Gospel, which they never received from 
the drunken vicar who had succeeded his 
father. During the progress from one town 



to another the riots were frequently veiy 
formidable ; but the violence of the ungodly 
served only to stimulate the preacher's zeal, 
for riot and insult were really the expres- 
sion of the people's need. Sometimes the 
preachers were pelted with stones and filth as 
they stood amidst the surging throng, the 
windows of their lodgings would be smashed ; 
and to such a height did the tumult rise in 
1744 at Walsall, Darlaston, and other places, 

that the coun- 
try from town 
to village was 
in a state very 
much resemb- 
ling civil war. 
The chapels 
were not safe 
from destruc- 
tion, while the 
lay preachers 
were some of 
them imprison- 
ed or impres- 
s ed for the 
army. Pulpits 
rang with de- 
nunciations of 
the enthusiasts, 
and the press 
sent forth its 
showers of 
pamphlets ; 
but an answer 
to all was 
found in the 
fact that new 
societies in all 
parts were 
rapidly spring- 
ing into exist- 
en ce, an d 
wherever this 
was the case 
the morals of 
the people were 
improved. It 
was about the 
year 1750 that 
Wesley him- 
self remarked 
that from Lon- 



JoHN Wesley and Dr. Johnson. 



don to Newcastle in the north, and to Bristol 
in the west, the work of revival was pro- 
gressing. The battle with the mob was for 
the most part confined to the first decade 
of the aggression. At all events it was so 
with the more prominent leaders of the move- 
ment. 

Almost immediately after opening the, 
crusade, the leaders of Methodism realizec 
that battles cannot altogether be fought andl 
won by generals and superior officers, and! 
on this account were appointed those layj 



124 



METHODISM. 



circuit preachers without whose assistance 
the triumphs achieved would not have been 
won. 

At the head of this honourable band we 
place John Nelson, the Yorkshire mason, who 
was one of the earliest converts, having 
listened to Wesley's first sermon in Moor- 
fields. Of a powerful build, and ever show- 
ing indomitable courage, he went through a 
course of hard and successful service, such 
as makes his life read like a romance. In 
point of time Thomas Maxfield comes before 
Nelson, thus taking the distinction of having 
been the first lay preacher of Methodism. 
Thomas Lee and Christopher Hopper were 
men of similar metal, who forsook ease and 
accepted suffering as their common lot for the 
sake of the cause which lay nearest their hearts. 
The original circuits were immense tracts of 
country, more than broad enough to tax the 
strength of a horseman ; and yet the majority 
of the early preachers appear to have been 
obliged, by reason of poverty, to travel on 
foot. John Jane, one of the number, who 
once arrived at Holyhead with only a penny 
in his pocket, actually died of fatigue ; and 
others would have shared his fate if their 
physical strength had not equalled their 
devotion. The preachers, with many followers, 
were even found in the army on service on 
the Continent during the wars of George II. 
At the battle of Fontenoy, fought on May 
Day, 1745, a comparatively large number 
of Methodists were killed, including four 
preachers. 

Illustrious Allies. 

Though unable, in a brief article, to give 
details of their interesting lives, we will just 
mention the chief, at least, of a number of 
eminent men who in its earlier stages as- 
sisted the Methodist revival. 

Vincent Perronet, vicar of Sboreham, was 
from the first Wesley's friend and counsellor ; 
he used his pen in favour of the move- 
ment, and two of his sons became itinerant 
preachers. 

William Grimshaw, the curate of Haworth, 
in Yorkshire, was as remarkable for the 
depravity of his youth as for that conquering 
zeal of his after life which enabled him to 
reform the then half civilized inhabitants of 
his wild district. In addition to the duties 
of his parish, with its four hamlets, in which 
he regularly preached, Grimshaw took charge 
of two enormous circuits in three counties, 
and in various ways, both extraordinary and 
eccentric, he advanced the reformation of 
the people. He sometimes held as many as 
thirty meetings a week ; and while he loved 
nothing better than to royally entertain Wes- 
ley and Whitefield, and collect the scattered 
population to their services, his house was 



constantly crowded with more humble itine- 
rants out on preaching rounds. 

John Berridge, vicar of Everton, was similar 
in temperament and energy to Grimshaw, and 
in conjunction with his neighbour, Hicks 
vicar of Wrestlingworth, the preaching of 
Berridge produced results about as gratifying 
as those which attended the Yorkshire evan- 
gelist. Making Everton his base, he was 
constantly in the saddle, and preaching about 
a dozen times a week, he aroused the country 
people to take an interest in the Gospel within 
a radius of a hundred miles. We hear of 
four thousand persons having been awakened 
in one year ; and Berridge was equally alive 
with earnestness whether he preached on a 
village green or whether he addressed a 
throng of 10,000 persons in a university 
town. 

A man of like devotion was John Fletcher, 
of Madeley, whose name from his times to 
our own has been a household word in Eng- 
land. Of Fletcher it is said, " He led a life 
of severe abstinence, that he might feed the 
hungry ; he clothed himself in cheap attire 
that he might clothe the naked ; he some- 
times unfurnished his house that he might 
supply suff'ering families with necessary ar- 
ticles." He rejected a richer living with 
lighter work, in order to reclaim the debased 
mining population of Madeley ; and though 
coming of a noble Swiss family, he spoke 
English with such singular correctness that 
the force of his eloquence soon conquered 
the persecution which at first was awakened 
by his Methodistical innovations. How he 
preached incessantly in villages and hamlets 
for ten miles round his parish, visited the 
people in their homes, and sometimes gathered 
a congregation with a bell in his hand, are 
familiar facts. According to Venn, — no mean 
judge, — Fletcher was more than a luminary — 
" He was a sun." 

No less effective than the labours of the 
above in their respective spheres was the 
work of Henry Venn in his parish of Hud- 
dersfield, — a man called by Whitefield " a son 
of thunder." His success entitles Venn to 
rank among the princes of the movement, 
and among his converts were more than a 
dozen youths who afterwards became regular 
preachers. He was also an acceptable writer, 
his " Complete Duty of Man " having been 
prepared expressly to correct what is erro- 
neous in the more popular and anonymous 
work bearing a similar title. 

More highly connected, and thoroughly 
trained for the legal profession, Martin Madan 
was the life of a coterie which met regularly 
at a rendezvous in London, according to 
the custom of the times. An accomplished 
mimic, Madan was commissioned to hear 
Wesley ; but the text announced, " Prepare 
to meet thy God!" so startled the young 



I2S 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



lawyer that he retired from the scene an 
altered man, to enter the Church and identify 
himself with the Revival. 

Nor should we overlook Thompson, of St. 
Dennis, in Cornwall, who early cast in his 
lot with the Methodists; and who, when 
threatened with the loss of his gown by 
Lavington, Bishop of Exeter, himself stripped 
the garment from his back with the remark, 
"I can preach the Gospel without a gown." 

These and many others who ought to be 
remembered were mighty in their day, and 
their influence still lives in the descendants 
of the first con- 
verts. Those who 
desire to acquaint 
themselves with 
the whole story, 
with all its sin- 
gularly interest- 
ing details, should 
consult the " His- 
tory of Metho- 
dism," by Dr. 
Abel Stevens, a 
convenient and 
illustrated edition 
of which scholar- 
ly work is issued 
at the London 
Wesleyan Con- 
ference Office in 
three volumes. 

Ireland, Scot- 
land, Wales. 
Considering the 
character of the 
country and the 
nature of the 
formidable ob- 
stacles which had 
to be overcome, 
the success of 
Methodism in Ire- 
land was not the 
least remarkable 
feature of the 
great movement. 
Wesley himself crossed the Channel more 
than forty times, and he was ably seconded 
in his endeavours by the apostolic preaching 
zeal of Thomas Coke and Thomas Walsh. 
Of course, in this green island, as elsewhere, 
the fury of the mob had to be encountered, 
and the passions of the people were stimu- 
lated by Romish prejudice as well as by 
native ignorance. In spite of all, however, 
the fruits of the Revival were soon manifest. 
England sent preachers to itinerate through 
Ireland, while our own country and the 
world generally benefited by the work of 
Irishmen who rose to eminence in their 
profession. The most illustrious of these was 




Adam Clarke the commentator ; but tiiere 
were many others whom want of space pre- 
cludes our naming. Before the death of 
Wesley, fifteen circuits had been marked out, 
each having on an average about two 
preachers, while the members showed a total 
of 6,000. The work was greatly retarded by 
the rebellion at the close of the century ; and 
as Dr. Stevens remarks, " the horrors perpe- 
trated in the name of liberty by this outbreak 
of commingled popery and infidelity can 
never be fully recorded." Nevertheless, 
fifteen years after this dark cloud had passed, 
the circuits had 
greatly multipli- 
ed, and the num- 
bers had in- 
creased to nearly 
30,000. 

In Scotland the 
conditions were 
entirely different ; 
the people were 
intensely Pro- 
testant; they 
understood aU 
about the funda- 
mentals of Chris- 
tianity, and were 
quite willing to 
listen to what the 
preachers had to 
say. The scenes 
at Cambaslang 
m 1742, under 
the preaching of 
Whitefield, when 
an immense con- 
course remained 
on the ground all 
night, and when, 
on another occa- 
sion, 20,000 peo- 
ple partook of 
the Lord's Sup- 
per, were perhaps 
more extraordi- 
nary than any 
other passages 
even in the singular experience of the great 
evangelist. Scotland did not accept Metho- 
dism as an ecclesiastical system because 
she had already one of her own which she 
preferred ; but the revival none the less did 
mighty things for the country, the results of 
which remain until this day. 

As regards Wales it is not too much to say 
that in the Principality Methodism effected a 
complete transformation. The morals of the 
people were entirely corrupted, and religion 
had degenerated into superstition when the 
reformers commenced their work ; and then, 
contrary to expectation, no other field yielded 
a richer harvest. Griffith Jones and Howell 



126 



METHODISM. 



Harris, both of whom were devoted to the 
Estabhshed Church, prepared the way : the 
first by organizing bands of tutors who tra- 
versed the country for the purpose of teach- 
ing the poor to read ; the second by preach- 
ing and gathering the people into Christian 
Societies. When these efforts were followed 
up by the awakening calls of Wesley and 
Whitefield, the whole country was soon 
aroused, and though there was opposition, as 
in other places, the reformation which ensued 
became the greatest mir- 
acle in Welsh history. 
Though the leaders never 
intended the movement to 
become a Nonconformist 
one, it took this turn. In 
other words, between two 
and three thousand cha- 
pels have been erected in 
Wales since the days of 
George II. The work of 
the first preachers was 
continued with wonderful 
power and success by 
Christmas Evans and his 
illustrious contempor- 
aries, who, speaking the 
language of the people, 
wielded an influence by 
the power of God which 
entitles them to rank 
among the apostles of 
Wales. 

Methodist Denomina- 
tions. 
Since the first leaders 
passed away, the original 
family of Methodism has 
divided into several sects ; 
but as a healthy tree puts 
forth new branches, ail of 
which are dependent on 
the same roots, so the 
multiplying of denomina- 
tions may not mean trea- 
son to cardinal Christian 
truth. From the first the 
Calvinists, by following 
Whitefield, and the Ar- 
minians, by adhering to Wesley, formed 
two companies. The New Connexion of 
Wesleyans, founded in 1797, represents the 
first secession from the latter body after the 
death of the founder. The United Free 
Gospel Church dates from 1806, and has no 
paid ministry. The Primitive Methodists 
go back to 1 8 10, and differ from others by 
giving more authority to laymen, and by 
allowing female preaching. Very similar in 
constitution are the Bible Christians, who 
date from 181 5. The Primitive Methodists 




Mrs. 



of Ireland come a year later, and they con- 



sider their own ministers to rank equal in 
authority with those of the Estabhshed 
Church. The Protestant Methodists, first 
organized in 1828, object to instrumental 
music m public services. The Reformed 
Connexion dates from 1849. The United 
States Methodist Episcopal Church was 
formed during the life of Wesley in 1784. 
Another division, founded in the Southern 
States of America in 1846, was a protest 
against slavery. The American Wesleyan 
Methodist Church, found- 
ed in 1843, was reared on 
a similar basis ; while the 
Methodist Protestant 
Community has no bis- 
hops, not holding with 
vi episcopal authority. The 
' United Brethren in Christ, 
organized in 1800, are 
similar in doctrine and 
government to the Metho- 
dist Episcopalians ; and 
this is also true of the 
Evangelical Association, 
formed in the same year. 
The last of the train 
we believe to be the 
Free Methodist Church, 
founded in i860, which 
discountenances extra- 
vagance in dress, choirs, 
pew-rents, and read ser- 
mons. Besides the above, 
there are two or three 
Methodist communi- 
ties wholly composed of 
coloured people. 

In Great Britain and 
Ireland at the present mo- 
ment the Methodist bodies 
have upwards of 5,000 
ministers, and nearly a 
million members ; while 
in the United States the 
ministers exceed 17,000 
and the members are 
nearly 2,600,000. In 
addition to this there are 
large numbers in the Eng- 
lish colonies and other parts of the world, to 
say nothing of the evangelists who are at work 
in every mission field. The total membership 
is not far short of 5,000,000 ; the congrega- 
tions of each Sabbath probably reach four or 
five times that number, and there are between 
four and five millions in the Sunday-schools. 



C. Wesley's Monument in Bunhill 
Fields. 



General Results ; Conclusion. 

But in estimating the results direct and 

indirect which have come of the Methodist 

revival, we shall probably find by careful 

inquiry that the latter have exceeded the 

127 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



former. Just as in the first instance the need 
was national, the good results have extended 
to all evangelical denominations. It was 
not in harmony with the principles of the 
Established Church when a portion of her 
bishops and clergy opposed the revival ; and 
in the end that Church has been an enormous 
gainer by the movement. Then in what 
degree a nonconformist community could 
become benefited was well shown in the 
instance of Samuel Deacon, a farm labourer 
converted under the preaching of David 
Taylor, a servant of the Countess of Hunting- 
don. Deacon, as a General Baptist, became 
a powerful preacher in the Midlands, and 
not only was a widely extended region per- 
vaded by his Methodism, an entire 
denomination was resuscitated. In what 
degree other bodies were influenced in a 
similar way cannot always be traced ; but, 
nevertheless, in liberal measure the blessing 
descended upon every section of the Church. 
Then that manifestation of missionary zeal 
which characterized the Church at the close 
of the old and the opening of the new 
century, was one of the fruits of this great 
awakening. Raikes inaugurating the great 
Sunday-school cause at Gloucester, Carey 
superintending the Mission-press at Seram- 
pore, Martin turning from ease and popularity 
at home to die on foreign soil, were all 
Methodists of the truest metal, who would 
have accounted the best things that earth 
can give only a poor recompense. The same 
may be said of the founders of those Bible, 
tract, and missionary societies which have 



diffused blessings broadcast, impressing on 
men the fact of their common brotherhood, 
and by bringing what would have been the 
dangerous classes into the fold of the Church, 
preserved us from social and political evils 
such as have heavily afflicted sister kingdoms. 
Many of the great societies in question owed 
their origin to Methodist influence, and 
certainly it has been the Methodistical spirit 
which, through the blessing of God, has 
contributed to their prosperity till the present 
day. 

Thus the fathers sowed the seed in an era 
of spiritual darkness, the reigns of George II. 
and George III. ; and we are reaping the 
fruits of their labours in this enlightened 
Victorian age, — an age quite unexampled 
for the social, political, and scientific progress 
which has been made. When things were 
swiftly progressing from bad to worse, 
Methodism was the divinely appointed means 
by which the tide was turned ; and since 
those memorable old times of awakening, 
the nation has been steadily improving and 
going from good to better, until England is 
now at once the envy and wonder of the 
world. While enjoying our happy lot, let us 
never be unmindful of the debt we owe to those 
who have gone before. Though a favoured 
race, we could not possibly have reached our 
present prosperity if Methodism had not 
renovated society, when in days of declension 
the best attributes of national character were 
threatened with extinction by bold unbelief 
and licentious license. 

G. H. P. 





The Baltic Fleet in the Crimean War ; The Last of England's Wooden Walls 



FROM ALMA TO SEBASTOPOL 

THE STORY OF THE CRIMEAN WAR OF 1854-1856. 

" Should the guards of royal England, in their trenches gaily singing 
Of the valour and the glories of the British grenadiers, 
While their comrades' shouts of victory through the smoky air are ringing, 
Be told that hearts at home are trembling with unworthy fears?" 



Russia in 1852 — The Emperor Nicholas ; HLs Power and Prosperity — The Czar and Sir Hamilton Seymour — Taking 
an Observation — Montenegro — The Czar's Protectorate — Mentschikoff's Mission — War between Russia and 
Turkey — Anglo-French Alliance for the Protection of the Porte — Omar Pasha and Oltenitza — Sinope— Commence- 
ment of the Crimean War — The Allied Forces and their Commanders : Raglan, St. Arnaud, Dundas, Lyons — Defeat 
of Russians on the Danube — Silistria and Giurgevo — The English, French, and Turkish Armies at Gallipoli and 
Varna — Invasion of the Crimea — Landing at Eupatoria — March towards Sebastopol — The Battle of the Alma — 
March upon Balaclava — First Attack on Sebastopol — Battle of Balaclava — Charge of the Light Brigade — Newspaper 
Correspondents^Mr. Russell of " The Times " — Battle of Inkermann — Soldiership and Generalship — A Terrible 
Winter — An Unexpected Event — The Baltic Fleet — Bomarsund and Hango — The Black Sea Fleet — Yenikale — Opera- 
tions of 1855 — The i8th of June — Renewed Efforts, and Fall of Sebastopol^Conclusion. 



Russia in 1852. 
N the middle of the present century 
there was one, and one only, among 
the great continental Powers, with 
whose government was associated the idea 
of strength, permanence, and stability; and 




that power was Russia. All t>he other thrones 
had been rudely shaken by the great storms 
of 1848, the year of revolutions, and of the 
troublous period that immediately followed. 
France had seen the Orleans dynasty driven 
from the throne, and the hastily-constructed. 



129 



•POCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



ill-starred second republic succeeded by a 
second Napoleonic empire. In Austria the 
half-imbecile Emperor Ferdinand had been 
forced to resign the sceptre he nominally 
swayed, into the hands of his youthful nephew, 
Francis Joseph. The throne of Frederick 
William the Fourth of Prussia had been 
almost overset, and the humiliated king had 
been compelled to stand bareheaded on the 
balcony of his palace at Berlin, while the 
corpses of insurgents, killed by the soldiers 
in a street fight, were borne past in pro- 
cession, the insolent cry of " Miitze ab 
Schurke " (Take your cap off, you scoundrel) 
rudely admonishing him to pay due reverence 
to the dead. Pope Pius IX., driven from 
Rome, had only been reinstated by the help 
of French bayonets ; and throughout the 
German States democracy had triumphed for 
awhile, though only to be afterwards put down 
by an overwhelming force. 

But from all these convulsions Russia had 
been free. The storm of 1848 had not shaken 
her throne ; and even Poland, generally eager 
to snatch any opportunity that gave a chance 
of a rising for freedom, had remained passive, 
in silent submission to the will of the autocrat 
by whom she was governed. So far from 
being herself menaced, Russia had been able 
to give help to a neighbouring government 
in the day of peril ; and it was by Russian 
troops that the formidable revolt of Hungary 
had been put down, and Austria had been 
enabled to re-establish her shattered authority. 
Everywhere the great Northern Power was 
regarded as the chief representative and 
upholder of despotic rule ; and from the 
commencement of the reign of the monarch 
who then held her destinies in his hand, her 
power, during more than a quarter of a cen- 
tury, had been looked upon as continually on 
the increase. 

The Emperor Nicholas. 
That Russia was regarded as the great 
despotic power was due in no small degree 
to the character of the monarch by whom 
she was governed. The Czar, Nicholas I., 
the son of that Alexander I. who had been 
the ally of England in the old war, was the 
very personification of an autocrat. He was 
lofty of stature, and had a countenance of 
singular beauty, of a proud and military type. 
At the commencement of his reign he had 
given proof of remarkable personal courage, 
putting down a threatened outbreak among 
the Moujiks, or peasants, by the mere force 
of his energetic command and his undaunted 
bearing in a moment of peril. He possessed 
the strong will common to nearly all the 
Romanoffs, and a large measure of the talent 
by which many of them were distinguished. 
Relentless and stern he had often shown 
himself, especially in the case of Poland ; as 



evidenced in his reception of a deputation 
from that unhappy country, who came soon 
after his accession, in the hope of obtaining 
from the new monarch some mitigation of 
the hard laws under which the land was 
groaning. " Above all things, gentlemen, 
no illusions ! " was the Czar's unpromising 
reply to the suppliants. '' Poland is mine, 
and I will drive her," was his expression 
on another occasion ; and he fully carried 
out his threat. At the same time he was 
possessed of a charm of manner which 
enabled him, when he chose to exert it, 
completely to mask his intentions under the 
appearance of perfect frankness — a faculty 
in which he resembled the great Frederick 
of Prussia. He had a great love for military 
organization, with a ceaseless and restless 
activity, and a tendency personally to super- 
intend and arrange details, in which again 
we trace an analogy to the Prussian hero. 
His ideal of manly work and sagacity is 
said to have been the Duke of Wellington ; 
and as the author of "The Invasion of the 
Crimea " pertinently remarks, the ruler who 
set up for himself such a model should have 
had some truth in him. 

To his other qualifications for rule, 
Nicholas added the very useful one of being, 
to some extent, a travelled man. He had 
seen men and nations beyond the confines of 
his own vast realm. Notably he had, in 
1844, paid a visit to England; a visit that 
was destined to have very important effects 
on his mind, and to help, at least, in implant- 
ing an error that at length proved fatal to 
him. Among the various sights exhibited to 
the Imperial visitor and to the King of 
Saxony, who was the guest of Queen Victoria 
and Prince Albert at the same time, was a 
review at Woolwich. At that time the 
numbers of most of the English regiments 
were far below their normal strength ; and the 
Emperor, who was accustomed to review 
enormous masses of men, while admiring the 
appearance, discipline, and efficiency of 
English soldiers, was evidently surprised that 
there were so few of them, and went away 
with most erroneous notions as to the military 
might of England, and the number of men 
she could put into the field on an emergency. 
He came to look upon England as simply a 
great naval power, and fancied she would not 
interfere in any military enterprise in which 
her own territories were not attacked. The 
day was to come when he should be sternly 
and fatally undeceived. 

Policy of Russia ; State of the various 
Governments at the Beginning of 
1853- 

An old Muscovite proverb describes the 
Russian as sitting by the shore and waiting 
for the tide. Like most national proverbs 



130 



FROM ALMA TO SEBASTOPOL. 



it contains a great truth. ' It illustrates the 
unwearied patience and perseverance with 
which men of that nationality will prepare 
the way for a design, until the propitious 
moment has come for putting it in execution, 
with a good chance of success. 

And as with the Russian in private life, so 
with the government of the Czar. There 
had been for very many years a scheme of 
national policy steadily kept in view, though 
it might seem to be abandoned. According 
to some authorities it dated so far back as 
the time of Peter the Great ; and at one time, 
indeed, a document was published in various 
English journals, purporting to be a will of 
the great founder of modern Russia, in which 
the pursuance of that policy was distinctly 
left as a charge to his successors. The asser- 
tion was not literally true. The document 
was not a will of Czar Peter; but the line of 
conduct it advocated was that which ha:d 
been carried out by his successors, and 
especially by that great ruler and bad woman, 
— far-seeing and ruthless, politic and profli- 
gate, — Catherine II., the mother of the mad 
Emperor Paul. Its purport and direction 
were to drive the Turk out of Europe, to in- 
crease the territory of Russia towards the 
south, and to establish a direct influence over 
the principalities on the Danube. It was a 
great and far-stretching design, and one that 
involved the necessity of a long waiting on 
the shore, and a close watching of the signs 
that should tell of the favourable rising of the 
tide,— that tide which Czar Nicholas hoped 
might be taken at the flood, — to lead on to 
fortune. 

At the beginning of 1853 the favourable 
moment seemed, in the eyes of Nicholas, at 
length to have arrived, — the moment at which 
the various governments, fully occupied with 
their own affairs, or hampered by recent events 
and their consequences, would have neither 
the inclination nor the power to interfere with 
the designs of the Czar. France, he con- 
sidered, would have sufficient to do at home 
in suppressing the wide-spread discontents 
that had arisen from the cmcp d'etat of the 
2nd of December, 185 1. The brand-new 
French Empire of Napoleon III., which he 
was inclined to regard with contempt, could 
not be sufficiently established to warrant its 
chief in engaging in foreign war. Austria 
the Czar could count upon as an ally ; for 
had he not marched his legions to her rescue 
in her extreme need, and reconquered for her 
the revolted province of Hungary ? Prussia 
was bound by close ties alike of political and 
of family alliance to his dynasty, and would 
certainly undertake nothing against him, 
even if she did not co-operate actively in his 
designs. 

Consequently there remained, according to 
the calculation of the Emperor Nicholas, only 



one power with which he would have to 
reckon, and that power was England. How 
the Czar proposed to deal with Great Britain 
in this matter, we shall now see. 

The Emperor and Sir Hamilton Sey- 
mour ; Taking an Observation, 

It was at a party at the palace of the 
Grand Duchess Helen, on the 9th of January, 
1853, that a remarkable conversation took 
place between the Emperor Nicholas and the 
English Ambassador Sir Hamilton Seymour, 
— the first of various conversations which 
threw a startling light upon the state of affairs 
and the designs of the Russian autocrat. Sir 
Hamilton was said to be a favourite with the 
Emperor, of whose qualities he had expressed 
a high opinion. On this occasion Nicholas 
declared very openly and strongly the neces- 
sity that existed for a perfect understanding 
between England and France, and requested 
that his words might be conveyed to Lord 
John Russell. "When we are agreed," he 
added, " I am quite without anxiety as to the 
rest of Europe ; it is immaterial what the 
others may think or do." When Sir Hamil- 
ton hinted that considerable anxiety existed 
in Her Majesty's Government with regard to 
Turkey, the Czar spoke of that country as in 
an utterly disorganised state, and falling to 
pieces from weakness ; adding that neither 
Russia nor England ought to take any de- 
cisive action in the matter without the cog- 
nisance and approval of the other power. 
Then he added these remarkable words, which 
became proverbial, as descriptive of Turkey 
and her affairs : " We have on our hands a 
sick man — a very sick man ; it will be, I tell 
you frankly, a great misfortune, if one of 
these days he should slip away from us, espe- 
cially before all necessary arrangements were 
made. However, this is not the time to 
speak to you on that matter." 

The Emperor found time a few days after- 
wards to renew the subject, and plainly gave 
the ambassador to understand that in the ap- 
proaching dissolution of Turkey he expected 
England to put no obstacle in the way of his 
plans ; while for his part he saw no reason 
why Egypt should not be made a British 
dependency — and, if the British Government 
chose to have it so, the island of Candia also. 
To the great disappointment of the Emperor, 
Sir Hamilton Seymour distinctly declined 
the proposed arrangement, and plainly de- 
clared that England would consider the main- 
tenance of the Turkish Empire as essential 
to the peace of Europe. The English Cabinet 
saw that such a protectorate as the Emperor 
wished to establish in the Principalities, and 
the possession of Constantinople by Russia, 
either directly or indirectly, would be most 
injurious to the interests of all the remaining 
states ; and Nicholas apparently gave up the 



131 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



scheme. But he could not but feel bitterly- 
mortified at the issue of his overtures, and 
determined to attain his object in another 
way. 

There were among the subjects of the 
Ottoman Empirealarge number of Christians, 
the great majority of whom belonged to the 
Greek Church, of which the Czar was con- 
sidered the head. More than one treaty 
with the Porte gave to the Emperor of Russia 



not always able to prevent or to punish. 
Nicholas now demanded of the Turkish 
Government extended powers and a com- 
plete recognition of his right to intervene in 
the affairs of the Porte, as protector of all 
Turkish subjects who professed the Christian 
faith. 

The meaning of this demand was well under- 
stood alike in Turkey and by the Western 
Powers. If granted, not the Sultan but the 




The Sultan Abdul Medjid. 



a kind of vague and indefinite right to act as 
protector of the interests of the Greek Church 
in the Turkish dominions. Not that the 
Turkish Government could be accused of 
exercising a persecuting sway over its Chris- 
tian subjects ; for the Moslems, looking upon 
their own faith as the only true one, extended 
a kind of contemptuous tolerance to all other 
creeds, making no distinction between them ; 
though occasional outbreaks of fanaticism 
might occur, and lead to deeds of violence, 
which the weak government of the Sultan was 



Russian Czar would in reality be the master 
of those millions of Christians in the East,, 
and a great step would have been taken 
towards the dismembering of the Turkish 
empire, and the establishment of Russian 
rule. 

Montenegro ; . The Czar's Protecto- 
rate ; Mentschikoff's Mission, 
At the same time disturbances broke out 
in another quarter. The Montenegrins, or 
inhabitants of the " Black Mountains," a tur- 



132 



FROM ALMA TO SEBASTOPOL. 



bulent people belonging to the Greek Church, 
tributaries of the Turks, but under the direct 
influence of Russia, were incited, after a visit 
paid by their prince, Danilo, to Russia at the 
beginning of 1853, to revolt against their 
Moslem masters, and to demand that their 
religious affairs should be transferred from 
the supervision of the Patriarch of Constanti- 
nople to that of the Russians ; and began 
making predatory incursions into Turkey. 
The Porte promptly despatched against them 
an able commander, Omar Pasha, — for the 
Montenegrin revolt seemed a preliminary to 
a general rising of the Slavic Christians 
against the Moslem ; and the Montenegrin 
land was quickly filled with rapine and blood- 
shed. But here Austria intervened, with even 
more than her usual diplomatic skill. 

Seeing the use Russia might make of this 
Montenegrin quarrel, the Government in 
Vienna despatched Prince Leiningen to the 
Sultan with a peremptory demand for the 
withdrawal of the Turkish troops and the 
cessation of the Montenegrin war, before that 
ardent Protector, the Czar, could interfere 
in defence of the Christians. The Suitan 
yielded to the envoy's request ; the Turkish 
troops were withdrawn ; and Austria had 
the satisfaction of having deprived the Czar 
of a very pretty quarrel against Turkey ; 
while at the same time the attention of the 
Western Powers had been drawn in a very 
marked manner to the proceedings of Russia. 

The homely adage that "two can generally 
play at a game," was now exemplified. 
Napoleon III., the French Emperor, who 
had been treated with something very like 
scorn by the Russian Emperor, and who, 
moreover, owed much of his position and 
power to the support of the Romish clergy, 
that he was anxious to propitiate, came 
forward with a demand based upon a treaty 
as old as the time of King Francis I., that 
Christians belonging to the Latin Church 
should have equal privileges with those of 
the Greek communion, in pilgrimages to the 
holy places. This raised the ire of the 
imperious autocrat of Russia, who forthwith 
despatched to Constantinople Prince Ment- 
schikoff, a rough, peremptory soldier, who 
immediately began to bully the weak Sultan 
Abdul Medjid in approved Russian fashion ; 
refusing to consult with Fuad Pasha, the 
Minister for Foreign Affairs, demanding an 
immediate audience of the Sultan himself, 
and bringing forward his demand for a 
protectorate over all Greek Christians for 
his master in the most offensive form, to the 
disgust of the Cabinets of Europe, who saw 
in his barrack-room bearing an illustration 
of the great Napoleon's pithy saying, "Scratch 
the Russian, and you come upon the Tartar." 

A direct refusal was the natural result; for 
to grant such demands would have been to 



admit the Czar as joint ruler of Turkey with 
the Sultan. 

War between Russia and Turkey ; 

The Anglo-French Alliance for 

THE Protection of the Porte. 

Prince Mentschikoff quitted Constanti- 
nople breathing threatenings and slaughter 
against the Porte ; and the Czar, when he 
heard of the failure of the embassy, deter- 
mined to follow up the step already taken 
by another of still graver significance. He 
at once commanded that two Russian armies 
should cross the Pruth, the frontier river 
between his dominions and the Danubian 
principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, 
which were tributary to Turkey, — to occupy 
these territories with 80,000 men as a 
"material guarantee" until the Porte should 
accede to his demands. " This is war," 
said Count Orloff gravely, when his imperial 
master told him what he had done ; but the 
Czar still thought that nothing in the way of 
war against him could be begun without 
England's co-operation ; and that England, 
though she might threaten, would not pro- 
ceed to extremities. 

Religious faith and religious fanaticism 
had always been strong traits in the 
Russian character; and Nicholas was far 
too astute a ruler not to take advantage of 
this to the fullest extent. In a manifesto 
issued to the Russian people, it was set 
forth that the Sultan was doing injury and 
wrong to the religion all good subjects of 
the Czar were bound to defend. " We are 
ready, even now, to arrest the movement 
of our armies," said this document, " if the 
Ottoman Porte will bind itself solemnly to 
observe the inviolability of the Orthodox 
Church. But if blindness and obstinacy 
decide for the contrary, then, caUing God 
to our aid, we shall leave the decision of 
the struggle to Him, and in full confidence 
in His omnipotent right hand, we shall 
march forward for the Orthodox Church, 
But though these proceedings excited general 
disapproval in Europe, and the action of 
the Emperor of Russia was universally con- 
demned, the various Cabinets were ar.xious 
to-avoid war, and ready to "build a golden 
bridge" for the retreat of Nicholas from his 
aggressive position. By the advice of Lord 
Stratford de RedcHffe, the English ambas- 
sador at Constantinople, the Sultan forbore 
to look upon the occupation of the princi- 
palities as an act of war, as he might justi- 
fiably have done; and the representatives 
of England, France, Austria, and Prussia 
addressed a collective note to the Czar, 
pressing him to moderate his claims. He 
still refused to listen to these moderate 
counsels ; while Turkey took heart in view 
of the fact that the united public opinion of 



133 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Europe was with her and against her oppo- 
nent. The expedient of enlisting rehgious 
enthusiasm in the strife was put into practice 
in Turkey, as in Russia ; the Turks were 
taught to consider the pretensions of the 
Northern Power as an attack aimed at their 
creed ; and on the 4th of October, 1853, war 
was declared by the Porte against Russia. 
Meanwhile a change was brought about in 
the attitude of the great powers of Europe. 
England and France were associated in an 
alliance which might well fill the Emperor 
of Russia with surprise and indignation ; for, 
thoroughly impressed as he was with the 
importance of dynastic right and privilege, 
he was the last man to believe that England, 
the most persistent and implacable enemy of 
Napoleon I., would unite with the nephew 
of her great foe against the son and suc- 
cessor of Alexander of Russia, the friend and 
ally who had been so intimately associated 
with her in putting Napoleon down. The 
separate understanding between the English 
Government and the second French Empire 
took him by surprise. Prussia, on the other 
hand, justified his calculations by her non- 
interference. Frederick William IV., a man 
of cultivated intellect, was proverbially given 
to halting between two opinions. He was a 
very different man from his younger brother 
and successor, the Emperor of North 
Germany ; nor was there at that time a 
Bismark or a Moltke to guide the counsels 
of Prussia, Austria — though the friendly 
feeling between her and Russia was quite 
dissolved — seemed only inclined to resist the 
Czar's encroachments so far as they regarded 
her own interests; and these interests were 
sufficiently guarded when the seat of war 
was transferred — as it was soon destined to 
be- — from the Principalities to Russian and 
Turkish soil. Thus England and France 
were left to sign a treaty with the Porte, on 
the 27th of November, 1853, in which they 
undertook to uphold the cause of Turkey by 
armed intervention if Russia continued deaf 
to remonstrance. 

This step was popular in both countries. 
In France, the army, by means of which 
Louis Napoleon the President had become 
Napoleon III. the Emperor, was well pleased 
to see a prospect of war in which promotions 
and titles and wealth were to be gained ; 
and in England a feeling of general and 
profound anger had been excited by the 
duplicity of the Czar, whose professions of 
religious zeal were denounced as thorough 
hypocrisy, and to whom the worst of motives 
were attributed. 

Omar Pasha and Oltenitza ; Sinope ; 

Commencement OF the Crimean War. 

Another circumstance had also contributed 
not a little to render the Anglo-French alli- 



ance for the defence of Turkey popular in 
England. The Turks, under Omar Pasha, 
had gained a brilliant victory on the 4th of 
November, at Oltenitza, on the Danube, over 
a Russian army superior in number ; and it 
is a natural impulse to be willing to help 
those who have shown their ability to strike 
a blow for themselves. Still negotiations 
with the Russian Government went on, even 
after the English and French fleets had been 
despatched to the Bosphorus, — an act against 
which the Czar violently protested ; but early 
in December came news that a Turkish 
squadron had been attacked by a Russian 
fleet in the harbour of Sinope, on the south 
shore of the Black Sea, and utterly destroyed, 
after heroic resistance, in which all the crews 
perished, with the exception of some 400 men. 

This attack was violently denounced at the 
time in England as a treacherous massacre, 
because negotiations for a settlement of the 
Eastern question were still going on between 
the Western Powers and Russia. But Mr. 
Kinglake and other writers have shown that 
Russia, when she was at war with Turkey, 
cannot be blamed for choosing her own time 
and place to attack the enemy, and could 
hardly be expected to leave the Turkish fleet 
alone until the English and French should 
come to reinforce it, and render the numbers 
on both sides equal. It was felt, however, 
that Sinope took away almost the last hope 
that peace between Russia and the Western 
Powers might still be maintained. 

Public opinion in England was now in 
favour of war ; and the general feeling with 
regard to the Czar and his policy was 
thoroughly in accordance with the words 
published by the Times in its summary 
issued on the last day of 1853. "A year 
ago," says the writer, "the Emperor of 
Russia enjoyed among the powers of Europe 
a well-earned character for honesty, straight- 
forwardness, and moderation. Who could 
have supposed that within a few months all 
this could have been so utterly forgotten, and 
every consideration of honour and justice 
sacrificed to an empty and profitless ambi- 
tion? With vast domains to civilise and 
retain, with a boundless field for the exercise 
of enlightened benevolence, and a prospect of 
power and pre-eminence by developing the 
arts of peace over Europe and Asia, far more 
certain and far more glorious than any 
military triumph, this mighty potentate has 
deliberately turned from good to evil, and 
preferred the acquisition, by fraud and vio- 
lence, of two or three desolated provinces to 
the welfare and advancement of the seventh 
part of the inhabited globe over which he 
reigns. From the provocation which Prince 
Menschikoff was instructed to throw out, 
under the mask of an ambassador, to the late 
murderous attack upon Sinope, the policy 



134 



FROM ALMA TO SEBASTOPOL. 



of the Czar has been one and uniform. To 
bully the weak, to cajole the strong, to seize 
by force, or to circumvent by fraud, are now- 
recognised as the uniform tactics of the once 
great upholder of order and treaties, and 
arbiter of the disputes of Europe." For 
thirty-eight years there had been no great 
European war; but the year 1854 dawned 
upon the world " dark with the presage of 
impending battle." 

That presage was speedily fulfilled ; indeed, 
there is little doubt that the year 1853 would 
not have passed away without hostilities, but 
for the fact that the Earl of Aberdeen, one of 
the most pacific of Prime Ministers, was at 
the head of affairs. But now Lord Palmer- 
ston, the friend of the 
Emperor Napoleon III., 
who had been compelled 
to resign his office in the 
Cabinet for expressions 
that were interpreted as 
approving the coup d'etat, 
joined the Ministry ; and 
this was a sign that affairs 
would be more vigorously 
conducted. The country 
had long been drifting 
towards war, and the idea 
of a contest with Russia 
was far from unpopular. 
The oft-repeated taunt 
that the English were "a 
nation of shopkeepers," 
that England had "joined 
the Peace Society," and 
that Britannia had ex- 
changed the empire of 
the sea for the manage- 
ment of countless cotton 
mills and cloth factories, 
had offended the national 
pride ; and a general 
feeling of almost joyous 
alacrity was experienced 
when on the 27th of March, i854,the announce- 
ment was made by the heralds in their official 
costume, from the steps of the Royal Ex- 
change, London, that England, in alliance 
with France, had declared war against 
Russia. 

Some who heard that announcement made, 
might remember to have read how a great 
statesman, Sir Robert Walpole, had bitterly 
exclaimed, when the Londoners set the 
church bells ringing a century before on the 
announcement of a popular but unjust war : 
" They are ringing the bells now ; they'll be 
wringing their hands by-and-by." The 
Crimean war cannot be stigmatised as unjust ; 
but few who were present, when its com- 
mencement was proclaimed, anticipated in 
how many of the homes of Britain there 
would be wringing of hands and wailing. 




Omar Pasha. 



before the struggle should have run its not 
very protracted course. 

The Allied Forces and their Com- 
manders; Raglan, St. Arnaud, 
DuNDAS, Lyons. 

The commander to whom the honour of Eng- 
land was to be entrusted in the combat against 
the great Northern Power was in many re- 
spects judiciously selected. Lord Raglan, 
better known to many of his friends by his 
earlier name of Lord Fitzroy Somerset, had 
been the old and trusted friend and companion 
of the great Duke of Wellington, under whom 
he had served in war and in peace. He had 
been present at the great day of Waterloo, on 
which occasion he lost 
his right arm ; afterwards 
he had been the Duke's 
military secretary ; and 
after the death of Colonel 
Gurwood, had completed 
the task of editing that 
marvellous series of de- 
spatches, luminous in 
every page wi",h the saga- 
city and soldiership of the 
great chief. A strict dis- 
ciplinarian, he was never- 
theless distinguished by 
a kindly charm of manner 
that attracted all who ap- 
proached him ; and was 
indefatigable in the dis- 
charge of duty. The one 
misgiving that occurred 
to those who knew him, 
■)n hearing of his ap- 
pointment, was whether 
he still possessed the 
physical strength and 
endurance necessary for 
his arduous office. 

The French comman- 
der, in concert with 
whom he was to act, was Marshal St. Arnaud, 
an officer who had seen much service in 
Algeria, but who owed his position chiefly to 
the fact of having been one of the chief actors 
in the coup d'etat of December 1851. One 
circumstance at least rendered the appoint- 
ment of Marshal St. Arnaud a matter of sur- 
prise to many. His health was utterly 
shattered by a painful disease under which 
he had laboured for years ; and it was hardly 
probable that he would long survive. 

The fleet to be sent to the Baltic was 
under the command of Sir Charles Napier, a 
cousin of the famous generals, the hero of 
Scinde, and the chronicler of the Peninsular 
War. Admiral Napier was a frank, brave 
sailor of the old bluff school of " sea-dogs." 
He has been likened to Smollett's Commodore 
Trunnion. The rough-and-ready fashion in 



135 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



which he announced the war to his crew, 
was the subject of good-humoured comment 
at the time. " My lads," said the genial old 
admiral to his assembled ship's company, 
" war has been declared ; we are to fight the 
Russians. Sharpen your cutlasses, lads, and 
the day is ours." He seemed to have little 
idea of the nature of the work in hand, or of 
how little the sharpening of cutlasses would 
avail against the fortresses with which the 
Russians had guarded their coasts. 

Admiral Dundas and Sir Edmund Lyons, 
afterwards Lord Lyons, who commanded in 
the Black Sea, were men of very different 
mould ; Lyons, especially, was one in whom 
there was something of the genius and energy 
of Nelson ; like him, too, he was adored by 
his men. The conditions of the combat, 
however, as will be seen, were unfavourable 
to naval operations. 

Defeat of Russia on the Danube ; 
silistria and glurgevo ; the eng- 
LISH French, and Turkish Armies 
AT Gallipoli and Varna. 
The Russian attempt to invade Turkey 
from the north proved a failure. The Mus- 
covite General Paskievitch was obliged, after 
the loss of many of his men, to abandon his 
attempt to capture Silistria, on the Danube, 
and to lead back the remains of his army 
across the Pruth. The defence of Silistria 
by a Turkish force, under two Indian officers, 
Captain Butler and Lieutenant Nasmyth, 
was the first brilliant episode of the war. 
At Giurgevo the Russians also suffered a 
disastrous defeat. That the Turks could 
fight bravely when well commanded was 
shown by the heroic resistance they made at 
Silistria, and their devotion to the brave 
young Englishmen who led them. " It was 
impossible," wrote the successor of Lieutenant 
Nasmyth, quoted by Kinglake, "not to ad- 
mire the cool indifference of the Turks to 
danger. Three men were shot in the space 
of five minutes while throwing up earth for 
the new parapet, at which only two men 
could work at a time, so as to be at all pro- 
tected ; and they were succeeded by the 
nearest bystander, who took the spade from 
the dying man's hands, and set to work as 
calmly as if he were going to cut a ditch by 
the roadside." An army of 20,000 English- 
men, under Lord Raglan, and another of 
about double the number under Marshal 
St. Arnaud, started for the East. The joint 
disembarkation of the armies was effected at 
Gallipoli, on the shore of the Dardanelles, 
and from the first it appeared that a good 
understanding would be maintained between 
the men of the two nations, as also between 
the officers. Lord Raglan, indeed, met with 
some difficulty from the encroaching spirit 
manifested by the French Marshal, who en- 



deavoured to obtain for himself the command 
of the Turkish army, which would have 
placed the English commander at a great 
disadvantage. But by united firmness and 
good temper on the part of Lord Raglan and 
Lord Stratford the difficulty was overcome, 
and the ambitious Frenchman was kept in 
check. Another difficulty now occurred. Lord 
Raglan wished to move the troops to Varna; but 
St. Arnaud declined, and proposed a scheme 
of his own for occupying Roumelia, in the 
rear of the Balkan ; but again", on the firm 
objection of Lord Raglan, he yielded ; and to 
Varna, on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, 
the Anglo-French force was accordingly 
moved ; and here, it is said, they could at 
times actually hear the firing at Silistria, 
where Paskievitch was wildly sacrificing his 
men in the vain attempt to drive the garrison 
to surrender. 

Varna was remembered long afterwards by 
soldiers and sailors alike for the misfortunes 
that befell the expedition in that ill-omened 
place. A tremendous fire that caused the 
destruction of a great quantity of warlike 
stores, and even threatened the stock of 
powder, occurred thereon the loth of August; 
and presently the terrible plague of modern 
times, cholera, that ravaged Europe in 1854,. 
made its appearance in the English and 
French armies. The site for the encamp- 
ment at Varna had been badly chosen, and 
soon proved to be wretchedly unhealthy. 
The men were seized by hundreds with the 
dire disease, and perished with alarming 
rapidity. On board the ships, too, the pesti- 
lence raged ; and one ship, the Britannia^ 
lost 105 men in a few weeks. Moreover, 
Marshal St. Arnaud had marched three 
divisions of his force into the pestilential 
regions of the Dobrudscha, at the mouth of 
the Danube, and the loss of 10,000 men by 
disease was the result of this measure. 

Invasion of the Crimea ; The Land- 
ing AT EUPATORIA. 
Meanwhile the news of the defence of 
Silistria and of the discomfiture of Paskie- 
vitch, had kindled alike in France and 
England a desire to achieve something great, 
and to inflict a decisive blow on the pride 
and ambition of Russia. In the Crimea, the 
ancient Tauric Chersonesus, a territory ac- 
quired by Russia in the time of Catherine II., 
had been built the mighty stronghold of 
Sebastopol, the great depot of warlike stores 
for Russia in the Black Sea, and the haven 
where her fleet could lie sheltered in safety. 
The invasion of the Crimea and the reduc- 
tion of Sebastopol was the scheme that now 
recommended itself to the governments of 
France and England ; instructions were ac- 
cordingly sent out to the commanders, and 
excellent arrangements being made for the 

136 



FROM ALMA TO SEBASTOPOL. 



transport of the troops. The two armies, 
wofuUy thinned, alas! by the deaths of 
thousands of brave men from disease, were 
successfully carried across the Black Sea, and 



which was effected in admirable order ; only 
some Cossacks were seen, who quickly 
vanished ; and the capture of a convoy of 
cattle was the first advantage gained. But 




The Exploit of Captain Bell at the Alma. 



landed on the 17th of September at Eupa- 
toria, on the west coast, about thirty miles 
north of the great fortress, and near the 
banks of the river Alma. 

No enemy appeared to oppose the landing, 



here again difficulties had been thrown in the 
way by St. Arnaud, who seems to have been in 
continual fear of compromising his dignity 
by acting under Lord Raglan's direction. He 
though<^ the safety of the whole expedition 



m 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



was endangered by any separation of the 
English and French forces, seeing that the 
Russians had a large and powerful fleet under 
the guns of Sebastopol, ready at any moment to 
swoop down upon the invaders. St. Arnaud 
had sailed awaj^ with the French forces apart 
from the English ; but at length, after incur- 
ring the risk of spoiling the whole plan by his 
waywardness, he came back, as if ashamed 
of his petulance, and the fleets proceeded in 
company, as they should have done at first. 
It is only fair to say that something of this 
waywardness in the Marshal must be 
ascribed to the effects of the disease which 
was bringing him to his grave. He had but 
a few days of life left in him when he landed 
in the Crimea. 

March towards Sebastopol; The 
Battle of the Alma. 

The numbers of the expedition are given as 
about 30,000 French, 7,000 Turks, and 27,000 
English, including 1,000 cavalry, an arm of 
which the French were destitute. The land- 
ing had been began on the 14th of September, 
and was finished within five days. The 
march of the armies was directed towards 
Sebastopol. But the Russians, though they 
had allowed the disembarkation to take place 
unopposed, were prepared to dispute the 
advance of the allied forces, and had chosen 
their own ground with considerable skill. 
Southward of Eupatoria, where the invaders 
landed, and consequently across the route to 
Sebastopol, ran the river Alma ; and on the 
further side of this river Prince Mentschikoff, 
the Governor of the Crimea, had advantage- 
ously posted his force of 30,000 men on the 
heights, strengthening his position by batteries 
of cannon and by a great redoubt. 

On the 19th there was some skirmishing 
with advanced bodies of Russian cavalry and 
Cossacks. The great struggle took place on 
the 20th. Mentschikoff appears to have 
thought concerning the invaders, as Cromwell 
expressed himself with regard to Leslie and 
his men at Dunbar, that " the Lord had de- 
livered them into his hands." He is said to 
have boasted that he could, if necessary, 
maintain his position for three weeks ; and 
that the Alma would be to the Third Napo- 
leon and his allies what the Berezina had 
been to the First. 

He little knew the men with whom he had 
to deal. English and French were alike 
filled with warlike ardour ; though, as testi- 
fied by the lists of killed and wounded, the 
former bore the burden and heat of the day. 
The river was crossed in the face of the 
astonished Russian army. The English 
advancing in line, attacked and broke the 
dense columns of their foes ; and after a 
stubborn fight of three hours, the great re- 
doubt was '■aken and maintained, the English 



flag being planted on it by a brave lad. 
Ensign Anstruther, who perished in the 
attempt. Among the men who especially 
distinguished themselves by their gallantry 
were the Highland regiments under the com- 
mand of Sir Colin Campbell, — the 79th and 
93rd, and the 42nd, the famous " Black 
Watch." The brief, soldier-like address of 
Sir Colin to his brigade on this occasion is 
eminently characteristic of the man who 
afterwards had so large a share in saving 
India in the time of the great mutiny. " Now, 
men," said the noble-hearted chief, " you are 
going into action. Remember this. Whoever 
is wounded, — I don't care v/hat his rank is, — 
whoever is wounded, must lie where he falls 
till the bandsmen come to attend to him. No 
soldier must go carrying off wounded men. 
If any soldier does such a thing, his name 
shall be stuck up in his parish church. Don't 
be in a hurry about firing. Your officers will 
tell you when it is time to open fire. Be 
steady. Keep silence. Fire low. Now, 
men, the army will watch us ; make me proud 
of the Highland Brigade ! " 

Various deeds of individual courage 
achieved on this day have been recorded. 
Among the most important is the brilliant 
feat of Captain Bell, of the 23rd regiment, 
who, when the Russian artillerymen had 
limbered up, and were carrying off their 
pieces from the great redoubt, overtook the 
driver hastening away with a gun, and 
holding his revolver, which happened to 
be empty, to the man's head, threatened 
him with instant death if he did not halt. 
The terrified Russian slipped out of his 
saddle and made off; whereupon Captain 
Bell turned the horse's head towards the 
English line, and the gun became the prize 
of the British arrny. 

The Zouaves distinguished themselves by 
the dash and spirit they infused into their 
fighting ; but the French army, it has been 
generally allowed, was not skilfully handled 
on that day. Marshal St. Arnaud was 
wretchedly ill ; and, indeed, only outlived 
the fight a few days, dying on board the 
ship that was to convey him to Constan- 
tinople. 

After the Alma; March upon 
Balaclava, 
The fruits of the victory were chiefly found 
in the moral effect it created. But it is certain 
that it was not followed up with sufficient 
energy. The beaten enemy was allowed to 
rally too soon, and, indeed, was surprised at 
not finding itself pursued. One reason of 
this was in the want of cavalry, another in 
the reluctance of Lord Raglan to press his 
men too severely so early in the campaign. 
Subsequent revelations render it certain that 
had the allies pushed on at once to Sebas- 



138 



FROM ALMA TO SEBASTOPOL. 



topol, they might have taken the city by a 
coup de main. But the delay of a few days 
will sometimes alter the entire aspect of a 
campaign. In this case it enabled General 
Mentschikoff, in conjunction with Todleben, 
the most distinguished engineer of the war, 
to put the city into a state of defence, and 
gave the allied army almost a year's hard 
work, involving the loss of thousands of lives. 

It has been said by the author of the 
" History of our own Times" that this battle 
was a kind of heroic scramble ; and that in 
a scramble some men are more fortunate 
than others. On this day one commander 
was certainly peculiarly unfortunate, namely, 
Prince Napoleon, whose division became so 
hopelessly entangled and clubbed in the 
advance as to be shut out from the conflict, — 
a circumstance which helped to fix upon its 
leader the imputa:tion most damaging to the 
character of a soldier. The reputation of 
the son of Jerome, King of Westphalia, re- 
ceived a blow on that day from which it 
never recovered. 

The allies meanwhile marched southward ; 
and the appearance of Sebastopol, with its 
strong defences, — which had been increased 
by the throwing-up of new earthworks, while 
seven ships had been sunk across the entrance 
of the harbour to secure it from an attack by 
the fleet, — made them resolve to besiege the 
city in regular form. Accordingly they esta- 
blished themselves in camps to the south of 
the place, where they could co-operate with 
the fleets, — the English at Balaclava, the 
French at Kauriesh, — and the communica- 
tion by sea would enable them to receive 
reinforcements, supplies of stores, and ammu- 
nition, and all requisites for the siege without 
continual molestation from the enemy. 

First attack on Sebastopol ; Battle 
OF Balaclava ; Charge of the Light 
Brigade. 

The 17th of October, 1854, will always be 
remembered as a dark day of misfortune and 
failure in the annals of this war. It had 
been determined to attack Sebastopol by sea, 
and to bring all the great resources of the 
EngUsh and French fleets into play. But in 
an evil hour Admiral Dundas allowed him- 
self to be overruled by the French Admiral 
Hamelin as to the position from which the 
ships were to commence the attack. Against 
his better judgment he gave way, and the 
result was dire failure; the French fire being 
silenced early in the day, and the English 
being only just able to maintain theirs 
throughout the fight, while Fort Constantine 
defied all their efforts to extinguish its re- 
sistance ; though the Agamemnojt and the 
few ships that could be brought to a point 
whence their fire was effective behaved 
gloriously. 



On the 25th of October, a few days later, 
was fought the celebrated battle of Balaclava. 
The army of the Russians, strengthened by 
reinforcements, and encouraged by the issue 
of the operations on the 17th, — which had 
convinced the allies that Sebastopol was not 
to be taken " as King Hal took Teroneune, 
when he just laid his hand on it and it was 
done," — made a spirited attack upon the 
English and French forces in the hope of 
cutting them off from Balaclava. The Czar's 
soldiers fought gallantly, as, indeed, they 
always did throughout the war ; but they 
lost the day, being everywhere beaten back ; 
and the battle was considered virtually over 
when the incident happened that immorta- 
lised the name of Balaclava in the annals of 
British heroism, — the famous charge of the 
Light Brigade. " There came an order that 
someone had blundered," sings Tennyson in 
his spirited poem on the Balaclava charge. 
It appears that Lord Raglan wished to retake 
a battery that had been taken from some 
Turks earlier in the day, — for the Turkish 
contingent in the Crimea were men of a very 
different stamp from the heroic defenders of 
Silistria, — and accordingly he sent an order 
to Lord Lucan, who was in command of the 
cavalry, ordering a charge upon this battery. 
To Lord Cardigan, whose duty it was to head 
the charge, an order was brought from Lord 
Lucan by a distinguished cavalry officer, 
Captain Nolan ; and by a lamentable mis- 
take, which Nolan alone Avould have cleared 
up. Lord Cardigan was made to believe 
that the order referred not to the battery 
taken from the Turks, but to the strong 
position "half a league onward," where 
the Russian cannon were posted, at the 
opposite end of a long valley at a distance 
of more than a mile. Though naturally 
amazed at receiving an order that seemed 
dictated by madness. Lord Cardigan felt 
himself bound in honour to obey it. As he 
would have to lead the charge, hesitation or 
inquiry might be open to an ugly interpre- 
tation. Accordingly, with the philosophical 
observation, " Then here goes the last of the 
Cardigans," he gave the order to mount, and 
the Light Brigade started on its fatal task. 

The number of men who rode in that 
charge consisted of 130 of the 13th Light 
Dragoons, 145 of the 17th Lancers, 118 of 
the 4th Light Dragoons, 104 of the 8th 
Hussars, and no of the nth Hussars, 
making a total of 607 ; and of these only 
198, less than a third, came back into camp. 

So soon as the brigade was in motion. 
Captain Nolan, who had carried the order, 
seems to have seen the misunderstanding. 
He galloped towards Lord Cardigan, pro- 
bably to set it right ; but at that moment a 
round shot struck him full in the chest ; he 
remained erect in the saddle for a few mo- 



139 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



ments, while his horse galloped onward, and 
then fell to the ground a dead man. Mean- 
while the Russian batteries on the heights on 
either side of the valley plied the brigade 
with grape and canister shot as the English 
troopers rode past. " Cannon to left of them, 
cannon to right of them, cannon in front of 
them, volleyed and thundered." But still 
they rode on, their ranks continually thinned 
by the shot that came plunging in among 
them. Through the iron trail they reached 
the batteries they deemed themselves ordered 
to take. It has been rightly described as 
light cavalry charging an army in position. 
The batteries were silenced, those of the 
gunners who did not find safety in flight being 
sabred at their guns ; and then the sur- 
vivors of that gallant but wholly unneces- 
sary exploit turned round 
and rode back to their 
own army, having once 
more to run the gauntlet 
of the flanking batteries as 
they passed. " Long shall 
the tale be told, how they 
rode onward ! " It was a 
piece of heroism worthy 
of the comrades of Leo- 
nidas at Thermopylae. The 
brave men had no choice 
but to obey orders. But 
the reflection will always 
remain that their lives were 
needlessly sacrificed. The 
comment of the French 
general, who declared the 
whole affair " very mag- 
nificent but not war," was 
perhaps the best criticism 
on the Balaclava charge. 

Newspaper Corres- 
pondents : Mr. Rus- 
sell OF THE " Times " ; 
Outspoken Criticism 
Thus on the 25th of October the Russian 
ariuy that endeavoured to relieve Sebastopol 
was driven back ; on the following day a 
great sortie from the city was repulsed ; and 
the siege went on in regular form. And here 
for the first time was introduced an element 
that has since become a feature of every great 
war, but which would have considerably 
startled the great Duke, and would probably 
have excited in him disgust and indignation. 
The public at home, who took the keenest 
interest in every detail of the strife, were kept 
accurately informed of the course of events by 
theletters of correspondents despatched by the 
newspaper proprietors to the seat of war. 
Among these gentlemen, Mr. William 
Howard Russell, the representative of the 
Tijnes, was facile princeps j and his graphic 
and faithful narrative was interspersed 




William Howard Russell. 



with outspoken and not always favourable 
criticism, for which there was more than 
need. 

The war had been undertaken, as it were, 
in the dark. The old routine of the com- 
missariat department, the medical arrange- 
ments, the arrangements for the supply of 
war material and stores, everything, in fact, 
except the fighting, belonged to a past age, 
and was entirely inadequate to the needs of 
the time. Close upon the tidings of the 
Alma victory, which were received with an 
outburst of delight, the more vehement and 
hearty because they gave a triumphant re- 
futation to the " nation of shopkeepers " 
theory, came news of a very different kind, — 
stories of entirely preventible and unnecessary 
want and hardship suffered by our brave 
troops, — of lamentably 
defective hospital arrange- 
ments, and an unaccount 
able absence of the medi- 
cal and surgical appliances 
and of those comforts for 
the sick which the com- 
monest forethought and 
care ought to have provi- 
ded. It was reported how 
a large consignment of 
saddles for the cavalry had 
been despatched to one 
port, while the correspond- 
ing bridles were consigned 
to another; how a large 
shipment of boots, anxi- 
ously awaited for the 
soldiers, who were almost 
barefoot, were found, on 
their arrival, to be all for 
the left foot ; how a large 
cargo of coffee had been 
sent out without any appli- 
ances for roasting the 
beans^ which were served 
out raw to the troops ; 
and how, in fact, the commissariat and other 
departments had broken down lamentably, — 
and how, through the ignorance and neglect 
of responsible persons, far more men were 
being sacrificed in hospital and in camp than 
fell beneath the fire of the enemy. 

These things aroused in England a feeling 
of profound grief and anger ; and much of 
this anger displayed itself against the Govern- 
ment. Lord Aberdeen was known to have 
been opposed to the war from the beginning; 
and rightly or wrongly was suspected of 
pursuing it with a languor that was ominous 
of failure. By the beginning of the next year 
it was generally known that military and 
official red-tapeism and incapacity were, like 
devouring monsters, destroying our soldiers ; 
that, as the Times forcibly expressed it, 
" Balaclava was a cemetery, and Scutari a 



140 



FROM ALMA TO SEBASTOPOL. 



pest-house;" and Mr. Roebuck gave notice 
in Parliament for a committee of investiga- 
tion. The Ministry " of all the talents," as 
it was called, opposed this application ; and 
on a division the Governm.ent sustained such 
a defeat that resignation followed as a matter 
of course, and Lord Palmerston, who was 
known to be heart and soul against the 
Russians, came into power, thus gaining a 
great triumph over Lord John Russell, who 
had dismissed him from the Cabinet on the 
coup d'etat question just three years before. 

The Battle of Inkermann ; Soldier- 
ship AND Generalship. 

But in the meantime a great battle — one 
of those soldiers' battles on which the country 
looks with especial pride, as proofs that the 
fighting power of the race has not decreased 
with the increase of ease and the conveniences 
of life in every class — had been won outside 
the walls of Sebastopol. On the 8th of 
November an unusual stir had been noticed 
by the men in the trenches to be going on 
within the beleagured city. There was much 
drumming and trumpeting among the be- 
sieged ; and at times the shouts of men and 
the Russian "hourra" were heard. This 
seemed to portend some design in progress. 

Those who had judged thus were right. 
Early on the morning of the 9th, an outpost 
sentry at the quarries of Inkermann, at the 
extremity of the English camp, heard what 
seemed to be the footsteps of a number of 
men approaching through the gloom. He 
fired his musket, and rushed to alarm the 
camp. It was an attack in force by an army 
of 50,000 Russians, under General Liprandi ; 
and for hours there were only about 8,000 
men, consisting of the Guards and three line 
regiments, to oppose the whole weight of the 
Russian onset. And on this occasion the 
Muscovites fought with a more grim per- 
sistency than ever. They had been inflamed 
to fury by the impassioned addresses of their 
officers, and by copious draughts of fiery 
spirit. Thus the struggle on the plateau of 
Inkermann was tremendous. As Wellington 
said of Waterloo, " it was a battle of giants." 
Of strategy and generalship there was simply 
none. The whole affair was a surprise. The 
soldiers saw the dark masses of their foes 
before them, and simply " went for " the 
long grey great-coats and black helmets, 
bringing down their foes as they best could, 
with bayonet thrusts, with clubbed muskets, 
and even with big stones seized up in the 
quarries and hurled at the advancing 
columns. 

The terrible inequality of the battle was at 
length ended by the arrival of a large body 
of French troops under General Bosquet; 
and the Russian anriy retired sullenly 
within the precincts of the beleagured city. 



having lost, it is said, 12,000 men. The 
English loss was estimated at 2,600, with 
nearly 150 officers ; that of the French about 
1,700. Inkermann was emphatically the 
great hand-to-hand struggle of the war, 
beginning before daylight, and lasting until 
the short November day was closing in. 
The Times' chronicler sums it up in a few- 
words, as "the memorable battle of Inker- 
mann, with its surprise, so little honourable 
to our general and the officers of his staff ; 
its combats so glorious to our soldiers ; and 
its results so fatal to the enemy and so 
memorable to us." It was a tremendous 
lesson to the foe as to what the British 
soldier can do, when he has to fight for his 
life against overwhelming odds. 

The Terrible Winter of 1854-55, 
The news of the splendid fight of Inker- 
mann restored the courage of those weaker 
brethren at home who had begun to despond, 
and it seemed ungrateful to doubt for a 
moment the issue of a struggle in which we 
had such noble champions. But the diffi- 
culties of the army were only beginning ; 
through the winter that began soon after, 
every form of want and suffering became 
familiar to our troops. " The army has been 
suffering in patience and in silence the most 
fatal and unnecessary misery," was the asser- 
tion of the leading journal, and the fact was 
too patent to be contradicted. 

The winter of 1854 was one of unusual 
severity, and was ushered in on the shores of 
the Crimea by such a tempest as even the 
stormy Euxine in the roughest season of the 
year could seldom show. This storm made 
havoc of the camp, carrying away the men's 
tents, throwing down the wooden buildings in 
which large quantities of stores had been piled 
up ; and on the waters it spread destruction 
far and wide among the transports and store- 
ships, many of which were sunk, some of them 
with their crews as well as their costly freight. 
The winter came upon the soldiers while 
they were still without warm clothing, nourish- 
ing food, medical stores, and general neces- 
saries ; and the most lamentable part of the 
business was, that this want and misery re- 
sulted mainly from mismanagement. Bala- 
clava, the seaport, is eight miles from the 
camp ; and while the fine weather lasted a 
road should have been made. This had been 
neglected, and had now become impossible ; 
and thus, while the ships in harbour were 
laden with stores, the camp was starving. 
" Within eight miles of them are clothes, 
food, materials for house building, fuel, 
and many other comforts," said Russell's 
account ; " but the soldiers have been in rags, 
have been placed on half-rations, have been 
reduced to burrow in the ground for shelter, 
and driven to the utmost extremity to obtain 



\\\ 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



firewood from a surface of land saturated 
with rain. There have been guns and am- 
munition in abundance at Balaclava, while 
the siege has been interrupted for want of 
guns and ammunition." Indeed, during the 
winter months the siege became little more 
than a blockade ; but still the men were 
patient and uncomplaining, and showed an 
admirable disposition, in which their officers 
set them a good example of making the best 
of very untoward circumstances. One very 
healthy symptom was noticed among all this 
dismal category of inefficiency and blunder- 
ing. When it became patent that the military 
departments at home and the general system 
had hopelessly broken down, there was no 
disposition to hide or to excuse any of the 
blunders. On the contrary, open discussion, 
outspoken criticism, and in many cases un- 
qualified censure became the order of the day. 
In France, where, on the other hand, the 
only news that might be published from the 
seat of war was officially communicated by 
the Government, and every newspaper editor 
and proprietor lived in dread of the terrible 
" three warnings " or avertissemenls, after 
which his paper was liable to be suppressed, 
the condition of the French army, its be- 
haviour, and every particular concerning it, 
were described in the most hopeful fashion ; 
and, indeed, the Continent wondered at the 
revelations of incompetency and want of 
system voluntarily avowed in England. But 
there was another side to all this. Errors 
once frankly avowed in the face of the whole 
nation were sure to be quickly corrected ; 
and it was not likely now that the country 
knew the truth that the mistakes of that fatal 
winter would be repeated. 

An Unexpected Event; Continuance 
OF THE War. 
At the beginning of March 1855, a piece of 
news was flashed across Europe that took the 
nations by surprise and gave rise to various 
conjectures regarding the further prosecution 
of the war. The Emperor Nicholas was 
dead. That restless, ambitious man, who had 
spilt the blood of his subjects hke water, and 
had deemed a seventh part of the world too 
small an empire to suffice him, had passed 
away from the scene of his labours and his 
crimes, before it was even generally known 
that he was sick. The immediate and osten- 
sible cause of his death was congestion of 
the lungs, brought on by an attack of influ- 
enza. But to say that the autocrat of all the 
Russias died of a broken heart would be not 
far from the truth. For more than a quarter 
of a century his policy had been a prepara- 
tion for the great game he had at last played 
and lost. Incessant anxiety, strenuous ex- 
ertion, and bitter disappointment had all 
contributed to break down that colossal 



frame ; and the news of another baffled 
attempt of his army is said to have finished 
the ruin that overwork and hidden despaii 
had begun. Never had a ruler so completely 
sown the wind to reap the whirlwind. 

It was at first expected that his successor, 
Alexander II., would gladly seize this oppor- 
tunity to put an end to a war for which he 
was not responsible. But not even a Russian 
autocrat is so entirely despotic that he can 
afford to slight the wishes and outrage the 
feelings of the great mass of his subjects. 
Russia had been deeply humiliated by the 
defeat during the war, to which, moreover, 
something of a religious character had been 
imparted by the manifesto of the Czar. There 
were strong hopes that the fall of Sebastopol 
might be averted ; and in view of the doubt- 
ful state in which affairs then stood, the new 
Czar could not without risking his throne 
accede to a peace in which he would have 
to yield points of importance. Accordingly, 
with the spring active operations were re- 
sumed, and the prospect of a termination to 
the war seemed as remote as ever. 

The Emperor Nicholas seems to have 
cherished a hope that the siege of Sebastopol 
would be abandoned at the setting in of 
the Russian winter. He had been accus- 
tomed to say that Russia had two generals 
on whom she could rely, — General January 
and General February ; and the disappoint- 
ment of this hope was finely illustrated at the 
time by the genius of John Leech the artist, 
who in a cartoon in Punch, entitled, "General 
Fevrier turned traitor," represented Death in 
the Russian uniform laying his icy hand, not 
on the foes of the Czar, but on the Emperor 
himself. General February had turned his 
weapons against the monarch who claimed 
him as an ally. 

Affairs assumed a better aspect with re- 
gard to the army as the winter passed away. 
Strenuous exertions were made to remedy 
the evils that had caused the collapse, and 
gradually such improvements were made 
that operations could be resumed with vigour. 
Among the reforms carried out, none were 
more important than the improvements in 
hospital management, and in the important 
science of nursing the sick. These improve- 
ments are due in a great measure to the 
energy and self-devotion of Miss Florence 
Nightingale, a lady who had made all 
questions connected with nursing in hospi- 
tals a subject of study for many years, and 
had gained practical experience of the work- 
ing of various institutions at home and 
abroad. Mr. Sidney Herbert, the Secretary 
for War, induced Miss Nightingale to proceed 
to the East with some ladies qualified and 
willing to act under her directions, and a 
staff of reliable and skilful nurses. The 
hospital at Scutari soon assumed a very 



142 



FROM ALMA TO SEBASTOPOL. 



different appearance, dirt and confusion dis- 
appeared, and for the first time it was fully 
recognised that sanitary hygiene and thought- 
fiil care and tending of the sick have at least 
as much to do with the chances of recovery 
as medical skill. It is hardly possible to 
overestimate the value of the work done by 
Miss Nightingale and her devoted band of 
gentle English ladies during the Crimean 



The Baltic Fleet; Bomarsund; Hango ; 

The Black Sea Fleet; The Straits 

OF Yenikale. 

The naval operations of the war had, on the 
whole, until now, occasioned disappointment, 
though that disappointment seems to have 
been based partly on a somewhat vague esti- 
mate of what the ships were really expected to 
effect, and upon the glorious traditions of 
such fights as Camperdown, the Nile, and 
Trafalgar. A repetition of such triumphs 
was not to be hoped for in the present war, 
because the Russian fleets would never, 
either in the Baltic or in the Black Sea, run 
the hazard of a general engagement. In the 
one case the ships took refuge in the harbour 
of Sebastopol ; in the other they were safely 
ensconced behind the batteries of Cronstadt. 
The " Thrasonical brag " of Admiral Napier 
had accordingly little relevance to the actual 
state of affairs. The one great thing that must 
have cast lustre on his name would have been 
an attack on the Russian fleet, and its capture 
or destruction in spite of the fortifications of 
Cronstadt. There were different opinions as 
to the feasibility of such a scheme ; but at 
any rate Sir Charles did not attempt it. 
Afterwards, as Member of Parliament for 
Southwark, he made a violent onslaught on 
the First Lord of the Admiralty, Sir James 
Graham, on whom he laid the blame that 
, not more had been done. Sir James was not 
slow to retort, and hinted at incapacity in the 
commander as the reason why the Baltic 
fleet, reviewed before its departure by the 
Oueen in person, and furnished with every 
appliance of modern warfare, had brought 
home so few trophies. The country, perhaps 
unreasonably impatient, seemed inclined to 
divide the blame equally between both ; and 
there was much laughter at Punc/i's clever 
picture of " The great mud-flinging match be- 
tween Charlie Pot and Jamie Kettle." 

Yet the naval operations in the north were 
not without their value. The destruction of 
Bomarsund, a stronghold intended to be for 
the Baltic what Sebastopol was for the Black 
Sea, put an end to a menacing danger ; and 
the injury inflicted on the enemy by the 
capture of merchant ships and the stop- 
page of his maritime trade, suggested many 
i useful scruples as to the peril of provoking a 
dangerous enemy. 



An incident that called forth a shout of 
execration was the so-called massacre of 
Hango Head, where a boat's crew rowing 
ashore under a flag of truce was treacherously 
fired upon by Russian soldiers, and some of 
its occupants killed, in defiance of the laws 
of civilized warfare. Far more important, 
however, were the operations of the Black 
Sea fleet. The first attempt at bombarding 
Sebastopol from the sea was, as we have 
seen, a failure ; and the action of the Russians 
in sinking ships at the mouth of the harbour 
between Forts Paul and Constantine, pre- 
cluded all chance of a stand-up fight, such as 
took place when the French and Spanish men 
of war came sailing out of Cadiz Bay in 
1805 ; but the sailors, formed into a naval 
brigade, had done very valuable service on 
shore ; and the fleet itself, by forcing the 
Straits of Yenikale, between the Black Sea 
and the Sea of Azov, by the subsequent 
taking of Kertch, and the destruction of an 
immense amount of stores considered by the 
enemy to be in complete safety, had been of 
great and signal use. 

Another ally had also joined the Western 
Confederacy. This was the King of Sardinia, 
who, acting under the advice of Count 
Cavour, proceeded to establish a claim on 
the consideration and gratitude of the English 
and French nations by sending a force to 
co-operate in the great work then in hand. 
The Piedmontese soldiery were fortunate in 
having an opportunity of proving their 
gallantry, when their position at Traktir 
Bridge, on the Tchernaya, was fiercely 
attacked by the enemy, in a desperate 
attempt to raise the siege, on August i6th ; 
and the gallantry with which they behaved 
greatly raised the nation and the cause they 
represented in the opinion of Europe, and 
gained for the kingdom of Sardinia a place 
at the council-board of European sovereigns 
when the articles of peace came to be dis- 
cussed. 

Operations of 1855 ; The j8th of June ; 
Renewed Efforts ; Fall of Sebas- 
topol. 

Early in 1855 Lord John Russell was 
despatched on a mission to Vienna, to en- 
deavour to bring about a peace on condi- 
tions that should guarantee the integrity 
of Turkey, and limit the pretentions and 
check the ambition of Russia. The negotia- 
tion failed entirely ; and Lord John Russell 
himself was very severely criticised and 
driven from office, on the ground that he 
had advocated at Vienna a policy he after- 
wards denounced in the House of Commons. 
His reputation as a statesman suffered great 
damage ; for the English are rather disposed 
at all times to forgive injudicious counsel 



143 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



manfully persisted in than a weak halting 
between two opinions. 

The visit of the Emperor and Empress of 
the French to London, where they were 
received with the most cordial hospitality by 
the Queen and the Prince Consort, seemed a 
token that the Anglo-French alliance was in 
a healthy condition, and the cotip d'etat for- 
gotten. 

At the beginning of June the allies thought 
the time was at hand for striking a decisive 
blow, and putting an end to the tremendous 
labours of the protracted siege. On the 7th 
of that month an important outwork, the 
Mamelon, and another important post, were 
captured ; and arrangements were made for 
a general attack on the i8th, a day con- 
sidered to be of good omen, for it was the 
fortieth anniversary of Waterloo. But the 
attempt, though followed up with the most 
self-sacrificing gallantry, was repulsed by 
the stubborn foe ; and the shock of this 
misfortune, acting on a frame weakened by 
long and strenuous exertions and by sleep- 
less anxiety, brought on an illness which 
carried oft Lord Raglan with terrible sudden- 
ness. 

The regret at the loss of a brave and 
devoted chief was increased by the unhappy 
favouritism that was allowed to prevail in 
the choice of his successor. General Simp- 
son, who now became Commander-in-Chief 
in the Crimea, had not a single qualification, 
except seniority, for the important post 
assigned to him. And, indeed, one of the 
greatest advantages gained through the 
Crimean war was the conviction forced 
upon England that family influence and 
wealth and military traditions must no longer 
be allowed to bar the way to merit ; that the 
system of " taking care of Dowb " (an 
expression borrowed from a telegram that 
was sent to head- quarters at the same time 
with the intelUgence of General Simpson's 
appointment to the command, and meant 
that an officer named Dowbiggin was to 
have something done for him) was a per- 
nicious one, unworthy of a great nation. 

The disastrous effect of the appointment 
of General Simpson was quickly seen when 
the question of a new attack upon Sebastopol 
came to be discussed ^ After the death of 
Marshal St. Arnaud the command of the 
French army had devolved upon General 
Canrobert, who, feeling himself unequal to 



its responsibilities, had resigned it in favour 
of General Pelissier, a veteran whose skill 
had been proved in Algeria, where his 
Imputation for humanity, however, had 
suffered grave injury by the suffocation ol 
some hundreds of Arabs in the caves ot 
Dahra. The Mamelon, held by the French, 
was but a few yards from the important 
Malakoff tower, a most important position. 
On the other hand, the Rifle pits, the posi- 
tion gained by the English, was a long 
distance from the Redan battery, which it 
was their task to take, and during the whole 
way the attacking force would be exposed to 
a withering fire. It was felt that General 
Simpson erred gravely in thus allowing an 
almost impossible task to be allotted to his 
army, while the French had only to attack 
a point within fifteen yards of their trenches. 
The result was as might have been antici- 
pated. The French succeeded in their attack 
on the Malakoff, over whose tower the tri- 
color was soon waving. The English attacked 
the Redan most gallantly, succeeded in 
mounting the parapet, but could not esta- 
blish themselves in the place, for the sup- 
ports urgently required to back up their 
attack were not sent. General Simpson 
would attempt nothing more that day, alleging 
that the trenches were too crowded ; but in 
spite of wretched generalship, the task of the 
allied armies at Sebastopol was done. The 
bombardment of the last few days had 
terribly shattered the place , and Prince 
Gortchakoff, conscious that it was no longer 
tenable, moved his army from the south to 
the north side in the night on a bridge of 
boats, leaving the city a heap of ruins. 

With the taking of Sebastopol the war 

virtually ended, although the Treaty of Paris, 

by which it was definitely closed, was not 

signed until the 30th of March, 1856. The 

chief stipulations were : That the integrity ot . 

the Turkish Empire should be acknowledged ; 

the navigation of the Danube thrown open ; 

the principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia 

were to be placed under the protection of 

the Western Powers ; but the article that 

j chiefly hurt the pride of Russia, — a clause, 

I indeed, from which she has contrived at a 

i later period to shake herself free, — declared 

; that the Black Sea should be neutralised, its 

navigation being open to the merchant ships 

of all nations, but to the armed fleets of none. 

H. W. D. 



Tti'y 




The Old South Sea House, Threadneedle Street, London. 



THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE 



THE STORY OF A SPECULATIVE MANIA. 

" See Britain sunk in Lucre's foetid charms, 

And France revenged of Anne and Edward's arms." 



How the Bubble Rose — The South Sea Company — The Bait held out — John Law in France — The Mississippi Scheme — 
Excitement in Paris — Excesses and Speculations — Failure of tiie Mississippi Scheme — Fate of Law — Reverses — Plan 
to Pay the English National Debt — The Bank and the South Sea Company — Passing of the Bill — The Race for 
Wealth — A Cloud of Bubbles — The South Sea Scheme in excelsis — The Beginning of the End— Fraud — A Falling 
Off — Ruin and Retribution — Nemesis. 




them, 



How THE Bubble Rose. 

E will here place two instances of 
public credulity together ; although 
the circumstances of each are difte- 
rent, yet there is a similarity between 

inasmuch as the subscribers to the 



" Mississippi Scheme " and the " South Sea 
Bubble " were all and severally actuated by 
the same idea — love of gold, a desire to make 
money. 

" Gold," we are told in the opera of 
Roberto ilDiavolo, "is a chimera." Perhaps ; 
at any rate it has a great many followers, 
and if, like a " Will-o'-the-Wisp," the desired 
property escape the grasp of the pursuer, 
he will never believe he was in error. The 
" luck " was against him — neither his common 
sense nor his own action was at fault ; his 
greed did not lead him to plunge madly into 
speculation. No ; he was tempted. Yet 
our first parents could and did plead so much. 
The serpent beguiled them ; the Golden Calf 
has wondrous power of attraction too. 



145 



The notorious South Sea Company had its 
origin in the fertile brain of Harley, Earl of 
Oxford. The Ministry (Whigs) had been 
overthrown, and a large deficit appeared 
likely in the public accounts, — for the credit of 
the nation was not of the best in 171 1. There 
had been many troubles in the latter period 
of Anne's reign. Harley himself had been 
stabbed by Guiscard ; a few weeks after 
his re-appearance he was created Earl of 
Oxford. The Government and Court had 
fallen into a most degraded state at this time. 
Bribery and corruption, intrigues and ma- 
noeuvres of all kinds were rife, and when 
occasionally some good action appeared it 
was brought about by base and unworthy 
means. Such was the state of things when 
Harley proposed to put public credit right by 
providing for the Army and Navy expenses, 
and for the floating National Debt of ten 
millions. 

A Company was formed, and the merch- 
ants who composed it agreed to take all the 
responsibility if the Government would gua- 

l 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



rantee them 6 per cent. This arrangement 
was agreed to ; and in order to secure them- 
selves certain permanent duties were imposed. 
The duties upon silks, tobacco, wines, and 
certain other articles were appropriated to 
pay off the guaranteed interest, and then the 
South Sea Company became an accomplished 
fact. Harley dangled the bait of riches from 
Spanish seas in the eyes of the creditors. 
People had heard of the riches of the territo- 
ries beyond the sea, and every one fancied that 
when the Company had obtained the mono- 
poly of trading thither the gains would be 
enormous. So they would have been, no 
doubt, had the Company possessed the desired 
permission. However, the Company was in- 
corporated ; it was entitled by Act of Parlia- 
ment as "The Governor and Company of 
Merchants of Great Britain trading to the 
South Seas and other parts of America." 

But the English Minister had reckoned 
without Philip of Spain. By the Peace of 
Utrecht, negociated under Lord Bolingbroke, 
the Assiefito, or privilege to supply the 
Spaniards in South America with negro slaves 
from Africa, had been ceded to England in- 
stead of remaining with France; but Philip did 
not see the use of extending trading permis- 
sion to his rivals. The contract was limited 
to the despatch of one vessel a year with a 
cargo of goods, and this privilege with the 
Assiento was handed over to the South Sea 
Company by the Government. The King of 
Spain likewise imposed hard conditions upon 
the concession, and Oxford and his party 
were greatly incensed and disappointed at 
the turn of affairs. Nevertheless, the public 
supported the South Sea Company, although 
the first cargo could not sail till 1717 ; but 
after all nothing came of the arrangement, for 
England and Spain fell out (in 17 18), and the 
South Sea Company's factories were sup- 
pressed and their agents cast into prison. 
Things looked serious when Parliament met 
in 17 1 7, and King George pointedly referred 
to the state of public finance in his speech, 
and recommended that some decisive mea- 
sures should be adopted to reduce or extin- 
guish the National Debt. The Bank of 
England and the South Sea Company each 
came forward as the most entirely disinter- 
ested saviour of their country, and made 
certain proposals to Parliament. The latter 
Company offered to accept a reduction of 
interest to 5 per cent, if their capital of ten 
millions were increased to twelve. " The 
House debated for some time, and finally 
three Acts were passed called the South Sea 
Act, the Bank Act, and the General Fund 
Act. By the first the proposals of the South 
Sea Company were accepted, and that body 
held itself ready to advance the sum of two 
millions towards discharging principal and 
interest of the debt due by the State. By the 



second Act the Bank received a lower rate of 
interest for the sum of ^1,775,027 \z,s. due to 
it by the State, and agreed to deliver up to 
her cancelled as many Exchequer Bills as 
amounted to two millions sterling, and to 
accept of an annuity of ^100,000, being after 
the rate of 5 per cent., the whole redeem- 
able at one year's notice. They were further 
required to be ready to advance in case of 
need a sum not exceeding ^2,500,000 upon 
the same terms of 5 per cent, interest, 
redeemable by Parliament. The General 
Fund Act recited the various deficiencies 
which were to be made good by the aids 
derived from the foregoing sources."* 

John Law in France. 

It was just about this time that Law was 
reaping the fruits of his Mississippi scheme 
in France. The Rue Ouincampoix was the 
meeting-place for all classes of society. John 
Law had the control of all the State finances, 
and had created the Royal Bank of France. 
Favoured by the Regent, notes were manu- 
factured, and the whole country was inun- 
dated with a paper currency, and, notwith- 
standing the opposition of the Parliament, 
Law prospered. In 17 19 a grant was made 
to the Mississippi Company of the exclusive 
privilege of trading to India, China, and the 
South Seas, and to all the French possessions. 
New shares were created, and such a brilliant 
prospect was held before the public, that the 
applications for these new shares numbered 
six times the amount of the issue. The Rue 
Ouincampoix was daily and nightly besieged 
by applicants. No one could drive up, for 
the people blocked every approach. The 
grand dames had to come on foot ; courtesy 
was put aside ; ladies were elbowed by mer- 
chants, servants, and Churchmen. There was 
no respect of persons. The thirst for gold 
had seized upon all alike ; and as in the desert 
men will fight for a drop of water, so in the 
Rue Quincampoix they jostled and fought 
for the approach to a Scotch adventurer. 
Buying and selling was the order of the day. 
Jewels, title-deeds, private papers, even con- 
tracts were carried to the Bank premises 
to be changed into scrip. Anything that 
would fetch money was carried there, and 
from six in the morning until nine at night, 
the pressure and struggling of the maddened 
crowd almost exceeded belief. Soldiers were 
employed to clear the street, thieves came 
boldly forward and robbed many a grande 
dame of all she had in the world. 

Law, of course, was all-powerful, and the 
most extraordinary tales are related of the 
manner in which high-born ladies schemed 
and plotted for an introduction. One told 
her coachman to upset the carriage when 

* Mackay 



146 



THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. 



he perceived Mi'. Law approaching, and for 
many days the opportunity did not occur. 
At length the desired occasion arose ; the 
coachman acted faithfully, the carriage was 
injured, Law came to the lady's assistance, 
and ushered her into his house. Once there 
the lady confessed the stratagem, and became 
a subscriber to the Mississippi Stock. On 
another occasion a lady raised an alarm of 
fire, and caused Law and the other guests 
to hurry away from table. The alarmist, 
however, "went for" the financier, who, 
seeing the danger (of the interview), and 
perceiving the plan, hurried away in an 
opposite direction. The state of things in 
Paris can hardly be realized now. Many 
servants, and amongst them even Law's own 
coachman, made large sums of money by 
gambling. Thousands of new shares were 
created, and hundreds of thousands could 
have been disposed of " There was paper 
enough afloat to build a church as high as 
Notre Dame," said the people. Payments in 
specie were forbidden if above the value often 
louis, and before very long all cash circu- 
lation had virtually come to an end, and 
any one who was suspected of retaining sums 
of money was denounced by friends or ac- 
quaintance or servants. A son actually laid 
information against his father, and it is a 
significant commentary upon the low state 
of public morality to relate that public in- 
dignation was aroused against the Regent 
because, instead of rewarding the miserable 
informer, the Due d'Orleans caused him to 
be arrested. 

One day the Due was himself called upon 
by the President Vernon, who said that he had 
come to lay information against a man who 
was keeping back five hundred thousand 
livres. The Regent was very indignant, but 
justly rebuked the President. "Ah!" he 
said, " you are descending to a sorry trade in 
informing me of such a thing." The Presi- 
dent smiled grimly as he answered, " I 
denounce myself only; the money is mine — 
at my house ; if my money is for the King's 
service it no longer belongs to anybody, and 
I prefer gold to the Controller's notes." 

But though there was a certain farcical side 
to the assumption of the many beggars so 
suddenly put upon horseback, and although 
suddenly enriched tradesmen and artificers 
gave themselves airs, the losses of others 
were the cause of great crimes. The Count 
d'Horn and a friend actually murdered a 
broker for his money. The crowd demanded 
vengeance, and it was satisfied. Notwith- 
standing the appeals and interest made for 
the young man — notwithstanding his youth 
and good looks and all his pride of race — he 
suffered. Philip of Orleans, although con- 
nected by ties of kindred with the assassin, 
permitted the law to take its course, and 



made no efibrt to save the homicide. He 
and his accomplice were broken on the wheel 
in the Place de Greve ; a terrible punishment 
and a warning. 

Until the opening of the year 1720 the tide 
of extravagance continued to flow in Paris. 
No one seemed to heed the warning that 
paper money alone must ere long ruin the 
public credit, and bring destruction and ruin 
upon speculators, and even lead France to 
bankruptcy. Now and then some specula- 
tor would carefully take his notes to the Bank 
and get cash for them, then investing the 
proceeds in diamonds, send his wealth away 
in safe keeping, or remit it to England till 
the bubble had burst. For there were not 
wanting signs that the great financier's 
scheme was beginning to collapse. An 
application was made by the Prince of Conte 
for some Indian stock, and Law, who con- 
sidered himself a far greater person, declined 
to oblige 'the Prince. The latter was very 
indignant, and at once demanded the value 
of his shares in specie. Three carts were 
sent to the Bank, and the money was carried 
awayjn open day. This gave the people a 
hint, and many brokers acted upon it ; but 
the " many headed " populace declined to 
sell, and blamed the Prince of Conte for his 
ill-judged call. De Conte was personally 
unpopular, while Law was then in high 
favour. Had he not enriched Paris, given an 
impulse to trade, and made hundreds of 
fortunes ? Law applied to the Regent com- 
plaining of DeConte's action, and so influenced 
Orleans that he peremptorily desired the 
Prince to refund two-thirds of his money to 
the Bank, and De Conte was compelled to 
comply. But the stone had been taken from 
the foundation, and could not be replaced in 
its former position. The Bank began to feel 
the want of support, and as smaller deposits 
were reclaimed day by day, soon a feeling of 
distrast crept in, and the public, as liable to 
panic as to the hope of gain, began to feel 
uneasy. Specie was becoming scarce, 
money was being sent out of the country, 
and notwithstanding an edict published 
which declared coin to be 10 per cent, below 
the value of paper, the latter did not obtain 
any accession of confidence. 

The natural consequences now began to 
show themselves. People retained what 
little gold they possessed, paper was not 
sufficient to keep trade going, and a desperate 
expedient was at length resorted to by Law. 
He prevailed upon the Regent to forbid 
specie payments. This was the most un- 
popular edict that could have been promul- 
gated. People were denounced if tliey were 
seen with even a golden "louis," and the whole 
country was speedily ripe for revolution. The 
value of paper money was entirely destroyed, 
and no one was permitted to purchase any 



147 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



precious stones or to retain more than ;^20 
sterling (five hundred Hvres) in his posses- 
sion in specie. Things could not exist 
long, and a bold stroke was commanded. 
Shares in the Bank and the paper notes were 
declared to be only one-half their full value. 
This was a rough-and-ready mode of equalis- 
ing matters, as it had been ascertained that 
there was twice as much paper in the country 
as there was coin. 

Failure of the Mississippi Scheme. 

The Parliament declined to pass the sug- 
gested edict and to reduce the value of the 
currency, and the notes were accordingly 
declared of full value again. On that edict 
being promulgated, the Bank stopped pay- 
ment ; then Law was dismissed, and most 
terrible scenes were enacted. People rushed 
to the Bank demanding specie, and were 
refused payment. Cries and curses with 
scenes of violence prevailed. The cashiers 
through the iron gratings could only endeavour 
to appease the multitude, and fortunate it 
was for the Bank officials that they were 
protected by the gratings. Still the con- 
sternation and fury of the people increased, 
A man fell and was at once trampled to death. 
Ere long two others equally unfortunate 
succumbed, and a cry of horror arose from 
the crowd as the three dead bodies were 
carried to the Palais Royal to be exhibited 
to the Regent as his handiwork. 

Meanwhile Law had presented himself at 
the Palace, and had been denied admittance. 
He hastened home, and barely escaped the 
vengeance of the populace. His hotel was 
attacked, and his family assailed in the streets. 
A guard was despatched to preserve the 
house from attack, but even the sturdy Swiss 
found their protection unavailing, and Law 
was removed to the Regent's apartments 
under arrest to save him from the vengeance 
of the people. Neither the Regent nor the 
King's name could quell the popular excitement 
so long as the author of it was vcv the country 
and a Director of the Royal Bank. It is 
related that he even persuaded the Regent 
that the finances could be restored, and laid 
many plans before the Due with that object. 
The Regent seemed to believe the financier, 
and even took him to the opera to show his 
confidence in him. But when the audience 
perceived the Scotchman in the Royal box 
they testified their indignation in no measured 
terms, and Law thought it more prudent to 
withdraw. He retired before the performance 
came to a close, and hurried away to Fresnes 
to find the ex-Chancellor, D'Aguesseau, who 
had been formerly dismissed for opposing 
the Mississippi scheme. His aid was now 
sought, and people had great faith in his 
honesty of purpose and in his capability for 
restoring the public credit. But even his 

148 



influence was not sufficiently great, and 
disorder still reigned. 

D'Aguesseau was brought to Paris, and 
the unpopular edicts concerning the posses- 
sion of money were immediately rescinded. 
Any one could keep what money he pleased. 
Thus a feeling of security was established, 
and a project was set on foot to dispose of 
the discredited notes. Twenty-five millions 
of new notes were made at 2k, per cent., 
the revenues of the city of Paris being 
pledged for their redemption ; the Bank's 
paper was called in and burned in front 
of the Hotel de Ville, to the great delight 
of the spectators and holders of new notes. 
The Bank was then opened again, and coin 
was provided to pay off the notes when 
tendered. 

The market for rates of bonds was in the 
Place Vendome, and there men and women 
fought and struggled to obtain the money. 
Silver and copper was paid away by the 
Bank, and had to be carried somehow, incon- 
venient though it was. 

" On the 9th of July the multitiade was so dense 
and clamorous that the guards stationed at the 
entrance of the Mazarin Gardens closed the gate and 
refused to admit any more. Ths crowd became in- 
censed, and flung stones through the railings upon 
the soldiers. The latter threatened to fire upon the 
people. At that instant one of them was hit by a 
stone, and taking up his piece he fired into the crowd. 
One man fell dead, and another was severely wounded. 
It was every instant expected that a general attack 
would have been made upon the Bank '' (Mackay). 

The progress of the popular measures is ex- 
pressed in the following rhyme, translated by 
the writer from a French ballad sung in the 
streets about this time, and quoted in "Scenes 
Historiques." 

"Monday shares I had obtained — 
Tuesday millions I had gained : 
Wednesday furniture I bought — 
Thursday I a carriage sought : 
Friday eve I gave a ball. 
And next day was in hospital !" 

This is but a sample of the many epigrams 
and ballads which were sung at the time. 
Of course also numerous caricatures were 
printed and eagerly purchased. In all ot 
these Law, or '*Lass" as he was called in 
French, was subjected to torment and oblo- 
quy in various ways. And so Paris amused 
herself while bleeding from many national 
wounds inflicted. Law wisely kept indoors, 
or when he did leave his apartments it was 
in a closed carriage or surrounded by a guard 
of soldiers. In October the whole of the 
Mississippi Company's privileges were with- 
drawn, and as a consequence the share- 
holders were called upon to pay up the full 
value of their holdings. This they declined 
to do, and many attempted to escape ; some 
succeeded, but the majority of the would-be 



THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. 



travellers were arrested, and the most strin- 
gent application of the law was directed to 
be imposed upon them. 

Law a Fugitive. 
The author of all the prosperity and its 
terrible reaction speedily discovered that 
France was not the land in which he could 
any longer dwell in safety. .His life even was 
not secure from day to day, and he requested 
permission to retire to the country. The 
Regent assented, and even offered Law 
money to leave the country. This the latter 
refused, and departed to Venice. Law said 
at that last trying interview with the Regent, 
" I confess I have committed many faults. I 
committed them because I am a man, and 
all men are liable to error ; but I declare to 
you most solemnly that none of them pro- 
ceeded from wicked or dishonest motives, 



Louis XIV., who rejected it. Law went into 
Italy and studied his monetary schemes, fully 
believing in them himself. Circumstances 
favoured him, and the confusion which reigned 
in France gave him the opening he had long 
desired. He presented himself to the Regent 
and was favourably received. The Due 
d'Orleans disliked trouble, business was a 
worry and a care. Law put his schemes 
before him and would save him all the trouble 
of financing, and finally a bank under the 
title of Law's Bank was established. This 
was the first round of the ladder, and the 
Scotchman stepped boldly upon it. He paid 
notes on demand and in current coin — that is, 
in the coin current at the time the issue was 
made. At that time specie deteriorated in 
some cases very suddenly, and therefore when 
Law paid full value, no matter what the 
market value was, his fame as a public 




Statesmen of the " Bubble" Period. 



and that nothing of the kind will be found in 
the whole course of my conduct." 

Many people have condemned Law as 
a knave and as a man who took good care 
of himself and raised a fortune upon the 
ruins of other people's wealth. He has been 
called hard names, and an adventurer he 
doubtless was, — a gambler certainly. From 
his youth up he had been vain and ambitious 
and a favourite with woman-kind. Chronicles 
tell us that he was at one time named " Beau 
Law " by women, and sneered at by men as 
" Jessamy John." He was a most successful 
gambler, and in the favour of ladies of all 
classes Law made the most decided ad- 
vances or they were made to him. In con- 
sequence of one of these affairs he was 
challenged to a duel, and shot his adversary 
dead. Law was thereupon arrested, but 
managing to escape, he hastened to France, 
where he proposed a financial scheme to 



benefactor rose high. His notes superseded 
coin, and were valued more highly ; the 
country felt they had a man of genius to 
guide them. Prosperity again peeped in, 
and commerce held up its head. The Regent 
was delighted, and favoured Law in every 
way. Then the great Mississippi Scheme 
was broached. Its rise and progress and 
its fall we have sketched. 

John Law fled from France, and left it, as 
has been declared, " almost a beggar." He 
certainly possessed no property out of France 
except what personal effects and jewels he 
took with him. Everything he had possessed 
was confiscated, and nothing would have 
pleased the people more than his arrest and 
execution. To say that he was not desirous 
of wealth and power would be absurd. He 
was ambitious, and brought his undoubted 
financial talent to bear upon the confused state 
of things in France. He found a remedy 



149 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



but he was too sanguine, and fell, as he 
thought, a victim to the enmity of the people. 
Whatever may be advanced against him, it 
must be confessed that he seems to have 
believed in the success of his plans ; and it is 
certain that he died in poverty and obscurity. 
He was the cause of no advantages that he 
did not share, it is true ; but when the reaction 
set in he willingly went with the tide, and 
did not seek to enrich himself at the expense 
of those who have been called his victims. 

He seems to have entertained some hope 
that after all he might be recalled to France 
to heal the financial troubles of that country, 
but when the Regent died all such hope, if he 
seriously relied upon it, was taken away. 
He passed some time in England after the 
breaking of the South Sea Bubble, but 
finally retired to Venice, where, in the year 
1729, he died in poverty. The following 
epitaph was written upon him : " Here lies 
the celebrated Scot, an unequalled financier, 
who by his rules of Algebra crippled France." 
The original was written in verse, and in 
French, thus : — 

" Ci git cet Ecossais celebre 
Ce calculateur sans egal 
Qui, par les regies d'Algebre 
A mis la France a I'hopital." 

Now we may pass from the Mississippi 
Scheme to English affairs. 

A Plan to Pay the National Debt. 

It was while John Law was holding his 
Court in Paris, and his clients were struggling 
who should be first in applying for shares in 
the great scheme, that the managers and 
directors of the South Sea Company were 
engaged in making themselves secure, and 
began to solicit parliamentary influence on 
their side. Their project was nothing less 
than the payment of the National Debt of 
England, and we will see how they prospered. 

The King had returned from the Continent 
at the end of the year preceding, November 
17 19, and had opened Parliament ; and the 
Bill for limiting the Peerage was one of the 
first that received the Royal assent. It was 
during this session, in January 1720, that the 
House in Committee undertook the consi- 
deration of the public debts. The South Sea 
Company conceived the notion that they 
could pay off the national liabilities by an 
extended trade. Sir John Blunt, a financier 
modelled upon Law's pattern, who was Chair- 
man and one of the influential minds in the 
directorate of the South Sea Company, pro- 
posed and argued in favour of the scheme 
for consolidating the funds, and endeavoured 
to persuade the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
to that view. Sir John Blunt's proposal 
included the extinction of the irredeemable 
annuities which had been granted during the 
reign of Queen Anne for periods of ninety- 



nine years, and the entire extinction of the 
National Debt within a period of twenty-six 
years, provided that the funds were so massed 
and that certain commercial privileges were 
bestowed upon the Company. The State 
debts amounted in all to ^30,981,712, and 
this great sum was to be cleared off in the 
time specified, interest at 5 per cent, being 
paid to the Company until Midsummer 1727. 
After that date it was proposed that the 
State should have the option of redemption, 
when interest would be reduced to 4 per cent. 

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Aislabie) 
opened the debate in the House of Commons 
in February 1720, and in a powerful speech 
in favour of the proposal, he contended that 
the suggestion of the South Sea Company 
ought to be entertained by the House. He 
said that if the proposal were carried through 
prosperity would rapidly follow and the 
nation would be free. Mr, Secretary Craggs 
followed on the same side, and assumed that 
the proposal would be immediately welcomed 
by all in the House. However, this confi- 
dence was not at once responded to. Mem- 
bers had evidently not made up their minds 
to the great advantages pointed out in the 
Chancellor's speech. The Government had 
done its best to introduce the subject in 
rosy colours, but quite fifteen minutes elapsed 
before any one continued or rather took up 
the subject. At last Mr. Broderick, the 
Member for Stockbridge, rose, and while 
expressing his confidence in the proposal, 
and though willing to assist the Ministry in 
bringing the country to its former position — 
a position which could not be assumed until 
the National Debt was discharged — yet he 
thought some advantage would be gained by 
throwing open the subject to competition, so 
to speak. There were other great financial 
establishments besides the South Sea Com- 
pany. The nation was entitled to make the 
best bargain it could, and he ended by pro- 
posing that other corporations should be 
invited to tender, as it were, for the accom- 
plishment of the much-desired end. 

The Government, or rather its Ministers, 
had scarcelyexpected this. They had counted 
upon the acceptance of their proposition, and 
had committed themselves to the South Sea 
Company through the Chairman, Sir John 
Blunt. They were quite unprepared with 
any alternative scheme, and had no opposi- 
tion to offer to the not unreasonable pro- 
posal. Finding themselves in a corner, they 
lost temper, and showed fight, talking at 
random. With assumed virtuous indigna- 
tion, the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
denounced the alternative suggestion as un- 
dignified, as putting the nation up to auction, 
and that no haggling details should be per- 
mitted to interfere with such a spirited 
arrangement, that it should be carried on 



ISO 



THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. 



with that spirit, etc. A remark that it was 
that spirit which had nearly ruined the nation 
did not tend to improve the temper of the 
Ministers, and the insistence by Sir Joseph 
Jekyll that the matter should be approached 
without heat and not hurriedly, brought up 
Aislabie to explain, but he was only laughed 
at. Mr. Walpole then proceeded to argue 
in favour of the amendment which had been 
suggested, and strongly recommended that 
the proposals of other corporations or capi- 
talists should be received. 

A wrangle ensued with the Ministers, who 
declared Walpole had now put forward a 
far less practicable scheme, but the member 
proved his opponent wrong in figures and in 
facts. The result was that the Chairman of 
Committee vacated his place, and the House 
resuming, agreed to Mr. Broderick's amend- 
ment to receive all proposals that might be 
sent in. The Bank of England had a good 
deal of support in the House, and a plan 
which promised such advantages to the Com- 
pany undertaking it was not to be thrown 
aside by them, or to be handed over without 
a struggle to a financing company of untried 
capabilities while the Bank stood aside. An 
old public servant was not to be thrust out 
by a new comer, however brilliant his pro- 
mises. So the Ministerial proposal was post- 
poned for five days to give time for tenders 
and applications to be made. 

The South Sea Scheme. 

Bidding became very brisk. The South Sea 
Company agreed to incorporate ^30,000,000 
of debt into their stock, and the sum of 
^3,500,000 into the exchequer on the terms 
already referred to. The Bank suggested a 
three-years' purchase, which, when compared 
with their opponents' proposition, showed an 
advance of ^2,000,000 sterling. The South 
Sea Company, however, held a meeting, and 
decided to outbid the Bank of England at 
any cost. They accordingly made a second 
proposal, offering not only ^500,000 more, 
but also four-and-a-half years' purchase upon 
all the annuities they should take into their 
capital stock, which, had the whole been 
taken in, would have amounted to .£3,567,500; 
thus their whole offer was equal to ;£7,567,5oo. 
Besides all this they offered to circulate 
;i^ 1,000,000 in exchequer bills gratis, and to 
pay 3 per cent, interest for that ^^ 1,000,000, 
as also one year's purchase upon such an- 
nuities as should happen not to come into 
the Company's capital before March ist, 
1721.* 

This extravagant offer quite put the Bank 
in the shade ; and, although that corporation 
came forward again and endeavoured to re- 
trieve itself, the South Sea Company's scheme 



* Northonek's "London." 



was accepted, and the preparation of the Bill 
was proceeded with. While this was being 
done, the Company actually endeavoured to 
absorb the East India Company and even 
the Exchequer ; and, like Aaron's rod, to 
swallow up all the rest. But this bold stroke 
fortunately was opposed, and though it was 
never seriously believed by the public, even 
the very possibility of the Company being 
in a position to make such an offer, sent up 
the stock to 126 per cent, at the Christmas 
1 7 19.* It was at one time suggested that 
the Bank and the Company should divide 
the transaction between them ; but Sir John 
Blunt is reported to have said, " We will 
never divide the child," — referring, of course, 
to the "judgment of Solomon." 

The discussion in the House followed, and 
Walpole opposed the measure vehemently. 
More sharp-sighted than the rest, or more 
honest than his opponents, he perceived the 
ultimate determination of all these schemes. 
He foresaw the South Sea Company masters 
of the finances of the country, and that gam- 
bling on 'Change, already rife, would only be 
increased by such impossible terms as were 
promised fulfilment. If such business were 
encouraged, every one would hasten to 
enrich himself to the neglect of his solid 
business, and a spirit of gambling would 
arise to ruin them. So he proposed a limi- 
tation of the stock, that the premium should 
cease at a certain figure, and he endeavoured 
to introduce a clause, as the Bill was going 
through the House, to the effect that the 
South Sea Directors should be compelled to 
fix the number of years' purchase they would 
grant to the annuitants. But this suggestion 
was negatived, Walpole's warnings were dis- 
regarded, and the Bill passed the Commons 
on the 2nd of April, by a majority of 117 — 
172 to 55. No delay was experienced in the 
Lords. On the 4th the Upper House carried 
it, notwithstanding some strong condemna- 
tion, comparing it to the "Trojan horse" 
which contained the hostile troops of Greece 
at the siege of Troy. "It was ushered in 
with pomp and acclamation, but contrived 
for treachery and destruction." The King 
assented to the measure in a few days, and 
then Walpole published his veto in a pam- 
phlet ; but, Cassandra-like, his prophecies 
were unheeded. Yet, notwithstanding his 
condemnation of the Ministry, Walpole was 
on the eve of accepting office under them. 
On the 4th of June he was named Paymaster- 
General, after he had succeeded in recon- 
ciling the King and the Prince of Wales. 

While the debate was proceeding in the 
House the Directors of the South Sea Com- 
pany were not idle. They set various rumours 
in circulation, and did all in their power to 

* See Anderson's " History of Commerce," vol. ii. 



151 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



increase the price of their stock, and suc- 
ceeded. Spain was to grant the English 
every facility for trade. Silver and gold were 
to be as drugs in the market, and 300 or 
400 per cent, was stated to be the ad- 
vantage awaiting the successful or indeed 
any speculator with the Company. Such 
baits took. The greedy public swallowed 
hundreds of pounds like so many oysters. 
There was no limit to the credulity of the 
people, and any warning from the Lords was 
looked upon as was the cry of the poor 
fanatic who called out against Jerusalem 
before its destruction, or of " Solomon Eagle" 
in the story of " Old St. Paul's." As soon as 
the royal assent to the Bill became known 
London went mad. Change Alley became a 
centre for the greatest gambling that perhaps 
even London has ever witnessed. The Royal 
Exchange was then no more. It had played 
itself out in fire, the bells chiming " There is 
no luck about the house" as it was being 
consumed ; and the South Sea House was 
the centre of the mercantile interests at 
that time. The old " South Sea House," in 
Threadneedle Street, is now " New South Sea 
Chambers," but in those days it was a very 
important and " handsome brick and stone " 
edifice. In Lamb's " Elia " that charming 
essayist mentions the building, and moralizes 
upon it. 

" Reader," he says, "in thy passage from the Bank, 
didst thou never observe a melancholy-looking, hand- 
some brick and stone edifice to the left, where Thread- 
needle Street abuts upon Bishopsgate ? I daresay thou 
hast often admired its magnificent portals, ever gaping 
wide and disclosing to view a grave court with cloisters 
and pillars, with few or no traces of goers-in or comers- 
out,— a desolation something like Balchutha's. This 
was once a house of trade, a centre of busy interests. 
The throng of merchants was here — the quick pulse 
of gain — and here some forms of business are still 
kept up, though the soul has long since fled. Peace 
to the manes of the Bubble ! Silence and destitution 
are upon thy walls, proud home for a memorial ! 
Situated as thou art, in the very heart of stirring and 
living commerce, amid the fret and fever of specu- 
lation, with the Bank and the 'Change and the India 
House about thee, in the hey-day of present pros- 
perity, with their important faces insulting thee, as it 
were, their poor neighbour out of business. To the 
idle and merely contemplative — to such as me — old 
house, there is a charm in thy quiet, a cessation, a 
coolness from business and indolence almost cloistral, 
which is delightful. With what reverence have I 
paced thy great bare rooms at eventide ! They speak 
of the past, — the shade of some dead accountant, 
with visionary pen in ear, v/ould float by me, stiff as in 
life ! " 

Every one hastened into the city to buy 
South Sea stock, and the excitement was a 
rival to that which had existed in Paris the 
year before. The nation became intoxicated 
with the increasing thirst for gold, and though 
for a day or two after the Royal assent had 
been given to the Bill the stock fell a little, 
perhaps purposely, to let the Directors bring 
in their friends on easy terms, in a short time 



it rose. Five days after, on the 12th April, 
the rate of subscription was ^300 per cent, 
and at this two millions were rapidly sub- 
scribed. Then it rose to ^340, and allot- 
ments sold for double the instalments paid 
up. The struggle for scrip was tremendous 
on 'Change. 

" There stars and garters did appear 
Among the meaner rabble, 
To buy and sell and see and hear 
The Jews and Gentiles squabble. 
" The greatest ladies thither came 
And plied in chariots daily, 
Or pawned their jewels for a sum 
To venture in the Alley ! " 

A journalist of the time has placed on record 
the following : — 

' ' Our South Sea equipages increase daily. The 
city ladies buy South Sea jewels, hire South Sea 
maids, take new coimtry South Sea houses ; the 
gentlemen set up South Sea coaches and buy South 
Sea estates. They neither examine the situation, the 
nature or quality of the soil, or price of the purchase, 
only the annual rent and tithe ; for the rest they 
take all by the lump, and pay forty or fifty years' 
purchase.'' 

But the Directors were by no means satis- 
fied with their venture even then. In order 
to keep their promises they were obliged to 
exaggerate everything, and by playing upon 
public credulity endeavour to meet their 
engagements. They gave out that the next 
dividend would be 10 per cent., and those 
who had not invested were thus tempted, 
while those who had plunged, sought to add 
to their holdings and to reap thereby more 
profit. The plan succeeded well enough. A 
million sterling was quickly netted, and a 
premium of 400 per cent, was put into the 
pockets of the Company, and the stock rose 
by degrees and by official artifice finally to 
1,000 per cent. 

More Bubbles are Blown. 
The term "bubbles," which so aptly de- 
scribes the character of these undertakings, 
was invented by the public about this time, 
when so many spurious schemes were set on 
foot to beguile investors. When Parliament 
had been prorogued, the Ministry had for- 
bidden all formation of new companies, and 
had issued a royal proclamation to that effect, 
inveighing against any raising of stocks or 
shares without legal authority. But in the 
then existing state of the public mind such a 
prohibition was useless. Every day fresh 
and, in many cases, ridiculous proposals met 
with ready acceptance. No doubt many of 
the associations professed worthy objects, not 
so much because they were for public benefit 
as for their own — that is, the benefit of the 
promoters. This is still the idea in Stock 
Exchange circles. The trail of the serpent 
is over them all. The onlv business was 



152 



THE SOUTH SEA miEBLE. 




The South Sea Bubble Excitement; A Scene in Change Alley. 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



done in gambling. To quote a financial 
authority of the period, we may add : " The 
South Sea stock must be allowed the honour 
to be the gold table, the better sort of these 
bubbles the silver tables, and the lower sort 
the farthing tables for the footmen." 

The extraordinary purposes for which these 
bubbles were originated would astonish all 
who are not acquainted with them had we 
space to give them in detail. Yet they were 
received in good faith, and money was eagerly 
subscribed. We have seen a list of no less 
than eighty-six such schemes. In Anderson's 
"History of Commerce" full information 
will be found upon all these topics, and the 
absurdity of some of them is apparent. We 
take a few at random : — 

" To make salt-water fresh. 
To make oil from flower seeds. 
For extracting silver out of lead. 
For importing jack-asses from Spain, in order to 

obtain a finer breed of mules. 
For the fattening of hogs. 
For the supplying the town of Deal with fresh 

water. 
For a wheel for perpetual motion. 
For assuring of seamen's wages. 
For furnishing the city of London with hay and 

straw. " 

One very adventurous and ingenious person 
actually put' forth a Company entitled "A 
Company for carrying on an undertaking of 
great advantage, but nobody to know what 
it is." The ingenious gentleman referred to 
opened a small office one morning, stating 
in his prospectus that he required ;^5oo,ooo 
in 5,000 shares of ^loo ; ^'2 to be paid on 
application, the interest to be ^100 per share 
per annum. Even on these terms so many 
subscribers came in that in a few hours the 
adventurer had netted ^2,000, and wisely or 
unwisely decamped the same night. There 
is no reason to doubt that had he required 
^5 per share on application, he would have 
obtained it as easily. He was a minnow 
amongst the South Sea Tritons. Even the 
Prince of Wales was infected with the pre- 
vailing epidemic, and lent his name to a 
Company against the remonstrances of his 
advisers. Mr. Secretary Craggs, himself 
deeply involved in the scheme, writes to 
Earl Stanhope : — 

"Though the Speaker and Walpole wrote to dis- 
suade the Prince from his being governor of this 
Copper Company — though they told him he would 
be prosecuted and mentioned in Parhament, and 
cry'd in the Alley upon the foot of Onslow's insur- 
ance, Chetwynde's Bubble, Prince of Wales' Bubble, 
etc.,— he has already got ^^40,000 by it." 

Again, writing to Pulteney, he says : — . 

" It is impossible to tell you what a rage prevails 
here for South Sea subscriptions at any price. The 
crowd of those that possess the redeemable annuities 
is so great that the Bank, who are obliged to take 
them in, has been forced to set tables in the streets." 



We need scarcely dwell longer upon the 
scene. Every one can picture the wild ex- 
citement. Verses and caricatures became 
common. We have already noticed the fact 
that the name " South Sea " was applied to 
many articles just as "Pickwick" gave his 
name to a cigar, and Taglioni to wearing 
apparel, as things were in Duvernay's day 
a la cachiica, and later still named after the 
polka. Epigram and satire poured upon the 
bubbles, which burst almost as soon as they 
were blown, and worst of all incurred the 
opposition of the great South Sea Company 
itself. " That bubble was then full blown,'' 
as Mr, Mackay remarks ; and Prior says, 
" I am lost in the South Sea ! The roaring 
of the waves and the madness of the people 
are justly put together." Sir Isaac Newton 
was asked when the bubble would break, and 
replied that, "with all his calculations, he 
had never learned to calculate the madness 
of the people." 

The Beginning of the End. 

The opposition of the South Sea Directors 
to the smaller fry was imfortunate for their 
own scheme. Like the rod of the patriarch, 
they wished to swallow up all the others ; 
and by directing public attention to the ab- 
surdities and shortcomings of others, they 
let some light in upon themselves. Under 
such circumstances a little rift will speedily 
be enlarged ; a tiny aperture in an embank- 
ment of a reservoir will soon let the water 
forth. This pin-hole let a stream of light 
and truth in upon the South Sea Bubble, the 
breath of suspicion was too strong — it broke 
it ! In August 1720 the mania had reached 
its culminating point ; the stock stood at 
1,000. But when it became publicly known 
that Sir John Blunt, the good Methodist 
Chairman, who was apparently piety itself, 
had taken advantage of the public confidence 
and quietly sold out at an enormous pre- 
mium, taking with him many of the Directors, 
then the duped or self-duped investors began 
to think there was something wrong. The 
Directors were soon accused of partiality, 
and the stock began to decline with alarm- 
ing steadiness. 

Such a state of things could not be allowed 
to continue, and the Directors were deter- 
mined to put a stop to such a tendency if 
they could. A meeting was called, those 
interested — and who was not ? — sought ad- 
mittance, the Directors mustered in force, 
and the Deputy-Governor was put in the 
chair. Mr, Craggs made a speech, and while 
advocating union, thanked the Directors for 
their conduct of affairs ; and a Mr. Broderick 
declared that the South Sea Corporation had 
brought peace on earth, and made all people 
I happy Self-congratulation was the order of 



154 



THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. 



the day ; but all the votes of confidence 
passedfailed to assure the pubhc, now aroused 
to a sense of danger. Scarcely had the 
glorious prospects and wondrous goodness 
in past days been sounded, than the stock of 
this beneficent Company fell deeper and 
deeper still to 640, and in twenty-four hours 
had gone down another 100 per cent., and so 
on till it stood at 400. 

It is worth remarking that when the Com- 
pany had been at its highest state of pros- 
perity the Directors had proposed to merge 
the East India stock and the Bank of 
England in their undertaking. The stocks 
of those corporations rose respectively up to 
445 and 260. Thus, says a writer, the value of 
these advanced stocks and that of the South 
Sea Company equalled five hundred millions 
sterling, five times the current coin of all 
Europe, and double the value of all the land 
in England. Fabulous riches v\^ere promised 
to stock-holders, and enormous rates of 
interest were held out to investors. The 
profits were to be obtained from the exclusive 
trade and the difference in the interest paid 
the differences in the price of stock ; the 
premiums being enormous, etc. These fabu- 
lous profits are thus touched upon in a 
contemporary ballad — 

" What need have we of Indian wealth, 
Or commerce with our neighbours ? 
Our constitution is in health, 
And riches crown our labours. 

" Our South Sea ships have golden shrouds, 
They bring in wealth, 'tis granted, 
And lodge their treasure in the clouds 
To hide it till it's wanted." 

Even then the first symptoms of decay were 
to be noted, and when the shares had touched 
1000 per cent, the expected reaction set in, 
and "beggars no longer rode on horse- 
back." 

The following extract from a letter from 
Mr. Broderick to Chancellor Middleton will 
show the pitch to which events had risen in 
September 1720. Speaking of the arrogance 
of the Directors of the South Sea Company 
he says : — 

"Wee made them kings, and they deal with 
everybody as such ; those whoe submit and subscribe 
are at their mercy, those whoe doe nott are to be 
opprest in such manner as shall make what is due to 
them of little use, . . . while the gaine obtained by 
fraud and villanous practices is to turn to their ad- 
vantage. I foresaw this from the beginning, and 
have as many witnesses of itt as persons as 1 con- 
verst with, but I owne I thought they would have 
carried on the cheat somewhat longer. Various are 
the conjectures why they suffered the cloud to break 
soe early. . . . Thousands of families will be reduced 
to beggary ; what the consequences of that will bee 
time will shew. I know what I thought from the 
beginning, and feare itt is very near at hand. The 
consternation is inexpressible, the rage beyond ex- 
pression, and the case so desperate that I doe nott 



see any plan or scheme so much as thought of pre- 
venting the blow, soe that I can't pretend to guess att 
what is next to be done.' ' 

Again he writes, a few days after : — 

' ' A great many goldsmiths are already gone off, 

and more will daily. I question whether one-third, 

nay one-fourth can stand itt." 

Mr. Broderick was right. Nothing that the 
Directors could do was able to place the 
Company up to their former position. As the 
Chancellor D'Aguesseau had been recalled 
from his retirement at Fresnes to put the 
French finances right, so Walpole was re- 
called from Houghton to steer the ship of 
State safely out of the South Sea shoals. 
His advice, which had been scorned and 
derided in the day ofprosperitybymany, was 
now eagerly sought. His clear head and busi- 
ness talents were reckoned upon to pull the 
dupes out of danger. He was implored to come 
and make terms with the Bank, and endeavour 
to induce that corporation to take up a por- 
tion of the South Sea bonds and circulate 
them. 

But the Bank did not appear to enter into 
the negotiation even when Walpole came up 
in response to the public request. They 
feared, not unnaturally, that they would be 
drawn into the vortex with the sinking Com- 
pany, and overwhelmed with it. Still they 
found they had no alternative. As the 
National Institution they must endeavour to 
save the nation from the effects of its folly, 
and after a conference with a numerous and 
influential assembly of merchants the Bank- 
agreed to circulate a certain amount of the 
South Sea bonds. 

Next day the dying Company held a large 
meeting to consider the proposal of their 
great rival, and authorized any arrangement 
with the Bank which the Directors thought 
right to make. It is needless to say that the 
public anxiety was very great, and general 
consternation was only slightly abated by the 
report of these negotiations. 

The Bank Directors sat to receive the news 
of the result of the Company's meeting, but 
were informed that no decision had been 
arrived at. At last it was decided to meet 
the South Sea Company half way, and 
to endeavour to make some arrangement for 
supporting the public credit. An account 
was opened for a subscription of three 
millions at 5 per cent, interest and ^15 
deposit, and it was at first eagerly responded 
to. But just then the news of John Law's 
flight and disastrous ending came to England, 
and panic again set in. The French edict 
declaring Law's paper money worthless, 
aggravated the distress ; Hope spread her 
wings, and the South Sea stock fell faster and 
faster. A run set in, and the Bank even was- 
in a quandary. Bankers and others were in 
difficulties ; they could not stem the current. 



155 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Many were " broke " and fled, and the Sword- 
Blade Company had to suspend payment. 
This panic set in on the 28th of September. 
Fortunately the next day was kept as a 
holiday in the city, and the Bank of England 
was able in the interval to make arrange- 
ments for its own protection. The South 
Sea Company was abandoned to its fate, the 
suggested plan was never carried out, for the 
Bank declined to pursue the scheme. South 
Sea stock fell to 135 and even lower. But 
on that Michaelmas Day it reached 175, — 25 
per cent, discount! The tactics of the Direc- 
tors had proved abortive. Their offers of 50 
per cent, dividend had failed to secure a re 
sponse. The ruin came quickly when the Bank 
withdrew its support, and the Company, 
which had a narrow escape of being legalized 
upon the ist of April, died on the eve of the 
great " goose" anniversary. 

So many had suffered that it is no easy 
matter to enumerate the professions of those 
who were ruined. Clergymen and laity, lords 
and ladies, were all included. Even Gay the 
poet, who had had some hundreds given 
him by Craggs the younger, lost his invest- 
ment, which had, when he declined to sell it, 
risen to the value of ^20,000. Although 
his friends urged him to part with his 
stock, which, be it remembered, had cost 
him nothing, he declined. He was begged 
by Fenton to sell a portion of it, so as to 
" ensure him a clean shirt and a shoulder of 
mutton every day ;" but the poet, dreaming of 
splendour in the future, persisted in retaining 
his stock, and the result was disastrous. Gay 
was greatly affected by the calamity, says 
Johnson in the " Lives of the Poets," and 
sank so lov/ that his life was endangered. 

•This was a loss, and many thousands had 
a like fate. But Ministers, including Walpole, 
who had so persistently abused the South 
Sea scheme, and yet who were not above 
dabbling in its stock, "got out" without any 
loss, and in most cases with immense profits. 
The people heaped indignant words upon all 
connected with the Company, and the " very 
name of a South Sea man grew absolutely 
abominable in every country." From the 
Prince of Wales downwards, epithets were 
heaped upon all connected with it ; but all 
this time the people, the ordinary stock- 
holders, who had lost, did not seem to think 
themselves to blame in the least. They dis- 
charged their attacks upon those above them, 
and no one will deny that the Ministry and 
the Directors of the Company were greatly 
to blame ; but the British pubhc was angry 
because they lost, not because the trans- 
actions were questionable. Had they all 
come out gainers — though such a thing was 
impossible — there would have been no uproar, 
no matter what commercial sins the South 
Sea Company had been guilty of Swift has 



left on record his impressions of the time in 
the following verses : — 

' ' There is a gulf where thousands fell, 
Here all the bold adventurers came ; 
A narrow sound, tho' deep as hell — 
Change Alley is the dreadful name. 
" Subscribers here by thousands float, 
And jostle one another down ; 
Each paddhng in his leaky boat, 
And here they fish for gold, and drown. 
" Now buried in the depths below, 
Now mounted up to heaven again, 
They reel and stagger to and fro, 

At their wits' end, like drunken men." 

The King had been hastily summoned from 
Hanover, and he arrived in England in 
November. Just a year before he had opened 
Parliament, and had put before the House the 
question of the public debts ; now he had to 
arrange or sanction a means of securing the 
nation from bankruptcy. Parliament was 
summoned for the 8th of December, and 
meantime people thought nothing was too 
bad for the authors of the South Sea scheme. 

The Results of the Gambling. 

There were but very few righteous to be 
found in the city. It is stated by those who 
took pains to enumerate the numbers of the 
highest class in England who did Jtot plunge • 
into the South Sea Bubble, that Lord Stanhope 
with the Dukes of Argyll and Roxburgh were 
the only three. Lord Townsend was generally 
considered guiltless, while Walpole, Sunder- 
land, the Duke of Portland, and others made 
and lost immense sums. Several noblemen 
were actually reduced to beg colonial appoint- 
ments. But it was rumoured, and not with- 
out foundation, that the King and his Ministers 
— particularly the latter — had made large 
profits. It is undeniable that bribes of 
immense amount were distributed in stock 
by the pious Sir John Blunt and his more 
worldly associates to ensure the Parliamentary 
success of the scheme. Walpole, however, at 
the King's request, undertook to manage the 
business, and devoted himself to it with 
success, as will be seen. 

When the King opened Parliament he 
recommended prudence and care in dealing 
with the great question before the House, 
and it was necessary to find a remedy for the 
great evil which had fallen upon the country 
in as pacific a spirit as possible. Notwith- 
standing the common sense of this advice, 
the debate which ensued was very acrimonious 
and bitter against the Directors of the South 
Sea Company. Walpole had spent much 
time in maturing his proposal, and had suc- 
ceeded in gaining the consent of the East 
India Company and the Bank of England to 
engraft some portion of the dishonoured stock 
of the " Bubble " on theirs. But the general 
feeling in the Commons was revenge, and 
members apparently cared more for the hu- 



156 



THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. 



miliation of Stanhope and his colleague 
Sunderland than for all the schemes for the 
restoration of the public credit. 

The Scene in the Commons. 

Pulteney moved the address that memo- 
rable day, and assured His Majesty that the 
House would approach the subject with all 
care and due temper, and proceed to apply 
such remedies as would restore confidence 
and credit. An amendment was suggested 
that the address should state, " as far as was 
consistent with the honour of Parliament, the 
interest of the nation, and the principles of 
justice." This amendment of Shippen's was 
seconded, and a violent debate followed. The 
Ministers came in for a share of invective, 
and the Directors of the defaulting Company 
of course got no quarter. Sir J. Jekyll hinted 
that some who were not Directors were equally 
or almost as criminal, and hoped they would be 
punished. Lord Molesworth was very bitter 
and excited. He declared that the Directors 
were truly the parricides of the country ; that 
as such they should be judged, and, following 
the Roman precedent, — which decreed the 
sewing up of parricides in sacks and casting 
them into the Tiber, — he advocated the like 
judgment upon the authors of the South Sea 
scheme, and that they should be thrown into 
the Thames. In the Parliamentary history 
of the time these very vehement opinions, 
shared by many members, will be found in I 
full. 

Mr. Walpole endeavoured to allay the 
storm. His idea was to restore the con- 
fidence of the nation before any measm-es 
were taken to punish the offenders. If 
London were set on fire, he urged, we should 
not waste time in endeavouring to inquire 
after the incendiaries ; we would first en- a 
deavour to extinguish the flames. " Public 
credit had received a dangerous wound, and 
lay bleeding, and they ought to apply a 
speedy remedy to it. For my part, I never 
approved the South Sea scheme ; but since 
it cannot be undone, it is the duty of all 
good men to assist in retrieving the mischief. 
With this view I have already bestowed some 
thought upon a proposal to restore public 
credit, which in proper time I will submit to 
the wisdom of Parliament." The result was 
the amendment was negatived ; but next day 
a most revengeful clause was added and 
carried. On the 12th of December the 
Directors were ordered to lay a full account 
of all their proceedings before the House ; 
and Sir Richard Steele declared that Eng- 
land — a nation of greater weight and credit 
than any other in Europe — had been reduced 
to distress by a few " cyphering cits " — a 
species of men of equal capacity — the faculty 
of cheating alone excepted — with the animals 
which had saved the Roman Capitol ! This 



pleasant little hit was duly appreciated. Mr. 
Walpole objected to the Directors being 
thus called up before the House ; but the 
motion was carried, and the Directors were 
called upon to account for their proceedings. 

This was on the 12th. On the 14th com- 
plaint was made of the slow progress made. 
Next day some documents were forthcoming, 
and four days afterwards a Select Committee 
was moved. On the 21st December Walpole 
introduced his remedy, which proposed to 
"engraft nine millions of South Sea stock 
into the Bank of England and a similar sum 
into the East India Company on certain 
conditions." The remaining twenty millions 
were left to the South Sea Directors to 
account for. A Bill was brought in, and 
after some opposition was carried, the 
Directors and all concei-ned in the Company 
being at the same time prevented from 
quitting the country. .The Act likewise 
forbade any transfer, documentary or other- 
wise, of their estates or other property. 
These Bills were quickly carried, and the 
irrepressible Jacobite, Shippen, determined 
to have a fling at Craggs, the Secretary of 
State, and, while admitting that it was a 
good move to restrain the Directors of the 
Company, said there were other men in high 
places who were no less guilty ! As he gazed 
sternly at Mr. Secretary Craggs at the time, 
that gentleman rose and declared he was 
willing to give satisfaction to any man if 
such a remark were intended for him ! A 
tremendous uproar ensued — Lord Moles- 
worth joining in the defiance — until Mr. 
Secretary Craggs condescended to explain 
that he meant only verbal or documentary 
"satisfaction" ; and eventually a Committee 
of thirteen was appointed. The Directors 
begged to be heard in their own defence, 
but that was denied them, and the Select 
Committee proceeded to examine the books 
and papers of the Company. This body was 
known as the Committee of Secrecy. 

When these arrangements were perfected, 
a great excitement was caused by the in- 
telligence that Knight, the cashier or 
treasurer of the South Sea Company, had 
fled, carrying with him some very important 
documents. He had managed to escape in 
disguise, and reached Calais in safety. No 
such commotion had been caused in London 
for years. The doors of the House were 
ordered to be locked, and the keys laid 
upon the table, and if an enemy were at 
the gates of the city a greater alarm could 
scarcely have been excited. The House at 
once voted a petition to the King, to command 
the arrest of the fugitive, and to ofter a reward 
for his apprehension. No time was lost, and 
the same evening the royal proclamation was 
issued, and the sum of ;^2,ooo was offered 
for the arrest of Knight. 



157 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



In the House the excitement did not 
speedily subside. General Ross, one of the 
Committee, said that " a train of the deepest 
villainy and fraud that hell ever contrived to 
ruin a nation" had been discovered. Four 
members — Directors of the defunct Company 
— were immediately expelled the House, and 
summarily arrested, and all their papers were 
seized. Messengers were sent to the Con- 
tinent to request the arrest of Knight if he 
could be found. The "good" Sir John 
Blunt was summoned to answer for his 
deeds, but declined to criminate himself upon 
the ground that he had already answered the 
questions put by the Committee of Secrecy. 
He could not be induced to remember any- 
thing, and was ultimately desired to with- 
draw. And now arose a very painful 
debate, which had serious consequences. 
The young Duke of Wharton, already noto- 
rious as the leader of the Hell-fire Club, — a 
young man of brilliant talents and unrivalled 
profligacy, — rose in the House, and made a 
most scathing attack upon Earl Stanhope. 
The latter, with much indignation and excite- 
ment, denied the charges made against him. 
The Duke had compared the Earl to Sejanus, 
whohadsowndissensionin the Imperialfamily, 
and made the Emperor hateful to his subjects. 
Such an attack was too great, and the Earl, 
with much warmth, retorted, reminding the 
Duke of Brutus, who had sacrificed his worth- 
less son. The Earl was terribly angry, and 
was led from the House suffering from a 
determination of blood to the head. Next 
day he died ! He was a great loss to the 
nation, and it is stated that the King regretted 
him very deeply and sincerely. As for the 
young Duke, he was much affected, and 
seldom spoke in the House again. He re- 
sumed his wild courses, and finally degene- 
rated to such a level that he was attainted for 
treason in after life. 

Nemesis. 
We now have arrived at the last act of the 
drama, — or tragedy it might be called, for 
ruined people became desperate, and at least 
one death is attributable to the South Sea 
Company. The Secret Committee presented 
their report to the House of Commons on 
the 1 6th of February, 1721, at the same time 
premising that the greatest difficulties had 
been put in their way. Certainly the Report 
was calculated to astonish all but those who 
had been behind the scenes. The manner in 
which the books of the Company had been 
kept was, to say the least, curious. No 
cashier or book-keeper, no manager, could 
have been ignorant of the nature of the 
entries unless he was aware of the utter 
falsity of the whole business. In these days 
we occasionally hear of "cooked" accounts, 
of manipulation of moneys and false entries, 



but any modern swindling in these respects — 
at least any that comes to light, for are we 
not improving in everything, even in fraud ? — 
have not shown the barefaced contempt for 
the public that the South Sea Company dis- 
played. False and fictitious entries were 
plenty. In many cases large sums of money 
had been entered to the credit of blanks ! 
The names were known but not entered, so 
no claim could be made against the indi- 
viduals in the event of collapse. Leaves 
were wanting, books and documents were 
missing, erasures and alterations were fre- 
quent. Entries of fictitious allotments had 
been made to facilitate the Bill in the first 
instance, and entries of sales at absurd and 
entirely false and imaginary prices, showed 
by what means the Company had been 
floated in the first instance. These were 
some of the facts and transactions brought 
to light. 

The Committee had, however, by strict 
cross-examination, unearthed these facts. 
The officials were rigidly questioned. It was 
discovered that the Directors held stock for 
imaginary purchasers, and had actually dis- 
posed of scrip to the amount of one million 
two hundred thousand pounds, to be held for 
intending purchasers. But these people 
never appeared, and had made no deposits 
on account, nor given any other security. 
The reason of this was apparent. If the 
scheme succeeded the people thus interested 
would claim their holdings, for it was quite 
understood that certain blanks represented 
certain grand personages. If, on the con- 
trary, the Company came to a sudden end, 
these persons had nothing to fear. It was a 
case of " Heads I win, tails you lose" ! The 
manipulation of this amount of stock had 
been placed in the hands of the "good" Sir 
John Blunt, Mr. Gibbon, Mr. Chester, Mr. 
Holditch, and the wily cashier Knight, who 
had been apprehended near Liege by the 
British Minister at Brussels, and placed for 
safety in the castle at Antwerp. We may 
add that negotiations for his surrender were 
proceeding, when the object of so much soli- 
citude escaped from custody, and put an end 
to the controversy. 

But the Committee found plenty to occupy 
them in London. Of the sums placed to the 
credit of certain persons to induce them to 
carry the Bill through Parhament, we find 
the following amount of stock : — 

To the Earl of Sunderland, at the request 

of Mr Craggs . . . . . ^^50,000 

To the Duchess of Kendal (mistress of 

George I.) 10,000 

To the Countess of Platin (a lady of equal 

standing) 10,000 

To the two nieces of the Countess . . 10,000 
To Mr. Craggs (senior) .... 30,000 
To Mr. Charles Stanhope, Secretary to 

the Treasury 10,000 



158 



THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE. 



This gentleman had also received the further 
sum of £z%o,ooo in "differences" through 
the Brokers, in whose books his name had 
been altered to Stangape. It also came out 
that Aislabie, the Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, had had dealings in South Sea 
stock to the aggregate amount of ^754,450, 
and had advised certain subscriptions with- 
out any legal reason, and in defiance of 
warrant. " That on the third subscription 
Aislabie's list amounted to ^70,000, Sunder- 
land's to ;£i6o,ooo, Craggs' to ^659,000, and 
Stanhope's to ^47,000, and that in the 
pawned stock which had been sold, there 
was by means of Mr. Knight a deficiency of 
;^4oo,ooo.* After 
this sensational 
report there were 
several others 
issued, but 
through the 
absence of 
documents, and 
particularly of 
one of the 
chief offenders, 
Knight, the 
Committee were 
unable to clear 
matters up as 
fully as was 
desirable. 



The Fate of the 
Directors. 

The report 
was laid before 
the House, and 
even as it was 
being read to 
the indignant 
and revengeful 
members assem- 
bled, secretary 
James Craggs, 
one of the most 

implicatedin- George i. 

dividuals, died 
of small-pox, and 
celerated his end. 




anxiety no doubt ac- 
The father of the de- 
ceased Minister, who held the appointment 
of Postmaster-General, was so affected by 
the disclosures that he took poison. Mean-. 
while a Bill passed through Parliament for 
the relief of those who had suffered, and the 
Directors were condemned to make good, as 
far as their means went, the loss occasioned 
to the public. No doubt this was just in a 
certain sense ; but there must have been many 
individuals not connected with the Company, 
except as brokers and "jobbers," who made 
large fortunes, but were never called upon to 



Pictorial History of England.' 



make good the losses incurred. Punishment 
to be deterrent should fall ahke upon all the 
parties concerned. The public were deluded, 
it is true, but they were also warned fully and 
repeatedly that the Company was not all that 
fancy painted it. It was right that the 
swindle should be exposed, the swindlers 
punished, and their gains taken from them. 
Still we doubt whether they should have 
been prosecuted and made to disburse the 
estates and money they had possessed before 
the South Sea scheme was initiated. 

But the losers of course thought otherwise, 
and Mr. Charles Stanhope was first brought 
to the bar of public opinion. He pleaded 

non-responsi- 
bihty, and threw 
the blame upon 
his brokers and 
Mr. Knight. He 
had paid for his 
stock, and as to 
that unfortunate 
change of name 
in the broker's 
books he was 
quite ignorant of 
it. It was pretty 
evident that the 
name in the 
books had been 
altered from 
Stanhope, and 
things would 
have gone very 
badly with Mr. 
Stanhope had 
not his relatives 
made all the in- 
terest possible. 
By the exertions 
made, and in 
consideration 
for his lately 
deceased uncle. 
Lord Stanhope, 
who, it will be 
remembered, 
had died after his passage of arms with the 
Duke of Wharton, the accused was acquitted 
by a narrow majority of three. There could 
be no moral doubt ofhisliabiHty, and popular 
discontent ran very high. The mob was very 
indignant, and riots were anticipated. 

The most important criminal was next 
arraigned. Mr. Aislabie, Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, a prominent statesmen, was ac- 
cused of encouraging the South Sea Company 
in its extravagant and illegal proceedings for 
his own benefit, and had conspired with 
others to that end. His guilt was patent. 
No one cared to defend him. After a debate 
in which he found little favour, he was de- 
clared guilty, and ordered to be expelled the 



159 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



House of Commons. He was at once com- 
mitted to the Tower and ordered to render 
an account of his estate, so that it might be 
appHed for the benefit of the sufferers. There 
was no excuse for him. A person in such an 
important office should have been above 
using the influence he possessed for the ruin 
or deception of the pubhc whose financial 
position he should have secured. The general 
satisfaction with which the late Chancellor's 
sentence was received indicated pretty plainly 
in what direction the feelings of the multitude 
were tending. Bonfires were lighted on Tower 
Hill, and the populace danced round the 
flames like so many demons rejoicing over 
the condemnation of a soul. The delightful 
intelligence that Sir G. Coswell, the head of 
the firm of brokers Coswell, Tamon, and Co., 
had also been expelled the House and sent to 
the Tower, was the signal ■ for renewed accla- 
mation and rejoicing. 

The Earl of Sunderland's was the next case 
examined, but there was no direct evidence 
to compromise him. He was declared to 
have been rather a dupe than a knave, a tool 
of the Directors,* and it was stated that he 
lost large sums in the Company. He was 
acquitted by a majority of sixty-one, but the 
people refused to believe in his innocence. 
Scenes similar to those which had greeted 
the Stanhope judgment took place, and all 
London was in a ferment. Mr. Craggs died 
at this time, as already mentioned, and, some 
say, by poison. 

But although the public mind and the 
Commons House had dealt rigorously with 
some of the delinquents in high places, the 
verdicts and sentences pronounced upon them 
fell far short of the decisions promulgated 
against the Directors of the South Sea Com- 
pany. Nothing was too bad for them ; while 
the Court favourites who had prospered, the 
grand ladies and the favourites of the King, 
were permitted to retain all they had grasped, 
the Directors were trampled ruthlessly 
underfoot. These "monsters of pride and 
covetousness," the " Cannibals of Change 
Alley," these traitors to their country, were 
persecuted, not prosecuted. Legal forms 
were not strictly followed. Their estates 
were confiscated, and many of them were 
reduced to far greater straits than they had 
ever been, and made poorer than when they 
had begun. " Several of the Directors," says 
Macpherson, " were so far innocent as to be 
found poorer at the breaking up of the scheme 

* Mr. Broderick to Lord Middleton. 



than when it began." No distinction was 
made — all were adjudged to be equally guilty, 
and a general confiscation took place. A list 
is on record of the sums allowed. 

In an old H istory of London we find the 
particulars. Out of his fortune, stated to be 
^183,000, Sir John Blunt, the Chairman, 
obtained only ^5,000. In such proportions 
were the awards made — Sir John Fellows got 
^10,000, Sir John Lambert ^5,000, out of 
fortunes estimated at ^243,000 and £jopoo 
respectively ; Gibbon, the grandfather of the 
historian, was likewise allowed ^10,000 out 
of ^106,000 — such was the violence of the 
proceedings and the arbitrary manner in 
which the cases were treated. 

The Earl of Sunderland resigned the 
Premiership, and was quickly succeeded by 
Walpole,onthe 2nd April, 1721, one year from 
the passing of the South Sea Bill ; and for 
more than twenty years this great statesman 
retained his long-desired position at the 
head of affairs. But the nation now looked 
to him to restore public credit, and his first 
care was directed to that object. In the 
address to the monarch the evils and the 
remedy were pointed out, and the resolutions 
to re-establish credit which had already 
passed the House were incorporated in a 
Bill. The whole stock of the South Sea 
Company was put down as ^37,800,000. 
When the reading of the Bill was proceeding 
the proprietors of the redeemable funds 
claimed that they should not be condemned 
to lose a penny, and an uproar was excited 
so great that constables had to interfere. 
The Riot Act was read, and many individuals 
arrested, who cried out, " You first pick our 
pockets and then send us to gaol for com- 
plaining." The result of Walpole's measure 
was that the proprietors obtained a dividend 
of something over 33 per cent. The charge 
has been brought against Walpole that he 
concluded a collusive bargain with the 
Bank of England, and made a good thing 
out of the transaction ; but the accusation 
was never supported. 

So the great and extraordinary excitement 
ended. Thousands were ruined, and a few 
were enriched. Subsequent panics seemed 
to show that the public had by no means lost 
its craving for riches. But into these specu- 
lations it is not our purpose to enter. We 
have stated facts as we have collected them, 
and we close our paper wishing 
" Peace to the Manes of the Bubble." 

H. F. 



160 




CORNHILL AND LOMBARD STREET IN THE EIGHTEENTH CeNTURY. 

WHAT CAME OF A "NO POPERY" 

CRY: 

THE STORY OF THE GORDON RIOTS. 

*' Toleration is a late ripe fruit in the best climates."— BuRKE. 



A Vast Meeting in St. George s Fields-Lord George Gordon-Other " Trojans "-Catholic Relief Bill, 1778-The London 
Protestant Association-Coachmaker s Hall-The Mob in Palace Yard ; Their Behaviour-Peers and Bishops 
Assaulted-Scenes in the Commons-Gordon Threatened- Friday Night-Chapels Attacked-Saturday's Grim 
Repose-Probable Influence of the Weather-Sunday-Riot in Moorftelds-Monday-Three Divisions of the 
Mob-Savile House Gutted-Edniund Burke the Statesman-Tuesday-Scenes at the House-" Jemmy Twitcher" 
W l'' w^^° .'"'^^''v^"?."'''/^'^ P^-'"'' ^">'^ Barnaby Rudge-Burning of Mansfield's House-Clerkenwell Prison- 
Black Wednesday-Fhght of Catholics-Dr. Johnson's Stroll-Langdale's Distillery Burned-The Prisons Fired- 
Attacks on the Bank— London under Martial Law— Edward Dennis alias Jack Ketch-Thursday-After the 
Carnival — I rial of Lord George Gordon. ^ 



Protestant Mob ; Saint George's 
Fields. 
HE threatening aspect of the sky on 
the 1st day of June, 1780, bursting 
forth into loud thunder claps and 
bright hghtning flashes in the evening, 
augured badly for the weather of the next day, 
and thousands in the squares and purlieus 




16 



of London, looking out of their windows 
into the night, or cosily sheltered in the ale- 
houses from the north-east wind, had reason 
to fear that Lord George would not have so 
large a muster of patriots on the morrow as 
his "glorious cause" deserved. But in the 
night the strong wind fell to a soft whisper 
from the south-east, and the sun rose in the 
I M 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



heavens as he ought to do in the heart of 
summer, beating bright and hot on the roof- 
tops and on the great dome of St. Paul's 
cathedral. The city and its suburbs were 
astir betimes; and in the early morning groups 
of men and lads, with a sprinkling of women, 
in holiday costume, from the rope factories 
of Wapping, from riotous, silk-weaving 
Spitalfields, from golden Clerkenwell, from 
boisterous Moorfields, from dingy courts and 
alleys, might be seen streaming over London 
Bridge, through the toll-gates of Blackfriars, 
and over the Bridge of Westminster. By 
the hour of ten a vast sea of human heads, 
the hat on each adorned with a blue cockade, 
covered the large space of open ground 
known as St. George's Fields, on the Surrey 
side of the river Thames. This was the spot 
where the holidayers from the lowest ranks 
of London were accustomed to revel in the 
" Dog and Duck" gardens, the haunt of the 
vilest scum of Southwark and the city ; and 
not a man, woman, or child that day but 
remembered or heard of the massacre that 
had taken place there twelve years before, 
when John Wilkes, now chamberlain of 
this same metropolis, was led before the 
King's Bench upon a charge of treason. 

The sight impresses us with the vastness 
of London, now grown so huge that the 
"breed of chairs" had almost died out, and 
old men shook their heads in melancholy 
surprise as they looked on squares and streets 
of brick, where in their early days they had 
seen cows feeding peacefully. But why this 
huge assemblage, reaching perhaps to the 
number of one hundred thousand souls ? Is 
it only some festal day ? Or is it that London, 
the beating heart of England, has been 
driven into fever heat by the ruinous waste 
of money in battling with the fleets of France 
and Spain, or maddened by the sacrifice of 
millions of pounds and thousands of brave 
Britons beyond the broad Atlantic, or is 
eager to express its sympathy with the 
citizens of England's great American colony 
in their determined struggle for indepen- 
dence ? 

No : there is no spirit at work so patriotic 
and so noble. The air is rent with shouts of 
" No Popery ! " and banners, with the same 
inscription are floating languidly over the 
heads of the assembled thousands, who 
parade the Fields and marshal into four 
divisions, — the London, the Westminster, the 
Southwark, and the Scotch, — waiting impati- 
ently for the arrival of the hero of the day. 
From portions of the vast host there rises the 
melody of sacred songs, while across the 
Fields there also shrieks the wild and stirring 
music of the Scottish bagpipe. At eleven 
o'clock, just one hour after the time fixed for 
meeting, the news spreads like wildfire from 
end to end of the expectant host that Lord 



George Gordon, the young champion of the 
Protestants, has reached the ground. 

This important idol of the hour is a man 
of nearly thirty, of feminine appearance, with 
the air and manners of a Methodist, a sinister 
cast in his eyes that betokened either knave 
or madman, and long lank hair falling on his 
shoulders. He has already given orders to 
the various divisions as to the line of march, 
and is making his last speech on the spot 
where, according to tradition, now stands 
the great Catholic cathedral of St. George, 
when a gentleman, who was one of his 
supporters, drives up furiously, leaps from 
a carriage, and hurries with difficulty to the 
ring, anxiously informing the hero that the 
keeper of the Guildhall of Westminster 
dreaded the outbreak of a riot if more than 
thirty or forty persons marched to the House 
of Commons with his Lordship with the 
Protestant petition. The hero calmed him 
with the pleasant news that he meant to go 
alone, and that the glorious petition was to 
follow him to the lobby of the House, there 
to wait till he received it and laid it before 
his honourable fellow-members. In a fainting 
condition his Lordship enters a coach by the 
favour of its lady owner ; and as a knot of 
forty men press around, eager to accompany 
their leader, he calls out, " No, by no means ; 
I shall be greatly obliged to you, gentlemen, 
if you will go back." 

Meanwhile sober Thomas Evans drove to 
the other end of the field, where the crowds 
stood in marching order, six in a row, with 
their faces turned towards the city. He 
asked what they meant to do. " To march 
to the city ! " was the answer ; but they 
assured him of their determination to make 
no riot. When the quiet citizens at home 
looked out from the windows or from the 
roofs as these miles of human beings tramped 
in perfect order and " great decorum " along 
their respective routes over the three bridges, 
there were few or none who dreamed that in 
a few days flames and smoke would be 
darting and rolling upwards on every hand 
into the sky that hung so bright above, — the 
Government of the mightiest nation of the 
world be shaken into helpless terror, — and 
the metropolis itself be threatened with as 
complete a destruction as when the Plague 
had raged a century before. 

" What ! " wrote Samuel Romilly, then a 
student of Gray's Inn, "summon 40,000 
fanatics to meet together, and expect them 
to be orderly ! What is it but to invite 
hungry wretches to a banquet, and at the 
same time enjoin them not to eat?" And 
what, pray, is the meaning of those hand- 
bills that have been circulated industriously 
through the crowds, stating that as it was 
suspected that Papists intended to mingle 
in disguise among them for the purpose of 



162 



WHAT CAME OF A "NO POPERY" CRY. 



raising riots, the Protestants should not 
return their violence or insults, but calmly- 
hand them over to the constables ? Did not 
the wearing of a badge tend to intimidation 
and disorder ? What do those thousands of 
well-dressed tradesmen, lingering in the 
Fields after the vaster multitudes have 
marched away, know or care about the Pro- 
testant religion ? Their idea was a sweeping 
one, — that " a stop was to be put to public 
preaching and public teaching ! " It is 
significant, too, that a little after the hour 
of noon a group of drunken men, not only 
furnished with the blue cockade as an emblem 
of determined Protestantism, but armed with 
great bludgeons, is seen standing on London 
Bridge, one of the inebriates brandishing 
his club and swearing that it was " all their 
association." 

Catholic Relief Bill of 1778. 
England had been weighted with heavy- 
sorrows during the past few years ; the 
country had been throwing away millions 
on millions in a struggle with her own 
American daughter, — millions that had more 
wisely been tossed into the maw of the 
Atlantic ; and George III. and his drowsy 
undertakers were butting their heads against 
the gates of Gaza to the tune of the sarcastic 
eloquence of an Opposition that embraced 
some of the most conspicuous orators of 
our country, — Burke and Fox, Dunning and 
Savile. It was a battle of demigods. The 
cause of popular rights was taking mighty 
strides ; England was stirred with a trumpet 
blast calling for annual parliaments and 
universal suffrage. In the midst of these 
terrible alarms a bill was introduced into 
the Commons by a sound Protestant and 
noble statesman, Sir George Savile, towards 
the close of the session, in May 1778, and 
hurried through both Houses with pleasant 
compliments, not so much as a comfit 
or comfort to Catholics, as an honest 
clearance of a scandal from the statute- 
book of England. It was accounted a very 
little thing. The "relief" simply consisted 
in sweeping away enactments then totally 
unnecessary or "at all times a disgrace 
to humanity," — statutes of the reign of 
William III., which forbade a Romish 
priest from officiating or teaching under 
pain of treason ; gave to the nearest Pro- 
testant heir the right of seizing the posses- 
sions of his father and brother and other 
Catholic kinsmen during their lifetime ; and 
prevented Papists from acquiring property 
in England. " The lowest and basest of 
mankind," the informing constable, could 
compel an English magistrate to inflict on 
priests all the shameful penalties of this 
"wicked and absurd" bill, which had 
originated in the worst days of political 



faction, and found a place in our code of 
laws, not from any malice against Catholics 
themselves, but merely as a shuttlecock in 
the struggle of political parties. Unhappily 
these Draconic statutes were not suffered 
to lie dead. Every person of that com- 
munion was obliged to fly from the face 
of day ; the clergy skulked in the garrets 
of private houses, or sheltered themselves 
under the wing of foreign ministers. " The 
whole body of the CathoHcs," said Burke, 
"condemned to beggary and to ignorance 
in their native land, have been obliged to 
learn the principles of letters from the charity 
of your enemies." 

What the cause of Protestant intolerance 
lacked in numbers within the walls of St. 
Stephen's was made up for by the persistence 
of Lord George Gordon, a scion of the " Mad 
Gordons " of Huntly, who sat as member for 
the pocket borough of Ludgershall, and was 
the most perfect bore ever privileged to assist 
in the legislature of Great Britain. In spite 
of the fact that he was only the laughing- 
stock of members, who jested about his 
uniting Popery and small beer, and even told 
him (it may be read in Hansard) he had " a 
twist in his head, a certain whirligig which 
ran away with him, if anything relative to 
religion was mentioned," he was elected 
President of the London Protestant Associa- 
tion, which now awoke from its lethargic 
state. Never was there made a more foolish 
choice. 

The Protestant Association ; Meeting 

IN COACHMAKERS' HALL. 

Zealous meetings were held at St. Margaret's 
Hill, at Greenwood's Rooms, at the "Old 
Crown and Rolls " in Chancery Lane, and 
the " London Tavern;" a furious "appeal" 
was put forth, stamped with the very spirit of 
Popery, parading the terrible consequences 
that would follow from the opulence of 
Catholics, and defining toleration with the 
absurdest bigotry as the "allowing every 
man to profess his own faith if not evidently 
repugnant to the Holy Scriptures " ! Finally, 
advertisements and handbills summoned " all 
the true Protestants of Great Britain and of 
civil and religious liberty" to rally round 
" the glorious cause " before it was too late, 
and invited those of London and its environs 
to sign the Protestant Petition which lay at 
the chairman's house in Welbeck Street 
every morning till twelve o'clock. 

By these means no less than 40,000 signa- 
tures were placed on the immense volume of 
parchment, but they included no " more than 
one archdeacon, reprobated in this by all his 
brethren, and a few, veiy few, of the inferior 
clergy ; " while the rest, to quote a pamphlet 
aitn grano sails, were " taken from the dregs 
of the populace . . . from the fanatic followers 



163 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



of Wesley and others like him, and from the 
scum of the Scotch fanatics, whom that nation 
has thrown out in such numbers upon this 
country. Nay, the very women and children 
have been called in to swell the number of 
deluded wretches, who could not even write 
their names, and who, consequently, must 
have been ignorant of the purport or meaning 
of the instrument they were prevailed on to 
sign with their marks." 

The match now only needed to be put to the 
big gun. On the evening of May 29th, 1780, 
a meeting was held in Coachmaker's Hall, 
where Lord George launched forth into an 
harangue of the most fiery nature, and was 
received with rapturous cheers. If they 
meant to spend their time in mock debate, 
they might get another leader ; the Scotch 
had succeeded by 
their firmness and 
unanimity ; he rallied 
his timid supporters 
with being opposed to 
" going up with the 
petition." From all 
parts of the hall there 
rose the shout of "No, 
my lord ! " He him- 
self would go to the 
gallows for the cause ; 
but unless 20,000 men 
met him at S t. George's 
Fields on the follow- 
ing Friday to support 
him by their presence, 
he declared his deter- 
mination not to pre- 
sent the petition to 
the House. It was 
suggested by some 
moderate adherents of 
the Association that 
the people might take 
to drinking so early in 
the day ; but the chair- 
man haughtily protested that the Associators 
were " not a drunken people." 

The Mob in Palace Yard. 

By the hour of half-past two on Friday 
the 2nd of June the several divisions from St. 
George's Fields had crossed the Thames, 
and the large opening between the Parlia- 
ment House and Westminster, all the avenues 
of the House and the adjoining streets, 
swarmed with " blue cockades." Cries of 
"No Popery!" "A Repeal!" were franti- 
cally shouted from thousands of lusty lungs. 

The crowd, eager as they might be to have 
a peep at the interior of the House of Lords 
and the splendid tapestry representing the 
defeat of the Armada, were diligently repulsed 
from the door by the Black Rod. Not the 
Commons, but the Peers, who as yet had no 



more to do with the petition than the man in 
the moon, were the special target for the 
hisses, groans, and assaults of the mob. As 
the coaches passed, blue banners waved from 
the tops of houses in Whitehall to guide the 
cheers, or groans and kicks, of the crowd 
below. Neither age, nor service, nor sacred 
dress shielded any one from the fury of the 
surging mass. 

Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of England, 
who had been almost murdered in the Wilkes 
riots, had his carriage windows broken, the 
panels beaten in, his robes torn, his wig dis- 
hevelled, his face pelted with mud, and was 
only rescued, it is said, by the Archbishop of 
York, who rushed down the stairs and gal- 
lantly carried him off " in Abraham's bosom," 
Lord Stormont, after drifting for half an hour 
in the clutches of the 




Lord Chief Justice Mansfield. 



mob, appeared in the 
solemn assembly to 
tell howthe miscreants 
had leaped on the 
wheels and box of his 
carriage, broken it in 
pieces, and taken "the 
most impudent liber- 
ties " with his person. 
Although there were 
constantly new arri- 
vals, each in worse 
plight than his prede- 
cessors, the House 
was thin, owing to the 
fact that some of the 
peers, such as Lord 
Sandwich, thinking 
discretion the better 
part of valour, had 
returned home till the 
tempest was over. 
The bolder spirits who 
ventured into the rag- 
ingthrong met with the 
most disgraceful treat- 
ment, some however escaping with no greater 
loss than that of wig and bag. The Duke of 
Northumberland, accompanied by a gentle- 
man dressed in black, who was yelled at as 
his Jesuit confessor, was forced from his 
carriage, and after emerging from the jostle 
of the " pious ragamuffins," found his watch 
and snufi"-box gone. Lord Bathurst, the 
venerable President of the Council, after 
being pushed about rudely and kicked in the 
legs, was pulled in by the attendants of the 
House from the clutches of the miscreants. 
The Bishop of Rochester, at first mistaken for 
the Archbishop of York, suffered the severe 
indignities intended for that worthy gentle- 
man. The Bishop of Lichfield also made his 
appearance with his gown in tatters. But 
worse than all these misfortunes was the de- 
termined outrage on the Bishop of Lincoln, 



164 



WHAT CAME OF A ''NO POPERY'' CRY. 



brother of Lord Chancellor Thurlow. When 
his carriage was stopped, the bishop stormed 
at the insult ; whereupon the fanatics pulled 
him out, struck him in the face with his wig, 
and throttled him till the blood spouted from 
his lips. The wheels were torn trom his 
carriage ; he was rescued in a fainting state, 
and hastily conducted into an attorney's 
house near by, in Palace Yard, pursued by 
the infuriated mob. 

The House of Peers, during the whole 
period of its existence and in the stormiest 
days of political excitement, probably never 
exhibited such a pitably grotesque appear- 
ance as in the first few hours of these sense- 
less riots. " Some of their Lordships with 
their hair about their shoulders ; others 
smutted with dirt ; 
most of them as pale 
as the ghost in Ham- 
let, and all of them 
standing up in their 
several places and 
speaking at the same 
time." Mansfield 
trembled on the wool- 
sack like an aspen 
leaf. The blame 
was thrown, and just- 
ly, upon a Ministry 
that truckled to the 
rioters of Scotland 
by " scandalous and 
cowardly conces- 
sions," and now suf- 
fered a wild rabble to 
act at large in the 
freedom of their own 
will without any civil 
or military power to 
confront them. It 
appears that an order 
for the preservation 
of the peace, placed 
in the hands of North 
by the Cabinet, in consequence of the boast 
of Gordon on the previous day that he would 
bring his legions with him, was simply for- 
gotten by the drowsy Premier. 

Mansfield now empowered the justices, two 
of whom were present and were summoned 
to the bar, to disperse the mob if possible, 
but only a hundred constables could be 
found. For the space of four hours the doors 
were locked, but in the uproar, which waxed 
louder and louder, all transaction of business 
was futile, save that which decided upon an 
adjournment till the following day. The 
peers who had commenced the day with the 
courage of Roman senators, now departed in 
pusillanimous haste, on the principle oisauve 
qui pent, leaving the venerable Mansfield in 
the House alone. The Earl remained for 
two hours in his private room, meditating 




General Conway. 



165 



over a cup of tea on the folly of the " mad 
Gordon," the bigotry of his fellow Scotsmen, 
and the pig-headed ignorance of the most 
ignorant of all mobs, that of London scum ; 
and thereafter the great and wise Chief 
Justice drove away in peace to his mansion 
in Bloomsbury Square. 

Scenes in the Commons ; Gordon Talks 
TO THE Mob. 
Lord George was followed to the doors of 
Parliament by the small Westminster column, 
which had the honour of bearing the immense 
roll of parchment, almost as much as one 
stout Protestant could carry on his head, and 
the triumphant bundle was in the first in- 
stance deposited in the lobby. There it had 
a sufficient body- 
guard, for the blue 
cockades closely 
blocked the passage 
up to the very door, 
incessantly assailing 
the ears of the House 
by chiming the name 
of Lord George Gor- 
don, and shouting 
with all their might 
" A repeal, A repeal ! 
No Popery, No 
Popery ! " The at- 
tacks on members, 
however, were com- 
paratively slight. 
"All their religion," 
said Horace Wal- 
pole, in his cynical 
humour, " consisted 
in outrage and plun- 
der ; for. . . General 
Grant, Mr. Macken- 
zie, and others had 
their pockets picked 
of their watches and 
snuff-boxes." The 
worst mishap was that of Mr. Wellbore 
Ellis, who was pursued into the Guildhall, 
the windows of which were then broken and 
the doors forced, the gallant member finally 
escaping from the window by a ladder, after 
a stout defence with broomsticks by the 
keeper and the constables. No members, it 
is said, were allowed to pass through the 
lobby without repeating the cry of " No 
Popery," accepting a blue cockade, and 
promising to vote for the repeal. To Gibbon, 
the historian, who sat as member for Lis- 
keard, and held the pleasant sinecure of a 
Lord Commissioner of Trade, it was " the 
old story of religion," and the tumultuous 
crowds appeared to him as " forty thousand 
Puritans, such as they might be in the time 
of Cromwell, started out of (heir graves." 
When the Speaker had taken his seat upon 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the gilt chair with the mace before him, and 
the clerks were placed in order at the table, 
it could hardly be expected that Lord North, 
the easy, corpulent Premier, dressed as usual 
with powdered wig and in his court robes, 
over which lay the blue ribbon of the Order 
of the Garter, and the other members who 
had courageously attended, should sit in 
silence upon the morocco cushions, and lean 
peacefully on the low backs of the benches. 
" It would be impossible," says a contem- 
porary record, " to describe the astonishment, 
sense of degradation, horror, and dismay 
which prevailed." On that memorable day 
two attempts were made to force the door, 
which was locked for four hours. 

When "some degree of order"was obtained, 
the Protestant champion, seconded by Mr. 
Alderman Bull, was permitted by the House 
to introduce the petition, signed, as he de- 
clared, by nearly 120,000 Protestant subjects, 
" praying the repeal of the Act of last session 
in favour of the Catholics." The gigantic 
document then made its appearance in its 
own impressive person in that august as- 
sembly. His Lordship moved that it be 
taken into immediate consideration, and was 
again supported by his henchman of true 
British name. During the progress of a most 
violent debate, in which it was contested that 
this motion was contrary to all established 
forms of procedure, the foolish "Jack of 
Leyden " kept up a constant fire of inter- 
course with his adherents in the lobby, in- 
decently running every minute to the door 
or windows and bawling to the populace. 
He certainly, wittingly or unwittingly, " did 
everything in his power to promote a massa- 
cre," by holding out some of the most con- 
spicuous statesmen "as obnoxious persons 
and enemies to a lawless and desperate 
banditti." He shouted at the door or from 
the gallery that overlooked the lobby : — " I 
shall come out and let you know what is 
going on in the House ! " When the crowd 
pressed violently on the doorkeeper, who 
exclaimed, " For God's sake, gentlemen, keep 
from the door," he simply said, " Pray, gentle- 
men, make what room you can ; your cause 
is good, and you have nothing to fear." He 
denounced Burke to them. In another of his 
irritating confidences he marked out the 
Speaker as having uttered the slander that 
they had all come there under pretence of 
religion ; again he told them that " Mr. Rous 
has just moved that the civil power be sent 
for," cheering them with the counsel, " But 
don't you mind ; keep yourselves cool ; be 
steady." Within the House he actually in- 
sulted the Premier with a threat that he could 
have him torn to pieces, and pointed him out 
for the indignation of the populace by shout- 
ing, " Lord North calls you a mob." " Gentle- 
men," said the reckless orator in his insinuating 



conversational style, standing within the walls 
of St. Stephen's, the sacred and time-honoured 
seat of England's prudent legislature,—" gen- 
tlemen, the alarm has gone forth for ten miles 
round the city. You have got a very good 
prince, who, as soon as he shall hear the 
alarm has seized such a number of men, will 
no doubt send down private orders to his 
ministers to enforce the prayer of your 
petition. The Scotch had no redress till 
they pulled down the mass-houses, and why 
should they be better off than you ? " 

Expostulations were addressed in vain to 
such a maniac. When General Grant came 
behind him and endeavoured to pull him back 
into the House, exclaiming, "For God's sake. 
Lord George, do not lead these poor people 
into danger," he only made that forcible 
appeal the basis of another maddening sally : 
" You see in this effort to persuade me from 
my duty, before your eyes, an instance of the 
difficulties I have to encounter from such 
wise men of the world as my honourable 
friend behind my back." 

Some of the hotter members even talked 
of marching out, sword in hand, and cutting 
a passage through the mob. " My Lord 
George," said a kinsman of that hopeless 
person, holding a sword pointed at the agita- 
tor, " do you intend to bring your rascally 
adherents into the House of Commons ? If 
you do, the first man of them that enters, I 
will plunge my sword, not into his, but into 
your body." General Conway sat down beside 
him and told him firmly : " My Lord, I am 
a military man, and 1 shall think it my duty 
to protect the freedom of debate by my sword ; 
you see, my Lord, the members of this House 
are this day all in arms. Do not imagine 
that we will be overpowered or intimidated 
by a rude, unprincipled rabble. There is 
only one entry into the House of Commons, 
and that is a narrow one. Reflect that men 
of honour may defend this pass." Colonel 
Holroyd told Lord George that the fittest 
place for him was Bedlam, took his seat 
beside him, and followed him about, prevent- 
ing any more appeals to the fury of the crowd. 

The Military Called. 
The tumultuous mob grew wilder as the 
hot afternoon passed away. At last, when 
the venerable assembly which represented the 
people of Great Britain had been befooled 
by a crazy scion of a family known as the 
" Mad Gordons," and had fumed for half the 
day in an idle and irresolute passion, with its 
doors locked against an unarmed mob, the 
justices of the peace were empowered to call 
out the whole force of the country to quell 
the riot. A party of foot guards and horse 
arrived, the latter under the direction of 
Justice Addington. He was stormed with 
hisses, but portions of the crowd were not yet 



166 



WHAT CAME OF. A ''NO POPERY" CRY. 



laeyond being amenable to courtesy and good 
order, especially on such high pressure; for on 
assuring them of his peaceable intentions and 
his willingness to dismiss the soldiers if they 
would give their word of honour to disperse, 
the tide turned in his favour. The cavalry 
Tode away from Palace Yard, three cheers for 
the magistrate rang through the air, and six 
hundred of the more sober " Protestants " 
retired from the shadow of St. Stephen's, let 
lis hope to riot no more, but take other 
means for securing "the peace of Jerusalem." 
The lobby cleared, the division took place, 
with the result that 192 voted for considering 
the petition on the following Tuesday, and 
only six for Gordon's motion. The hero of 
the day walked from the walls of Parliament 
still a free citizen. If Ministers or members 
went away contented to " fret at whist or sit 
aside to sneer and whisper scandal,"and enter- 
tained the pleasant thought that the tempest 
of " pious ragamuffins " had spent its fury, 
they were sadly mistaken, " for already," to 
use the words of Gibbon, " the scum had 
boiled up to the surface in the huge cauldron 
of London." There were already tokens of 
the coming storm. About six or seven a 
coach was stopped in Palace Yard by a set 
of boys and pickpockets, "not the least like 
the Protestant Association." Lord George 
•drove away on that memorable evening in the 
carriage of Sir James Lowther, biddmg the 
remnant of the mob, who asked if the Bill 
was to be repealed, to " go home, be quiet, 
make no riot nor noise ; " but before he had 
reached his residence in Welbeck Street at 
;a quarter to eleven, the storm raised by his 
foolish bravado had already burst into flames. 

Friday Night ; Romish Chapels 
Attacked. 
Although the law of England forbade the 
adherents of the Catholic faich from having 
chapels of their own, it was their custom to 
attend the services in those which existed for 
the private use of foreign ambassadors. At 
that time there stood, as there stands still, 
close to the gloomy archway that leads from 
Duke Street into Lincoln's Inn Fields, a 
Popish chapel, which is regarded with reve- 
rence by Catholics as their oldest religious 
house in London. It was attached to the 
residence of the Sardinian ambassador. As 
the chief centre of Popish worship in London, 
it was the first target for the fury of the popu- 
lace. Hardly had the tumult died away at 
Westminster, when several hundred rioters, 
•emboldened by the shade of night, made 
their way to that rich fortress of Popery, 
forced an entrance, demolished the altars, 
tossed the ornaments, books, benches, and 
velvet cushions into the street, and set the 
heap alight. Rushing into the chapel with 
t)urning brands, they set fire to the interior. 



167 



Poor Madame Cordon, wife of the Sardinian 
Minister, then in a most delicate condition, 
was found in such a state of terror and weak- 
ness that she could scarcely stand, and was 
only rescued by the gallant efforts of a gentle- 
man who dragged her to his residence in the 
Fields close by. The firemen came upon the 
scene with their toy-squirt engines, but were 
compelled to stand at ease. The high-con- 
stable arrived near midnight. Dashing into the 
midst of the crowd, he seized one of the most 
conspicuous by the collar, but amid cries of 
" Knock him on the head ! " the prisoner was 
rescued ; he then hastened to the barracks at 
Somerset House, and returned with one 
hundred men armed with bayonets. By the 
efforts of the firemen the flames were pre- 
vented from spreading further than the chapel; 
but, with the exception of two silver lamps, 
which, by the way, were stolen, all the valu- 
ables perished, including a painting which 
was said to have cost the sum of ^2,500. 
Thirteen rioters were taken to the Savoy 
prison to be brought up at Bow Street in the 
morning, — among the number an apprentice 
glazier, a footman, a printer, a couple of 
carpenters, a tailor with the appropriate 
name of Isaac Hemmaway, and a journey- 
man coachmaker from Long Acre, who was 
seriously wounded in the stomach by a 
soldier's bayonet while escaping from the 
chapel. On Saturday an immense crowd 
assembled in Covent Garden to see the rioters 
brought up for examination. An attempt was 
made to rescue them from the military escort 
in Little Duke Street, spurred on by a bare- 
headed waiter from the "Blue Posts," in 
Covent Garden. Several of the prisoners 
acknowledged they were Roman Catholics ! 

While the rioters were busy at the Sardinian 
chapel, another party found its way to War- 
wick Street, Golden Square, where stood 
another mass-house, under the wing of old 
Count Haslang,"a prince of smugglers aswell 
as Bavarian Minister," whose residence was 
stored with "great quantities of 'run' tea and 
contraband goods." The rioters did not, how- 
ever, accomplish much damage before the 
arrival of the military. 

Saturday's Grim Repose ; Sunday Riot 
IN Moorfields. 

On Saturday the House of Lords passed a 
motion for an address to the King, calling 
for the punishment of the perpetrators and 
abettors of the outrages, and throughout the 
city the conviction reigned that the bour- 
rasque was over. Whether the lull was due 
to the unpleasant dullness and dampness of 
the morning it would not be safe to say ; yet 
we imagine that atmospheric conditions had 
something to do with the progress of the 
Gordon riots. With the exception of the first 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



day, Friday, London suffered during the 
whole period from an attack of wintry 
weather. 

The impression of sober people that the 
mob had finally dispersed was soon to be 
sadly shattered. The quiet of Saturday was 
only the grim repose of the sweeping whirl- 
wind. On Sunday afternoon, while a cold 
wind blew from the north-east, an immense 
rabble of several thousands gathered suddenly 
as if by magic in the district of Moorfields, 
then chiefly tenanted by dealers in old furni- 
ture, and adorned with such buildings as the 
madhouses of Old Bethlehem and St. Luke, 
and emphatically the centre of dissent, by 
the possession of Whitfield's huge brick 
tabernacle. They marched with the now 
famihar shouts of " No Papists ! " " Root out 
Popery !" to anew mass-house inRopemaker's 
Alley. The riot lasted all night, and was 
continued on the following day. During this 
time they " gutted " the chapel and the houses 
of several Catholic families, leaving only the 
bare walls standing, and made a huge con- 
flagration of books, crucifixes, images, relics, 
altars, pulpits, pews, benches, beds, and 
blankets, in an open part of the district ; and 
not content with pulling down the house of 
the Catholic teacher, they rushed in thousands 
to the school in Hoxton. The Guards arrived 
on the scene before the hour of ten on Sun- 
day night, but they simply "watched the mob 
with decent temper." A child fell out of its 
mother's arms and was trampled to death by 
the surging crowd ; and the brutal attack of 
Moorfields hastened the death of the much re- 
spected priest, Richard Dillon, who had lived 
in the district for six-and-thirty years. His 
house was made a total wreck, his books and 
furniture were committed to the flames ; not 
even a bed was left him on which to rest, and 
this barbarous treatment gave a fatal shock to 
his health and spirits. 

Monday's Work : Savile House Gutted; 
Edmund Burke. 

The rioters were at work early on Monday 
morning, having now tasted the sweets of 
lawlessness and plunder ; and their energies 
were kindled by a shameless report, — which 
Walpole suggests was spread by the insinu- 
ation of "Saint George Gordon," — that the 
Papists had burned a Presbyterian chapel on 
the preceding night. 

Three of the rioters of Saturday were that 
morning remanded to Newgate ; and on its 
return the military escort was pelted by 
the mob. One irate son of Mars levelled his 
gun, but it was knocked up by his command- 
ing officer — an act of humanity which did not 
serve to appease the rioters, who compelled 
the soldiers to retreat in haste. "When 
grace, robbery, and mischief make an alli- 
ance," wrote the cynical gossip of Strawberry 



Hill, "they do not like to give over;" and 
now the rioters were not prepared to obey 
the resolution circulated in the morning by 
the Protestant Association, requesting all 
true Protestants to show their best interest 
by a legal and peaceable deportment, and 
they were ready to defy the proclamation of 
the Government, offering a reward of ^500- 
for the discovery of persons concerned in the 
destruction of the Sardinian and Bavarian 
chapels. 

They divided into three parties, — one 
marching in triumph to Wapping ; a second 
marched to Nightingale Lane, in East Smith- 
field. Both of these destroyed the Catholic 
chapels in their respective routes, plundered 
houses, and threatened to extirpate the entire 
sect; but the chief honour or dishonour of 
the day belongs to the third party, which 
bore in triumph the relics of the Moorfields 
tragedy, and presented itself most worship- 
fully before the residence of " the Apostle " 
in Welbeck Street. After performing this 
act of devotion, the rioters proceeded ta 
wreak their vengeance on the houses of the 
high constable and a coachmaker in Little 
Queen Street, the two chief witnesses against 
their comrades now safely locked in Newgate. 
These acts of petty spite were totally eclipsed 
by the attack aimed at the great Liberal 
statesman, Sir George Savile, whose claims 
upon the gratitude of the masses were can- 
celled by the fact that he was author of 
the obnoxious bill. Savile House, which 
stood in the fashionable square known as 
Leicester Fields, was stripped of its valu- 
able furniture, books, and pictures by the 
ferocious band of rioters, who then formed a 
huge bonfire in the square, and tore out the 
iron rails in front to serve as weapons. The 
mob dispersed on the arrival of the Horse 
Guards. This blow struck terror into the 
fashionable world. On the west side of the 
Fields stood the large and handsome mansion 
of Sir Joshua Reynolds, frequentedbyjohnsony 
Boswell, and all the luminaries of the stage 
and literature, and haunted by the fairest 
and highest ladies of the land, who pined tO' 
be immortalized by the skilful brush of the 
great artist. The painter struck his pen 
through all his appointments till the rioting 
had ceased. The blow might well give 
further alarm, for in " Petty France," and 
other slums around the Fields and in Soho, 
the inhabitants were chiefly foreign Catholics. 

Edmund Burke had heard about nine 
o'clock in the evening that his house was to 
undergo the vengeance of the mob when 
Savile's had been disposed of; and he has- 
tened home, instantly removing all papers of 
importance. Government had been apprized 
of the design, and a force of sixteen soldiers 
was sent, without his desire or knowledge, 
to take possession of his "little tenement."' 



168 



WHAT CAME OF A "NO POPERY" CRY, 



In this way the residence of the great cham- 
pion of Cathohc emancipation was saved ; but 
Burke himself, thinking that the soldiers 
mightbe better employed during thespreading 
tumult than in guarding his " paltry remains," 
carried off his wife, books, and furniture to a 
safe shelter, and boldly mingled with the 
blue cockades. 

Tuesday near and in the Commons. 

A new era of the riots has commenced. 
" We are now come," wrote the author of that 
racy play, The Road to Ruin, "to that period 
of desolation and destruction, when every 



ing days, had taught the necessity of sterner 
measures ; and at half-past one, when prodi- 
gious crowds began to muster, parties of 
horse grenadiers and light horse were 
stationed near the House, completely guard- 
ing the narrow pass between the Commons 
and Old Palace Yard ; and the approaches to 
the Commons were lined with foot guards 
with fixed bayonets, forming an avenue, 
through which members might safely reach 
the chamber. Still this was a work of no 
small difficulty. Members who lay under 
conviction of no great pohtical sin procured 
an " open sesame," through the army of Pro- 




The Riots of 1780 ; Sacking the Houses of Catholics. 



man began to tremble, not only for the safety 
of the city, but for the constitution, for the 
kingdom, for pi-operty, liberty, and life, for 
everything that is dear to society or to 
Englishmen." Fires were needed, though it 
was the 6th of June, in the grates of London 
citizens, and we cannot wonder that the blue 
cockades, who rushed again in thousands 
towards Westminster to learn the fate of 
their petition, should have chafed under the 
chill inclemency of Nature. The Tower, 
St. James's, St. George's Fields, and other 
public places were guarded by troops. All 
the military were on duty. The riot of 
Friday, and the criminal doings of succeed- 



testants, by having their names chalked on 
their carriage-panels along with the glorious 
words "No Popery." Fearless Edmund 
Burke mingled in the crowds of rioters, whom 
he found " rather dissolute and unruly than 
very ill-disposed," boldly avowed his part in 
the detested bill, declared that he had always 
been the advocate of the people, and took no 
umbrage at the cries of fanatics who reviled 
him as a Jesuit in disguise, nicknamed him 
" Neddy St. Omer's," and caricatured him as 
a monk stirring up the fires of Smithfield. 

The mob, not intimidated but rendered 
more ferocious by the display of martial 
power, paraded the streets with flying colours 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and to the strains of music. The intolerant 
temper of the crowd was worked upon by the 
distribution of a handbill entitled, " True 
Protestants, no Turncoats;" and perhaps the 
thought of blood was stirred by allusions to 
Bloody Mary and the existing horrors of the 
Spanish Inquisition. By three o'clock wea- 
pons were to be seen in the shape of bludgeons 
<3f peeled oak ; but the temper of the military 
was simply splendid, and the only outburst 
of anything like military spleen occurred in 
the wounding of one man by a soldier who 
had himself been struck by a huge billet of 
wood. 

The single brutal sally of the day was 
bestowed on Lord Sandwich alias "Jemmy 
Twitcher." At three o'clock Burke's unfortu- 
nate butt was descried at the corner of Bridge 
Street. The crowd would not permit him to 
advance further in spite of his determination 
and the attendant party of six light horse ; 
his horses' bridles were seized ; a shower 
of stones fell, the windows of his chariot 
were smashed, the horsemen fled, leaving 
him to the tender mercy of his assailants, 
and leaping from his carriage he took refuge 
in a coffee house. Justice Hyde, who was 
parading on horseback, rushed up to the 
rescue, and found his Lordship with a gash 
on the side of his head, a determined fellow 
standing over him with a bludgeon, threaten- 
ing that if he did not murder him now he 
would do so " before he had done with him." 
Sandwich refused the offer of a large escort 
to clear the way for him to the House of 
Peers, and driving back with all imaginable 
speed to the Admiralty, he penned an epistle 
to Lord Mansfield, who acted as chairman of 
the Lords during Thurlow's illness. Speeches 
full of indignation were made, and the Lords 
adjourned till Thursday. 

Two hundred members of the Commons 
had braved the storm. Catiline himself 
appeared, and took his seat calmly with a 
blue cockade in his hat, — a circumstance to 
which the future Earl of Carnarvon called 
attention, declaring that he would not vote 
while a member sat flaunting the ensign of 
riot in their faces, and threatened to move 
across the room and tear it out. After a 
show of resistance, his Lordship was deprived 
of his sacred token ; but even when several 
members had delivered the most bitter 
invectives against the conduct of the " Pro- 
testant " bigots, and Burke had uttered his 
lamentation over the deplorable state to 
which Parliament was reduced, with a blud- 
geoned mob waiting for them in the street, 
and soldiers with fixed bayonets at their 
doors to support the freedom of debate, he 
had still the courage or foolhardiness to step 
away for the purpose of haranging the mob, 
— an intention, however, which the violent 
hands of members prevented him from 



accomplishing. The Housespeedlyadjourned 
till Thursday, as the Lords had done, after 
passing resolutions anent the riots, and 
agreeing to consider the great Protestant 
petition when the tumults had subsided. 

The Burning of Newgate. 

There was a strange stillness at Palace 
Yard at six o'clock, ominous as the dead 
calm that hangs over the earth before the 
bursting of a tempest. When the Apostle 
emerged from the House, after braying with, 
his trumpet to no purpose, he drove away 
with one of his supporters. Sir Philip Clerke, 
who asked the protection of his Lordship in 
the crowd. At the corner of Bridge Street 
he informed the Associators of the talk and 
work of the Commons, and advised them to 
depart home in quietness. Instead of showing 
meek obedience, they unyoked the horses 
from his carriage, and dragged it through 
the crowded thoroughfares, througli Temple 
Bar and the City, as far as the residence of 
Alderman Bull in Leadenhall Street, refusing 
to listen to the appeals of the honourable 
baronet, who desired to be let out at White- 
hall. By this time the fury of the populace 
was in its final and wildest shape; and his 
Lordship, as he irove along and bowed his 
foolish head, beheld an immense host be- 
sieging Newgate prison. 

Conspicuous among the rioters in Palace 
Yard was a sailor named James Jackson, 
who carried a flag of dirty blue with a red' 
cross. Determined on revenge against the , 
magistrate who had read the Riot Act, he^- 
raised the cry, "To the house of Justice 
Hyde — ahoy ! " and when an hour had 
passed in the complete destruction of that 
building, the sailor shouted again, "Ahoy 
for Newgate ! " Meanwhile the house of 
Mr. Rous, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, had been 
utterly demolished. 

It was after six o'clock when the hoarse 
cry, " Ahoy for Newgate ! " was raised. 
The mob rushed along after three flags — one 
of which was that of Jackson ; the second 
of green silk, with a Protestant motto ; the 
third, the unfortunate flag of the Protestant 
Association. On the fatal march an in- 
flammatory handbill, with the terrible title 
of " England in Blood," was distributed 
among the crowd. After passing through 
Long Acre, picking up by the way the 
spokes of cart wheels, mattocks, and crow- 
bars, they swept down Holborn to the 
famous prison, the governor of which at 
that time was Mr. Akerman, the " esteemed 
friend " of Boswell, who has commended him 
to all generations for his " intrepid firmness, 
tenderness, and liberal charity." In that 
sink of filth and iniquity there lay the four 
rioters of Saturday, a host of wild male- 
factors and pitiful debtors, and at least four 



170 



WHAT CAME OF A "NO POPERY'' CRY. 



<;ondemned felons who were to be " turned 
off" on Thursday by Jack Ketch, — John Spar- 
row, who had robbed a man in the Green Park 
of a silver watch and three shillings ; John 
Early, who had robbed a man in Stepney 
Fields of a guinea, seven shillings, and some 
halfpence ; John Carr, who had robbed a 
gentleman near Kensington Gravel-Pits of 
money and a silver-headed cane ; James 
Purse, sentenced to death for an outrage ; 
and probably three others, of whom one 
had' stolen a cow, the second committed 
a highway robbery, and the third the 
same crime, with the additional brutality of 
■chopping off two of the fingers of his victim. 
The keeper of Newgate was not unaware of 
the intended attack; for during that after- 
noon, while engaged in the prudent process 
of packing up his plate for removal, he 
received a visit from a friend of one of the 
prisoners, who left him with a curse and 
the cheering remark that "he should be the 
one hung presently." At seven o'clock the 
vast crowd, armed with bludgeons and 
spokes of cart-wheels, and following in perfect 
order a small party of thirty men, who 
marched three abreast, and were provided 
with iron crowbars, mattocks, and chisels, 
lialted at the door of the keeper's house, 
which had been locked, chained, and bolted. 
They demanded the release of their im- 
prisoned comrades. The ringleader, who 
bore the appearance of the " well-dressed, 
respectable person " of our modern police 
news, knocked and rang three times, and 
'having received no answer, ran down the 
steps, and bowing to the crowd, pointed to 
the door like a stage spectre, and vanished. 
Incited by a group of " well-dressed " persons 
standing in the Old Bailey, the menial band 
proceeded to active service in three detach- 
ments — one of which attacked the governor's 
house, a second the debtors' door, and a 
third the main entrance to the prison. The 
windows of the house were instantly shattered 
by a shower of bludgeons ; two men — one of 
whom was a young lunatic Quaker — drove 
a scaffold pole through the parlour shutters ; 
a lad, who was attired, like Hyde, in a sailor's 
jacket, mounted on a man's shoulders, and 
with head as hard as a negro's or a nether 
millstone, battered in the broken shutters; 
and then at last the mad Quaker and a 
chimney-sweeper's boy scrambled into the 
house amid the cheers of the frantic crowd. 
The work now reached its climax and reward. 
The pictures, worth ;^2,ooo, and the furniture 
of the cultured and tasteful governor were 
flung from the windows by the furious lunatic, 
and immediately the sparks from the pile 
and the building flew over the heads of the 
m\d spectators. In vain did the tenants of 
adjoining houses plead their innocence, and 
pray for mercy on their homes ; for what 



recked Thomas Haycock, a frantic waiter 
from the St. Alban's tavern, as he shouted 
to the mob that they were supported by 
noblemen and members of Parliament, or 
the negro servant with the appropriate name 
of Benjamin Bowsey, as he urged his com- 
rades eagerly to go ahead with the work of 
destruction ? The store of wines and liquors, 
said to be worth the handsome sum of ^500, 
was broken into, brought up in pails and 
hats, adding to the joy, the energy, and fury 
of the frantic crowd. 

At the prison gate stood Francis Mockford, 
a waiter, with a blue cockade, holding up the 
main key and shouting to the turnkeys with 
an oath to open to him, and an uproarious 
tripeman, " well known to the police," swore 
that " he would have the gates down, curse 
him, he would have the gates down." In- 
stantly pickaxes and sledgehammers fell 
upon the great gate in the Old Bailey, under 
the fierce direction of the bludgeoned tripe- 
man, to whom a servant of Akerman shouted 
through the hatch, " George the tripeman, I 
shall mark you in particular." Another 
negro, of the good old English name of 
Glover, battered at the gate with a gun 
barrel, and thrust it at the faces of the 
turnkeys through the grating, while another 
demon tried to split the door with a hatchet. 
These were but feeble blows against the huge 
and massive gate, and efforts were now made 
to fire it by piling up the furniture from the 
keeper's house, while within the heroic turn- 
keys pushed down the blazing heap with 
broomsticks, and dashed water against the 
gates to prevent the melting of the lead that 
soldei'ed and secured the strong hinges- 
determined but baffled work, for the fiendish 
fire was fast shooting from the red-hot house 
into the fire-lodge and chapel, and one after 
another the wards were struck by the flames. 
The prisoners escaped, or were dragged out 
through the sea of flame by the legs, arms, 
and hair. Thus fell unfinished Newgate, a 
loss to the nation of ^140,000 — no part fit 
for further use, even a year later, but the grim 
condemned cells, nine feet by six, with their 
naked and impenetrable walls, the sight of 
which brought tears in those old hardened 
days even to the eyes of the lightest-hearted 
and most hardened felon. 

For a fiercely graphic picture of the storm- 
ing of Newgate, we cannot do better than 
refer our readers to that which has been 
drawn by the inimitable pen of Charles 
Dickens in " Barnaby Rudge," contenting 
ourselves with the descriptions bequeathed 
to us by two distinguished writers of the 
time. " Upon the keepers refusing to release 
their comrades, the rioters began," says 
Holcroft, " some to break the windows, some 
to batter the doors and entrances into the 
cells with pick-axes and sledge-hammei"s, 



171 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



others with ladders to climb the vast walls, 
while others collected fire-brands and what- 
ever combustibles they could find, and flung 
them into his dwelling-house. What contri- 
buted more than anything to the spread of 
the flames was the great quantity of house- 
hold furniture, which they threw out of the 
windows, piled up against the doors, and set 
fire to ; the force of which presently commu- 
nicated to the chapel, and from this, by the 
assistance of the mob, all through the prison. 
A party of constables, nearly to the amount 
of one hundred, came to the assistance of the 
keeper ; these the mob made a lane for and 
suffered to pass till they were entirely sur- 
rounded, when they attacked them with great 
fury, broke their staves and converted them 
into brands, which they hurled about where- 
ever the fire, which was 
spreading very fast, had 
not caught." 

A still more vivid pic- 
ture is given by George 
Crabbe, the young poet, 
who had come up to 
London to find employ- 
ment more suited to his 
tastes than that of apo- 
thecary in a little country 
town. He informs us 
that at half-past seven 
"the engines came, but 
were only suffered to pre- 
serve the private houses 

near the prison By 

eight o'clock Akernian's 
house was in flames. I 
went close to it, and 
never saw anything so 
dreadful. The prison 
was a remarkably strong 
building ; but, deter- 
mined to force it, they 
broke the gates with crows and other instru- 
ments, and climbed up the outside of the cell 
part, which joins the two great wings of the 
building, where the felons were confined ; 
and I stood where I plainly saw their opera- 
tions. They broke the roof, tore away the 
rafters, and having got ladders, they de- 
scended. Not Orpheus himself had more 
courage or better luck. Flames all around 
them, and a body of soldiers expected, they 
defied and laughed at all opposition. The 
prisoners escaped. I stood and saw about 
twelve women and eight men ascend from 
their confinement to the open air, and they 
were conducted through the street in their 
chains. . . . You have no conception of the 
frenzy of the multitude. This being done, and 
Akerman's house now a mere shell of brick- 
work, they kept a store of flame there for other 
purposes. It became red-hot, and the doors 
and windows appeared like the entrance to 




so many volcanoes. With some difficulty 
they then fired the debtors' prison, broke the 
doors, and they too all made their escape. 
. . . About ten or twelve of the mob getting to 
the top of the debtors' prison vi^hilst it was 
burning, to halloo, they appeared rolled 
in black smoke mixed with sudden bursts of 
fire — like Milton's infernals, who were as 
familiar with flame as with each other." 

The Protestant Association forsooth ! 
Negroes and madmen, drunken sailors and 
waiters, were the demoniacs let loose by the 
vanity and recklessness of the pious debau- 
chee. Lord George Gordon. Poor crazy 
Dick Hyde, some four-and-twenty hours 
after he had shone so nobly at the siege of 
Newgate, entered the house of a humble 
woman near Covent Garden, wearing an old 
grey overcoat, and a flap- 
ped hat covered with wet 
paint. She offered to 
dry it for him, but he 
resented her officious 
kindness : " No ! you're 
a fool. My hat is blue, 
it is the colour of the 
heavens. I would no£ 
have it dried for the 
world." Does not this 
incident strikingly re- 
mind us of Barnaby 
Rudge ? 



Other Deeds of 
Tuesday. 

The mob and felons 
were masters of the city. 
Lawless bands spread 
like a lightning cancer 
over the metropolis, de- 
fying or possibly hob- 
nobbing with the soldiers 
that were being disposed 
in the different quarters of London and 
Westminster supposed to be most in 
danger, and heeding nothing the orders given 
at eleven o'clock to the trained bands — the 
same as that in which John Gilpin held the 
dignity of captain— to beat immediately to 
arms and command every housekeeper to be 
ready to march out at sound of drum. But 
scarcely had the iron fetters been struck from 
the Newgate felons when the Bow Street 
office and the adjoining house of the blind 
magistrate. Sir John Fielding, half-brother of 
the author of " Tom Jones," were attacked 
and gutted. All through the night the work 
of villainy went on. The poor magistrates at 
Hicks's Hall fled precipitatelyfrom that famous 
session-house with their effects. Panic- 
stricken citizens bowed to the demand of the 
mob that lights should be placed in their 
windows to celebrate the destruction of New- 
gate — while these wretches were busy bi'eak- 



JOHNSON. 



172 



WHAT CAME OF A "NO POPERY" CRY. 



ing open the doors of the new prison at 
Clerkenwell and setting the gaol-birds free ; 
regaHng themselves with good old ale at the 
ruins of the " Ship " in l3uke Street, where 
mass was said on Sunday after the destruc- 
tion of the Sardinian chapel ; wreaking 
further vengeance on the representatives of 
order by burning the house ot Justice Cox, in 
Great Queen Street, and a second house of 
Justice Hyde, in IsHngton ; far and wide, 
alike in fashionable and obscure streets, sack- 
ing and consecrating to the flames the posses- 
sions of CathoHcs, in Park Lane (Lord Petre's 
house), in Bunhill Row, in Moorfields, in 
Golden Lane, in Devonshire Street, and in 
the Little Turnstile, Holborn. 

Burning of Mansfield's House ; A 
Female Fiend. 
Towards midnight 
the venerable Earl of 
Mansfield was sitting in 
his mansion in Blooms- 
bury Square, when a de- 
tachment of Guards arrived 
"to take possession of his 
doomed house. The grand 
old judge of seventy-five, 
and enlightened friend of 
toleration, who had de- 
fended the afifirmation of 
Quakers, who had knock- 
ed the Corporation of Lon- 
don into " a cocked hat " 
for their persecution of a 
dissenter, who had de- 
nounced the prosecution 
of a priest as being " as 
bad a persecution as that 
of Procrustes," was afraid 
that the sight of red coats 
might exasperate the mob, 
and they were stationed 
in a church at a little dis- 
tance. Half an hour had 
passed — distant yells were 
heard — a vast crowd of 
human fiends swept round the corner of the 
square with torches and other combustibles 
towards his own mansion— still he did not 
stir until he heard a battering at the outer 
door. Then the old man fled with his 
Countess, leaving behind his pictures and the 
irrecoverable labours of a long and devoted 
life, the great library founded when he was a 
boy at Perth, the cherished records of a wide 
and noble friendship, books with marginal 
notes by the very hands of Pope and Boling- 
broke, letters that should have proved im- 
perishable memorials of his times, wise books 
written by his own hand to be given to the 
world when he himself had passed away. 
Universal suffrage ! And yet that crowd, 
which counted among its leading spirits " an 




Edmund Burkk:, 



handsome young woman about eighteen," 
named Letitia Holland, 

" A bruising pugilistic woman, 
Such as I own I entertain a dread of, " 

forbade pilfering, with the disinterested prin- 
ciple of a Parisian mob, one old ragged bigot 
even tossing into the burning pile a piece of 
silver plate and heap of gold, swearing that 
it would not go in payment of masses. The 
soldiers were beaten back ; they were rein- 
forced ; the Riot Act was read ; a few fired, 
four men and one woman fell, and others were 
wounded. The rioters promised to disperse 
and allow the engines to play upon the funeral 
pile of Mansfield's wealth and wisdom, if the 
soldiers retired ; the latter did so, only to see 
the mansion of the Chief Justice of England 
reduced to ashes. 

''See then — the Vandals of 
our isle, 
Sworn foes to sense and law, 
Have burned to dust a 
nobler pile 
Than ever Roman saw ! " 

Poetry and faiths aside, 
the weather was cold and 
the times were bad, so 
that poor folks and felons 
were in mood to enjoy a 
bonfire, a rich wine-cellar, 
and a blow at the highest 
representative of English 
law! 

Black Wednesday ; 
Prisons on Fire ; 
FuiMus ; Martial 
Law. 

The mob, with an " in- 
fernal humanity," sent 
round notices to the keep- 
ers of the prisons and 
to several Catholics, in- 
forming them of their pur- 
posed time of call. The 
city, from king to servant maid, was filled with 
fear. " A universal terror had seized the 
minds of all ; they looked at one another, 
and waited with a resigned consternation for 
the events which were to follow." Only a 
iitw, like Gibbon, a " known Protestant," had 
no fear as to themselves. The wildest 
rumours were afloat : that insurgents had 
risen in Bristol and elsewhere ; that 2)^poo 
colliers were on their way to London ; thai 
70,000 Scots were coming to "eat us, and 
hang us, or drown us ; " that the lions were 
to be let loose from the Tower and the 
lunatics from Bedlam ; that the dwellings ot 
Ministers, of every bishop, of every Catholic 
of every justice, the Bank, the Arsenal ;i 
Woolwich — in short, every building in or neii 



^73 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



London that represented the wealth, the 
strength, and the law of England, were 
doomed to destruction. Catholics and others 
removed th z goods, and fled into the country 
or waited in horror for the approach of even- 
ing. Five guineas would not obtain the 
service of a chaise for a ten miles' drive ; 
ladies and gentlemen sent away their jewels 
and fled from their mansions ; the beautiful 
Duchess of Devonshire, whose house was 
strongly garrisoned like those of Savile and 
Rockingham, was content to lie on the sofa 
in Lord Clement's drawing-room ; even the 
amiable Bishop Newton trembled for the 
labours of his life, and sheltered himself 
among the peaceful shades of Kew. To 
complete the comedy, every shop from Ty- 
burn to Whitechapel was closed that after- 
noon ; on almost every house there hung a 
bit of blue rag ; "No Popery I'' was scrawled 
on doors and shutters ; and " the very Jews in 
Houndsditch and Duke's Place were so in- 
timidated that they followed the general ex- 
ample, and unintentionally gave an air of 
ridicule to what they understood in a very 
serious light, by writing on the shutters — 
" This house a true Protestant." A mob of 
several thousands took a trip into the country 
to regale themselves with the wines of Mans- 
field's house at Caen Wood ; the gates of the 
Fleet Prison were thrown open and the 
prisoners occupied the day in removing their 
effects, the rioters deferring the demolition of 
that infamous den till evening, in answer to 
the wishes of the criminals and debtors. In 
the very streets of the capital of England 
might be seen the most novel specimens of 
highway robbery — for example, a man on 
horseback stopping passengers and refusing 
to accept anything but gold ; and at broad 
noon three boys marching along Holborn, 
armed with iron bars that had been wrenched 
from the railing of Mansfield's house, huzza- 
ing and shouting the cry of the Protestant 
Association, andextortingmoneyatevery shop. 
Portly old Samuel Johnson (even he was told 
by his friends that he was in danger) took a 
stroll past Newgate gaol, reflecting on " the 
cowardice of a commercial place " as he saw 
a hundred " Protestants " plundering the 
Sessions House of the Old Bailey, " at leisure, 
in full security, without sentinels, without 
trepidation, as men lawfully employed in full 
day." From " What-was- London," Richard 
Burke wrote a letter to a friend, in which he 
said : — 

" If one could in decency laugh, must not one laugh 
to see what I saw, — a single boy of fifteen at most in 
Queen Street, mounted on a pent-house, demolishing 
a house with great zeaL but nuich at his ease, and 
throwing the pieces to two boys still younger, who 
burnt them for their amusement, no one daring to 
obstruct them ? Children are plundering at noonday 
the city of London ! . . . Fiiimns." 



At last the " Gordian knot," as the 
punsters of those times talked, was cut by 
the Solicitor-General, who gave it as his 
opinion, in a Tory Cabinet Council held that 
afternoon, at which the Whig Lord Rocking- 
ham appeared in a state of undress and with 
dishevelled hair, that a riototis assembly 
could be dispersed by the military withoitt 
waiting for forms or the reading of the Riot 
Act. " Then so let it be done," said the 
excited King ; and the military massacre was 
placed in the hands of Lord Amherst, the 
conqueror of Canada, who carried out his 
work with such stern severity that he was 
represented in caricature as slaughtering 
geese, and uttering the lovely distich — 

" If I had power, 
I'd kill twenty in an hour." 

Wednesday Night ; Langdale's Dis- 
TiLLERV ; The Prisons Fired. 

At nine o'clock on the evening of that 
terrible day, a young gentleman drove away 
with three companions in a hackney coach, 
not to the play or the fashionable gardens of 
Ranelagh, — though these were in full swing 
as if the city were in perfect peace, — but to 
look upon the fearful sight of burning London, 
which he described in after years as worse 
than the Great Fire, because men had at 
that time only to contend with the devouring 
element ; worse than the Parisian outrages 
even under Robespierre and Bonaparte, 
although the former converted the metropolis 
of sunny France into a charnel-house. 
Leaving the coach at Bloomsbury, he saw in 
Holborn an appalling picture of devastation, 
where Langdale's house and distilleries were 
wrapped in smoke and flame, in front of 
which was an immense multitude of men and 
women, some with infants in their arms ; the 
liquor running in the kennels and middle of 
the street, and lifted in pailfuls to the mouths 
of the besotted mob ; so little riot or pillage 
for all this, that he could not easily conceive 
" who worked this enormous mischief," until 
he saw distinctly at the windows men who, 
while the floors and rooms were on fire, calmly 
tore down the furniture, and threw it into the 
street or tossed it into the flames. At last 
the Horse Guards arrived and dispersed the 
crowd. Walking down towards Fleet Mar- 
ket, he beheld an indescribable spectacle 
from the declivity of the hill beside St. 
Andrew's church. From the other house 
and store of Langdale, near the north end of 
the market, a pinnacle of flame shot upwards 
like a volcano, and by the brilliancy of the 
illumination the church seemed to be scorched 
and the hands of the clock were as distinctly 
visible as at noonday, — a sight that " would 
have inspired the beholder with admiration 
if it had been possible to separate the object 



174 



WHAT CAME OF A "NO POPERY" CRY. 



from its causes and its consequences." The 
air was calm and the sky unclouded and serene, 
except where it was obscured by the volcanoes 
of smoke, that from time to time produced a 
temporary darkness. No guards were to be 
seen, and at St. Andrew's churchyard " a 
watchman, with a lanthorn in his hand, 
passed us, calling the hour, as if in a time of 
profound tranquillity ! " Walking down 
through narrow lanes, Wraxall reached the 
centre of Fleet Market, and beheld the sparks 
from the newly fired prison filling the air and 
falling in showers on every side ; he heard 
the discharge of platoons towards St. George's 
Fields across the river, and saw the " sub- 
lime sight'^' of King's Bench prison completely 
wrapt in flames. Had he been present, he 
might also have seen four men drinking and 
smoking unconcernedly on its roof until the 
flames beneath compelled them to leap down 
into the blankets held out by their comrades, 
and a chimney-sweep of sixteen, who had 
forty guineas in his pocket, shot upon the 
roof like a dog. At Blackfriars Bridge, which 
was held by the military, numbers of the 
rioters were shot down and tossed into the 
river. The prisons were destroyed. The 
new gaol of Surrey was saved by the deter- 
mination of its keeper, who, like the heroic 
locksmith in " Barnaby Rudge," pointed his 
blunderbuss, declaring that " as many as 
would might enter the prison, but none 
should return alive." 

A General View; Dennis the 
Hangman. 

Many pages would be needed to give any- 
thing like an adequate picture of the fires 
and the carnage of that night, of the poor 
women who died of fright, and the drunkards 
who perished in the burning ruins. There 
was no sleep for the King or the humblest 
of citizens. " Let those who were not 
spectators of it, judge what the inhabitants 
felt when they beheld at the same instant 
the flames ascending and rolling in clouds 
from the King's Bench and Fleet prisons, 
from New Bridewell, from the toll-gates on 
Blackfriars Bridge, from houses in every 
quarter of the town. . . . Six-and-thirty fires, 
all blazing at one time, and in different 
quarters of the city, were to be seen from one 
spot. During the whole night, men, women, 
and children, were running up and down with 
such goods and effects as they wished most 
to preserve. The tremendous roar of the 
authors of these horrible scenes was heard at 
one instant, and at the next the dreadful 
reports of soldiers' muskets, firing in platoons, 
and from different quarters ; in short, every- 
thing served to impress the mind with ideas 
of universal anarchy and approaching deso- 
lation." Two attempts were made upon the 
Bank in the course of the evening : the first 



of them led by a brewer's servant on horse- 
back, who had decorated his steed with the 
chains of Newgate ; but these attacks were 
repulsed, by no power of Lord George 
Gordon, who appeared upon the scene, but 
by the determined efforts of the m.ilitary and 
John Wilkes, who, if he had had his will, 
would not have left a rioter alive. The 
inhabitants of Westminster were in con- 
sternation lest an attempt should be made 
to destroy the Houses of Parliament ; many 
persons in the vicinity removed their more 
valuable goods ; and an official of the 
Commons prudently carried off to a secure 
refuge all the journals and other books of 
the House. 

The distillery of Langdale, and the once 
famous inn of " Simon the Tanner," in the 
district of Bermondsey, were not the only 
establishments of that kmd which were 
attacked by the appetite or fury of the 
rioters. The well-known firm of Barclay, 
Perkins, and Co., was then represented by 
Mr. Thrale, the husband of Samuel Johnson's 
clever female friend. " Mrs. Thrale's house 
and stock," wrote the Doctor to his gossip 
Boswell, " were in great danger. The mob 
was pacified at their first invasion with about 
fifty pounds in drink and meat, and at their 
second were driven away by the soldiers." 

Among the houses consumed on the night 
of Black Wednesday was that of Mr. Bovis, 
a Papist, who kept a chandler's shop in the 
New Turnstile, Holborn. There, one of the 
most active among the fiends was no less 
distinguished a person than Edward Dennis, 
alias Jack Ketch, common hangman, who- 
was condemned to death on the third day of 
July for assisting in pulling down the house 
of Mr. Bovis, notwithstanding the defence 
made by that amiable person that he was 
forced to do so, the mob swearing that if he 
did not lend a hand in burning the goods 
they would roast him alive ! Poor Jack ! 
the cool, bungling hangman, who had 
"turned off" so many to the delight of 
George Selwyn and the huge London that 
feasted on those monstrous tragedies ; who, 
when the Rev. Mr Hackman dropped the 
handkerchief under the cart in April 1779, ran 
to pick it up, keeping " the poor wretch some 
moments in that horrid state" — he himself 
sentenced to death ! Dickens has thought 
fit to make Ketch move about, unknown as a 
free agent — an absurdity in itself, in speaking: 
of days when the hangman was a most 
notorious figure, and quite against the fact. 
He was detained in prison apart from other 
criminals because of the horrid odour in 
which he was held by them ; on trial re- 
commended to mercy, and respited, probably 
for future service, till the hanging season was 
over, thereafter, it might be, to be " turned 
off" himself. 



175 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



After Carnival; Gordon's Acquittal. 

" After Carnival Lent ever follows." 
Thursday dawned. Although the run upon 
the Bank was less by many thousands than 
on the preceding days, the shops were still 
closed from Tyburn to Whitechapel. Ten 
thousand soldiers from various counties were 
encamped in Hyde Park ; in all the wards 
the people formed themselves into bands to 
patrol the city ; the students and members 
of the several Inns of Court shouldered mus- 
kets for their own defence ; even the Pro- 
testant Associators attacked the drunken 
rioters at the King's Bench Prison, near 
the spot where they had assembled on the 
preceding Friday in the highest hope and 
fervour. Felons were hunted to their holes, 
or picked up as they stood gazing at the cells 
from which they had so strangely escaped ; 
and drunken people were found in scores 
asleep on the streets or in the smoking ruins 
of demolished buildings. Lord Amherst's 
report stated that less than 300 were killed 
and died in the hospitals ; but doubtless many 
were not accounted for, having been carried 
off by their friends, or tossed into the Thames, 
or burned in the blazing houses. Rockets 
were discharged on Thursday evening to 
inform London that all was quiet. 

The foolish originator of these terrible 
tragedies was conducted to the Tower under 
the strongest guard that ever in England 
accompanied a prisoner of state, was tried 
before Lord Mansfield on the 5th of 
February, 1 781, but was finally acquitted, 
after a brilliant defence by Erskine. During 
the trial he maintained a show of religious 
enthusiasm. He had a quarto Bible before 



him all the time the proceedings lasted, and 
professed great indignation at not being 
permitted to read some chapters from the 
prophecies of Zechariah. Fisher, the Secre- 
tary of the Protestant Association, who 
had burned the books of the Society, was 
examined in the Tower and discharged. Of 
the one hundred and thirty-five persons 
who were brought to trial at the Old Bailey 
and St. Margaret's Hill, the greater part 
were mere " apprentices, women, a black girl, 
and two or three escaped convicts;" and 
Horace Walpole was of opinion that "half 
a dozen schoolmasters might have quashed 
the insurrection." The future fortune of 
Lord George Gordon was eminently pitiful, — ■ 
a tragi-comedy of the strangest character. 
" Few individuals," said one of his contem- 
poraries, " occupied a more conspicuous or a 
more unfortunate place in the annals of their 
country under the reign of George the Third. 
He will rank in history with Wat Tyler and 
Jack Cade, the incendiaries of the Planta- 
genet times, or with Kett, so memorable 
under Edward the Sixth." After his release, 
he attempted for a time to keep his pro- 
gramme before the nation and the govern- 
ment ; he appeared in the autumn of that 
year as a candidate for an accidental vacancy 
in the representation of London, but did not 
go to the poll ; he was finally converted to 
Judaism, even undergoing the rite of circum- 
cision, and died in Newgate prison on the 
1st day of November, 1793, while under 
sentence for a libel on Marie Antoinette and 
a noble member of the French Ministry. 
His remains were interred in an obscure 
burial-ground attached to a chapel of ease, 
on the east side of Hampstead Road, London. 

M. M. 




Medal Struck in Honour of Chief Justice Mansfield. 



r76 




HoLYROOD Palace ; The Chapel. 



SCOTLAND'S SORROW: 

THE STORY O^F FLODDEN FIELD. 

"Tradition, legend, tune, and song 
Shall many an age that wail prolong : 
Still from the sire the son shall hear 
Of the stern strife and carnage drear 

Of Flodden's fatal field, 
"Where shivered was fair Scotland's spear 
And broken was her shield." 



A Troublous Period— King David and Edward Balliol— The Douglas Family— Accession of the Stuarts ; Chevy Chase- 
James I., the Royal Poet— James II. ; A Turbulent Vassal— James III. ; Archibald Bell-the-Cat— James IV. ; 
Happy Auspices Unfulfilled— The Barton Family— A Gallant Fight— Causes of Quarrel between England and Scot 
land— Vigorous Measures of the Scottish King— A Mediaeval Story— How James IV. prepared for War- Obstinacy 
of the King ; The War continued— The Opponent of James— Position of the Armies— Letter of Surrey to King 
James— The Plan of the Battle— The Battle of Flodden— The Decisive Moment ; Death of the King— Disastrous 
Nature of the Defeat— Alexander Stewart, Archbishop of St. Andrew's ; Scotland's Day of Sorrow— Conclusion. 




A Troublous Period. 
HE battle of Bannockburn had se- 
cured the independence of Scotland, 
and had exalted Scottish patriotism 
to its highest pitch. Never had the nation 
stood so high in her own eyes, or in those 
of the world, as during the reign of Robert 
Bruce. There v/ere fresh conflicts with the 
English, and still victory declared on the 
side of the Scots. By the Treaty of North- 
ampton, in 1328, King Edward IH. re- 



nounced all pretensions to the sovereignty 
of Scotland, and gave his sister Joanna to 
Bruce's son to wife. Next year King Robert 
died. He was the greatest king Scotland 
ever had. But on his death fresh troubles 
began, which again brought Scotland into 
utter misery. The first cause was one which 
recurred again and again in the course of the 
next few years — the minority of the sovereign 
who succeeded. Bruce's son, David, was only 
four years old on his father's death. 



177 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY, 



But this evil was aggravated by others. 
The two great divisions of the country, the 
Highlands and Lowlands, were inhabited by 
two different races : the Highlanders were 
Kelts; the Lowlanders, English in race and 
manners. The Scottish Parliament consisted 
not of two chambers, as ours, but of one, com- 
prising the peers or great nobility, specially 
summoned by the King, bishops and mitred 
abbots, smaller barons, elected by the smaller 
vassals, and answering pretty closely to our 
county members, and "commissioners" ap- 
pointed by the borough towns. A measure 
passed in Parliament became law by the 
king touching it with his sceptre. But, un- 
fortunately, the great barons in the Highlands, 
and also in the mountains on the English 
border, had acquired a power within their 
own domains which made them almost inde- 
pendent of the King's authority. They exer- 
cised the right of judging and punishing 
crimes; and they defended themselves against 
encroachments of their neighbours to such 
an extent that very frequently there were 
wars going on between them ; and feuds were 
begotten, not only deadly in themselves, but 
hereditary. Not only so, but they were con- 
tinually at war with th.e Lowlanders, from a 
conviction that the latter had no business 
in the country. Had Robert Bruce lived 
longer, he might probably have done much 
to bring peace to the country; but to have a 
child of four years old on the throne in 
troublous times was sure to increase evils. 

King David and Edward Balliol ; The 
Douglas Family. 

Randolph, Earl of Murray, an able but 
relentless man, was the first regent ; but he 
died in 1332, and was succeeded by the Earl 
of Mar, nephew to King Robert. The country 
was not only in difficulties through internal 
discords, but also through an English in- 
vasion. Edward Balliol, son of him whom 
Edward L had made King, took advantage 
of King David's minority, and made claim 
to the throne. He was joined by a party of 
English barons, entered Scotland, and de- 
feated and slew the regent. Then, in order 
to establish himself, he acknowledged Ed- 
ward in. as his liege lord. The Scottish 
nobility were furious at this, and rose in de- 
fence of their independence ; but Edward II L 
met and totally defeated them at the battle 
of Halidon Hill (July 19th, 1333). No hope 
appeared on any side. Only four castles and 
a small tower acknowledged the sovereignty 
of David. 

Yet in spite of these terrible adversities ; 
in spite, too, of the skill and courage of 
Edward III., the Scots were delivered by 
means of their indomitable love of independ- 
ence. They could not bring large armies 
into the field, but they could harass and 



worry their enemies. They knew the country, 
and they had the good-will of the natives ; 
and day by day they would surprise castles, 
cut off convoys of provisions, destroy scat- 
tered bodies of men. In all these things they 
were now under the leadership of Sir William 
Douglas, commonly known as the Knight of 
Liddesdale, a member of a family second to 
none in the roll of its brave deeds in Scottish 
history. He was favoured by Edward III. 
becoming involved in his great French war, 
and his culminating achievement was the 
capture of Edinburgh Castle. This rendered 
Balliol's cause hopeless, and King David 
returned to Scotland. But again internal 
quarrels began. The Scots, weakened by 
these, yet boastful of their former victories, 
invaded England, and were defeited by an 
English army at Neville's Cross, near Durham, 
October 17th, 1346. King David was made 
a prisoner, and was shut up in the Tower of 
London for eleven years. But though the 
English overran the Lowlands, it became 
more and more evident that a permanent 
conquest was impossible. King David died 
at Edinburgh Castle in 1371, and in him 
the male line of Bruce was extinct. 

Accession of the Stuarts; Chevy 
Chase. 

But Robert Bruce's daughter, Marjory, 
had married Walter, the hereditary Lord 
High Steward of Scotland; and so deeply 
were the Scottish people attached to the 
family of Bruce, that they now offered the 
vacant throne to the son of this Marjory. 
His name was Robert Stewart, — the name 
being derived from the office whigh his fathers 
had so long held. This, then, was the acces- 
sion of the house of Stewart, or Stuart, as] it 
is often spelt. It reigned over Scotland until 
1688, after which the male line went into 
exile, as readers of history know. But a 
descendant by the female line reigns happily 
over both England and Scotland to this day. 

In the reign of Robert Stuart was fought 
the battle of Otterburn, so well known to us 
through the grand old ballad of Chevy Chase. 
The leader on the Scottish side was William, 
Earl of Douglas, who possessed almost a 
sovereign authority in Southern Scotland. 
He invaded England, and laid waste the 
country round Newcastle, but was encoun- 
tered by Percy, Earl of Northumberland, the 
greatest man in those parts ; and the result 
was that the English were defeated, Nor- 
thumberland's sons being made captive ; but 
Douglas was killed. 

In 1390, Robert II. was succeeded by his 
son, Robert III. The feuds between the 
Highland clans still continued, to the great 
misery of the country. One of these feuds, 
the memorable combat between the Clan 
Chattern and Clan Kay, has been made famous 



178 



SCOTLAND'S SORROW 



by Sir Walter Scott's beautiful novel, " The 
Fair Maid of Perth." Another event of this 
reign has also become a standard passage in 
English literature. A fresh border feud led 
to the battle of Homildon Hill, between Earl 
Douglas and Hotspur, the son of the Earl of 
Northumberland. And all readers of Shak- 
speare will remember what glorious use the 
great dramatist has made of it in his play of 
Henry IV. Another trouble of this reign 
arose out of quarrels in the royal family. 
The King was weak of body, and somewhat 
infirm of purpose. His brother, the Duke of 
Albany, who would be the next heir if King 
Robert's children were out of the way, sowed 
dissensions between the King and the Duke 
of Rothesay, the heir apparent; and the un- 
happy prince was seized by Albany, shut up 
in a fortress, and starved to death. The 
King suspected, but did not know as a cer- 
tainty, that his son had perished through 
Albany's intrigues. He had only one son 
left, named James, and he determined to send 
him to France to be out of Albany's way; 
but an English vessel captured him, and he 
was kept close prisoner by King Henry IV. 
for eighteen years. Soon after his capture, 
poor old King Robert died broken-hearted 
(April 4th, 1406). 

James I., The Royal Poet. 
James I., who thus became a king while in 
captivity,was the greatest of the Stewart kings. 
He was the greatest king of his time in 
Europe. Henry IV. had no right to make 
him prisoner, but he took great care to give 
him an excellent education. He was beauti- 
ful in face and form, and excelled all his 
nobles in martial sports and athletic exercises. 
His poem, called " The King's Ouhair," i.e., 
the king's little book, is a love-poem in 
honour of his wife, the Lady Joan Beaufort, 
daughter of the Duke of Somerset. He 
may be regarded as the first Scottish 
poet, as Chaucer the first English. Dur- 
ing his English captivity, the Scottish 
feuds continued ; Albany was regent so long 
as he lived, then his son took his place. But 
all was so miserable, that the Scots exerted 
themselves to get back their King. They 
offered a considerable ransom ; the English 
were glad to accept it, for James, in his cap- 
tivity, had wooed the fair Joan of Somerset, 
great grand-daughter of King Edward III. It 
was hoped that this alliance would dispose King 
James to peace with England. He came, in 
his thirty-fourth year, back to his distracted 
home, and was crowned, with his Queen, 
May 2 1 St, 1424. He forthwith assembled his 
Parliament, and made excellent laws ; but 
he soon found out that what was needed was 
not laws, but the enforcement of obedience 
to them. To this, then, he devoted himself. 
Terrible disorders need terrible remedies, 



and he began his course of stern justice by 
condemning the late regent and his sons to 
death for murders and cruelties during his 
captivity. He laboured hard and wisely ; 
Parliaments were regularly convened, and 
the country was rapidly falling into such 
order as had never been known before. But 
his severity could not fail to raise up enemies 
against him ; and on the 20th of Feb'-^'iary, 
1437, at the monastery of the Black briars 
in Perth, whilst the King was enjoying the 
society of the fair Queen, whose voice had 
captivated him on the slopes of Windsor, a 
band of conspirators, headed by one Robert 
Graham, whom he had banished for violence 
and fraud, rushed into the room and mur- 
dered him. Poor Queen Joan fled to Edin- 
burgh with her little son, and so effectually 
roused the loyal Scots by her courage and 
indignation, that within a month the traitors 
had all been tortured to death. 

James II. ; A Turbulent Vassal. 
Again was the unhappy kingdom thrown 
into the troubles and discords of a regency. 
Two regents were appointed, the one to guard 
the King's person, the other to administer the 
kingdom; but theyfell to quarrelling with each 
other, and had, moreover, to contend with 
one more powerful than either, — Archibald, 
the great Earl of Douglas, lord of the whole 
south of Scotland, and also Duke of Touraine, 
in France. They contrived to murder him 
treacherously, but only increased thereby 
the power of his family. When the King 
came to man's estate, he tried to conciliate 
William, Earl Douglas, by making him Lieu- 
tenant-General of Scotland ; but nought 
would content the proud noble but indepen- 
dent sovereignty; and he not only did acts in 
defiance of the King's commands, but entered 
into an alliance with the Earls of Crawford 
and Ross, who possessed almost royal au- 
thority in the east and north, to defend each 
other in every quarrel against every man, the 
King included. So arose a long civil war, 
which ended in the downfall of the great 
house of Douglas, and tranquillity again 
seemed to settle upon Scotland. But when, 
in 1460, King James determined to retake 
Roxburgh Castle from the English, into whose 
hands it had fallen, and laid siege to it, he 
was killed by the bursting of a cannon. 

James III. ; Archibald Bell-the-Cat. 

James III., who reigned from 1460 to 1488, 
ruined his own peace and that of his king- 
dom by giving himself to unworthy and 
unprincipled favourites. Moreover, his nobles 
despised him because he was a coward. They 
held a secret council to consult how to meet 
the evil, and one of them told the fable of the 
mice who resolved to affix a bell to the cat's 
neck, but could not carry out the resolve be- 



179 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



cause no mouse could be found to do the 
duty. But in reply, Archibald, Earl of Angus, 
sprung up, exclaiming, " I will bell the cat ! " 
and " Bell-ihe-Cat" he was called from that 
day to the end of his life. 

He was as good as his word ; for on that 
very day the lords, under his leadership, seized 
the whole body of parasites and hanged 
therfi. For a while the lesson seemed to 
have profited the King ; but before long he 
had returned to his former follies, to which 
he added an insatiate thirst for money. He 
would do nothing, whether as favour or as 
right, without a gratuity, and he thus accu- 
mulated a vast hoard of coin, plate, and 
jewels. A fresh league was formed, headed 
by Angus Bell-the-Cat ; the King heard of 
it, and fled to the north, leaving his son in 
safe custody at Stirling Castle. But the 
leaguers bribed the governors to commit the 
prince to them ; and at length battle was 
joined at a stream called Sauchieburn, only 
a mile from the field of Bannockburn. It 
was the iSthof June, 1488. On the King's 
side were 10,000 Highlanders, 10,000 men 
from the western counties, and the burghers 
of various towns. On the other side were 
the men of the East Borders and of East 
Lothian, and those of Liddesdale and 
Annandale. In the centre were tlie rebel 
lords, bearing with them the young Prince 
James, and displaying the broad banner of 
Scotland. What followed is well told in 
Kinloch's charming little " History of Scot- 
land": — "The first shower of arrows had 
barely whizzed through the air, and the long 
spears of Annandale had just begun their 
bloody work on the royal army, when the 
King lost heart. He was mounted on a fiery 
steed, which he could not manage (it had 
been presented to him by Lord Lindsay 
before the battle) ; the clamour of war dis- 
mayed his unaccustomed ears ; he saw his 
own banner unfurled against him ; he knew 
that his own boy was in the enemy's camp ; 
and the remembrance of an old prophecy, 
that a lion should be devoured by its own 
whelps, gnawed his heart. It was too much 
for James III., and, turning his horse's head, 
he galloped from the field." 

Death of James III. 
As he rode down the brae to cross the 
Bannockburn, a woman, who had come to 
a spring for water, startled at the sudden 
appearance of a man in full armour, suddenly 
dropped her pitcher ; and his startled horse 
flinging him to the ground, he fainted away. 
A miller and his wife carried him to the 
corner of their mill ; and with returning con- 
sciousness he asked for a confessor, mur- 
muring in the bitterness of his soul, " I was 
your king this morning." The woman 
immediately ran out into the road, and cried 



loudly for a priest for the king. The cry 
was soon heard, and a man hurrying up 
announced, " I am a priest; where is the 
King ? " She led him into the mill ; and 
kneeling down by his sovereign, the man 
inquired, with a concerned face, if he thought 
he might survive by the aid of surgery. " I 
believe that I might ; but," added the dying 
man, " let me make my confession and have 
the Eucharist." The stranger bowed his 
head, and gave earnest attention to the gasp- 
ing story of sin and suffering. When he had 
heard all he cared to know, he bent yet closer 
to the King, and, drawing a dagger from the 
folds of his dress, stabbed him to death. 

One who visited it two years ago writes : — 
" The scene is absolutely unchanged. The 
bridle road is narrow, and descends the steep 
hill-side to the murmuring shallow stream of 
the Bannock, here called the Bloody-ford, 
from a tradition that it ran red with blood 
on the battle-day of Bruce. The mill is 
passed a few paces before arriving at the 
stream. It is not now a mill, but the old 
mill-lade and dam remain, though dry. It 
is a cottage with a ground-floor only, a 
thatched roof, and with picturesque stepped 
gables, as is so common in Scotland. The 
stone walls are immensely thick, and no 
other house is within immediate sight of it. 
The spring is on the face of the hill, a few 
paces above the mill, and with only the 
bridle-road between the two. Any one coming 
down the road finds himself suddenly close 
to the spring round a turn of the road, 
having been, till then, invisible and unheard, 
owing to the height of the banks between 
which the road runs. It was curious that a 
damsel was actually drawing water at the 
spring as I came upon it. One hand rested 
on the large flagstone which covers the recess 
of the spring ; the other was raising the 
pitcher from the sparkling water, which 
filled the bason and trickled over the margin 
of the little pool. Looking suddenly up at 
the sound of my steps, and seeing a gigantic 
Englishman before her, she made a motion 
as though to drop the pitcher. It was exactly 
the old coincidence. A horse starting here, 
at a noise at the well, must swerve round 
and spring up the bank, to avoid dashing 
his shoulder against the mill wall. A man 
in heavy armour could not possibly have 
kept his seat ; and the fall from this height 
in armour would be fearful. I never saw a 
scene which brought a historical tragedy so 
vividly before my mind as this. It is as yet 
untouched in all its details." 

James IV. ; Happy Auspices unful- 
filled. 

So perished James III., in the flower of his 
life, for he was but thirty-six years old. It 
was a sad augury for the son who now suc- 



180 



SCOTLAND'S SORROW. 



ceeded him, and the catastrophe of whose 
own hfe is the main subject of the present 
paper. The remonstrances of the clergy, — 
if he had not already discovered the truth 
for himself, — taught him that he had com- 
mitted a wicked action, and, among other 
tokens of repentance, he wore an iron girdle 
under his clothes, and added a fresh link 
every year. 

His administration of Government was 
wise, and his authority over his nobles great. 
Scotland enjoyed unwonted prosperity, and 
Henry VII., who had become King of Eng- 
land, sought to make lasting peace between 
the two countries. He gave his daughter 
Margaret to James to wife. They were mar- 
ried at " St. Lambert's Church on Lammer- 
anoor," in June 1502. In the treaty of mar- 



They had refused to make any amend ; there- 
fore the King of Scotland authorized the 
family of Barton to make reprisals, and 
capture any Portuguese vessels they might 
meet with. Thereupon Andrew Barton, a 
daring seaman, cruized about in the English 
Channel with two strong ships, and stopped 
not only Portuguese vessels, but English 
vessels going to Portugal. King Henry, 
therefore, fitted out two vessels, under the 
command of Lord Thomas Howard, son of 
the Earl of Surrey, who chose out first — 

"The ablest gunner in all the realm, 
Good Peter Simon was his name," 

and a skilful Yorkshire bowman, named 
William Hustler,* and with these and many 
"pikes, and guns, and bowmen bold," he 




Old Windsor Castle, the Place of Captivity of James I. 



riage all mention of English claim over Scot- 
land was carefully omitted. 

So far well. But the accession of Henry 
VIII. to the English throne was the beginning 
of fresh ill feeling. There were several causes 
for this. The two brothers-in-law were 
personally jealous of each other. The French 
king flattered and courted the Scottish. 

Then James was anxious to make a strong 
fleet and to extend his commerce, as he had 
numerous good harbours, and that was, more 
than any age before, a time of sea enterprise. 
And so he gathered a royal navy of sixteen 
ships. 

The Barton Family; A Gallant 

Fight. 
Now it so happened that a Scottish sea- 
man, named John Barton, had some thirty 
years before been captured by the Portuguese. 



sailed out at Thames' mouth. After three days' 
sail he fell in with a merchant who had been 
robbed by Barton, and who was now called 
upon by Lord Howard to direct him to the 
pirates' whereabouts. The merchant demurred, 
he was such a terrible foe to meet : — 

" He is brass within and steel without. 
With beams on his topcastle strong ; 
And eighteen pieces of ordnance stout 
He carries on each side along. 
"And he hath a pinnace richly dight, 
St. Andrew's cross that is his guide ; 
His pinnace beareth nine score men, 
And fifteen cannons on each side." 

Nothing daunted. Lord Howard insisted on 
the merchant guiding him ; and next morning 
they came in sight of Sir Andrew Barton. 
The grand old ballad from which we have 

* Erroneously called " Horlsey " in the old ballad. 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



quoted then goes on to describe the fight. 
Barton had heavy beams hung at the end of 
his yards, to throw down upon any ship that 
attempted to board him. One sailor after 
another mounted to do so, as the English 
ship drew alongside, but the unfailing skill 



fell mortally wounded. The pirate ship was. 
boarded, and carried off in triumph. 

'' Lord Howard then a letter wrote, 
And sealed it with seal and ring ; 
' Such a noble prize have I brought your grace,, 
As never did subject to a king. 




Percy and Douglas at the Battle of Chevy Chase. 



of Hustler brought them down. At length f 
Sir Andrew himself mounted. Hustler had 
but two arrows left. The first struck the 
pirate on the breast, but bounded back from 
his armour of proof. He had reached his 
beam, and was already moving it when 
Hustler, spying a spot left exposed under 
his arm, sent an arrow through it, and he 



" 'Sir Andrew's ship I bring with me, 

A braver ship was never none, . 

Now hath your grace two ships of war 
Before in England was but one." " 

Causes of Quarrel between England- 
"and Scotland. 

James IV. was very angry at the confisca- 



182 



SCOTLAND'S SORROW 



tion of the vessels, and this was one cause of 
ill-feeHng between the kings. Others super- 
vened. Some English borderers had killed 
King James's Warden of the Marshes, and 
James declared that King Henry was protect- 
ing the murderers from justice. One of these 
was named Heron. The English Govern- 
ment sentenced him to death, and believed 
that the sentence was executed. But a heap 
of stones only had been buried in the coffin. 
We shall hear of Heron again. 

Whilst things were thus ready for an ex- 
plosion, King Henry invaded France in July 
1 5 13, and laid siege to Terouenne, or Tirwan, 
as it is called in the old ballads. 

Now let us quote some stanzas of an ancient 
verse chronicle : — 

" Before King Henry crossed the seas. 
And o'er to France he did transfleet, 
Lest that the Scots should him disease* 
He constituted captains meet. 

" For he perusing, in presence, 

Of English kings, their barons bold, 
He saw how Scots in their absence, 
What damage they had done of old. 

" He for the Earl of Surrey sent, 

And Regent of the north him made ; 
And bade him, if the Scots were bent. 
The northern borders to invade ; 

" That he should raise a royal band 
In Bishoprick t and in Yorkshire, 
In Westmoreland and Cumberland, 
In Cheshire, and in Lancashire. 

" ' And if thou need Northumberland,' 

Quoth he, ' there be strong men and stout, 
That will not stick, if need doth stand. 
To fight on horseback or on foot. 

" 'There is the doughty Dacres old. 
Warden of the West March is he : 
There are the sons of Kendal bold, 
Who fierce will fight and never flee. 

" 'There is Sir Edward Stanley stout, 
Who martial skill doth never lack, 
From Latliom House his line came out, 
Whose blood will never turn their back. 

" 'AH Lancashire will live and die 
With him, so also will Cheshire ; 
For through his father's loyalty 
This kingdom first came to my sire. 

" ' Lord Clifford too, a lusty troop 

Will there conduct, — a captain wise ; 
And with the lusty knight, Lord Scroop, 
The power of Richm^ndshire will rise. 

" ' The wardens all take heed you warn 
To harken what the Scots forecast ; 
If they the signs of war discern, 

Bid them the beacons fire full fast." " 

The ballad goes on to tell how Lord Surrey + 



* Disturb, harass. 

t Durham. 

t He had been knighted for his bravery at the 
battle of Barnet ; had fought for King Richard III. 
at Bosworth ; had been sent to the Tower by Henry 



accepted the trust, marched northward, and 
set his watches, to prevent the surprise which 
Henry rightly anticipated his brother-in-law 
would attempt. Then it goes on to describe 
the proceedings of the Scottish King when 
he knew that King Henry had "fared forth" 
to France. 

" King James his courage 'gan to increase, 
And of his council craved to know 
If he had better live in peace, 
Or fight against his brother-in-law. 

' ' ' Alas ! ' said he, ' my heart is sore, 
And care constraineth me to weep. 
That ever I to England swore 
Or league or love a day to keep, 

" ' Had I not entered in that bond, 

I sware now, by this burnished blade, 
England and Scotland both one land 
And kingdom one I could have made.' 

' ' Then stood there up a baron stout, 
A lusty laird of Douglas blood : 
' My liege, ' quoth he, ' have thou no doubt. 
But mark my words 'with mirthful mood. 

" ' The league is broke, have thou no dread* 
Believe me, liege, my words are true ; 
What was the English admiral's deed. 
When Andrew Barton bold he slew ? 

' ' • Your ships and armour too he took ; 
And since their king did nothing fear 
To send his aid against the Duke 
Of Gelders, your own cousin dear. 

" ' Hath not the bastard Heron slain 
Your warden with his spiteful spear? 
The league and peace are therefore vain ; 
My liege, you nothing have to fear.' 

" Then manful Maxwell answered soon, 

' My liege, the league is broke by right. 

For the English king ought not to have gone 

Against your friends in France to fight. 

" ' What greater kindness coiild you show 
Unto your friend, the King of France, 
Than in English blood your blade to imbrue. 
Against their land to lift your lance ? 

'' ' You see what damage to you was done 
By English kings in time of old ; 

Your border biuned, and Berwick town 
Still by strong hand they from you hold. 

" 'Wherefore, more time let's not consume. 
But fiercely fight that land again.' 

"And then stood up haughty Lord Hume, 
Of Scotland the chief chamberlain. 

" ' My liege,' quoth he, ' in all your life 
More lucky fate could never fall ; 
For now that land, with little grief. 
Unto your crown you conquer shall. 

" ' King Henry, you shall understand. 
Is gone to France with all his peers ; 
At home is left none in the land 

But joltheaded monks and bursten friars. 

VII., but, at the end of three years, having received 
proof of his high integrity, Henry raised him to 
dignity and honour at his court, and he was chosen 
to convey fair Margaret to Scotland to marry 
James IV. 

183 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OE HISTORY. 



" ' There's not a lord left in England, 
But all are gone beyond the sea ; 
Both knight and baron, with his band, 
With ordnance and artillery." " 

Then King James put questions as to who 
had gone with King Henry, and heard the 
hst of great lords — Percy of Northumberland, 
Talbot, Buckingham, Cobham, and a hundred 
others. 

' ' The King then asked his lords all round 
If war or peace they did prefer. 
They cried, and made the hall resound, 
' Let peace go back, and let's have war.' " 

Vigorous Measures of the Scottish 
King. 

And thus was James led to send his sum- 
mons to Henry to desist from attacking the 
French king ; and the minstrel tells how 
Henry received the embassage, and bade the 
messenger take back his defiance, whilst, 
according to custom, he gave him a hand- 
some present.* But the defiance never was 
conveyed to James, for before the messenger 
returned he had begun the war. He did not 
do so, however, without urgent remonstrances 
and entreaties against it from wiser heads 
than his own. Anne of Brittany, the Queen 
of France, urged him on, working on his 
romantic and chivalrous feelings, while his 
own queen, Margaret, prayed and supplicated 
him to refrain. She bade him remember 
that she had but one son, and that an infant, 
and that he was running a senseless risk, and 
making discord where there might be peace. 
His angry reply was that she was the King 
of England's sister, and her advice, therefore, 
unpatriotic. 

A Medieval Story. 
Strange warnings came to him, probably 
got up by friends who saw his folly and de- 
sired to reach him through his superstitions. 
Thus, as he was attending mass in Linlith- 
gow church, on the anniversary of his father's 
death, a figure appeared to him, habited Uke 
one of the saints in the windows, professing 
to be sent by the Blessed Virgin Mary, and 
warning him both against war and against 
his personal vices. Then the apparition 
vanished, but the King, and those to whom 



King James's letter and King Henry's reply are 
both in existence, dated July i6th and August 12th 
respectively. James dwells at great length on the 
Heron business, and many other small grievances, 
but there is a want of reality about the whole letter. 
It gives the impression of a man who wants to 
quarrel. Henry retorts that Scotland has given many 
injuries to England, that he knows him not as a 
competent judge in so high a matter as the invasion 
of an enemy, and concludes as follows : — "And as ye 
do with us and our realme, so shall it be remembered 
and acquitted hereafter by the help of our Lorde, 
and our patronne Saint George. " 



184 



he told it, believed that the mysterious visitor 
was the apostle St. John. Another day, 
somewhat later, when 100,000 men were 
already gathered for the war, a voice was 
heard at midnight from the Market Cross of 
Edinburgh, while the King was sleeping at 
Holyrood, citing the King to death within 
forty days. But nothing moved him ; and he 
commenced badly enough. Let the minstrel 
once more take up the tale. 

How James IV. prepared for War. 

"Then every lord and knight each where. 
And barons bold in musters met ; 
Each man made haste to mend his gear, 
And some their rusty pikes did whet. 

" Some made their battle-axes bright. 
Some from their bills did rub the rust, 
Some made long pikes and lances light, 
Some pike-forks for to join and thrust. 

' ' Some did a spear for weapon wield. 
Some did their lusty geldings try, 
Some all with gold did gild their shield. 
Some did with divers colours dye. 

" The tillmen tough their teams could take. 
And to hard harness them conflate ; 
One of a share can shortly make 
A sallat for to save his pate. 

"Dame Ceres did unserved remain, 
The fertile fields did lie untilled ; 
Outrageous Mars so sore did reign 
That Scotland was with fury filled. 

" Whereof the King, in heart full fain. 
His men had all things ready made, 
Did then command his chamberlain 
In England for to make a raid. 

" The chamberlain. Lord Home, in haste. 
Who border-warden was also, 
Within the English borders brast [burst] 
With full eight thousand men and moe. 

"They entered in Northumberland 

With banners bravely blazed and borne. 
And finding none who could withstand, 
They straight destroyed the hay and com. 

" And spoiled and harried all abroad, 

And on each side in booties brought ; 

Some coursers got, some weldings good, 

And droves of kine and cattle caught. 

'' And stately halls and houses gay, 

And buildings brave, they boldly burned ; 
And with a mighty spoil and prey, 

Toward Scotland they then straight returned. 

" Sir William Bulmer, being told 

Of this great road and wild array, 
Did straight forecast all means he could, 
The Scots in their return to stay. 

"Two hundred men himself did lead, 

To him there came the borderers stout, 
And divers gentlemen, with speed. 
Repaired to him with all their rout. 

" They were not' all a thousand m.en. 

But kno\\ ing where the Scots would come, 
The borderers jest this course did ken, 
And hid them in a field of broom. 

" The Scots came scouring homewards fast. 
And proudly pricked forth with their prey ; 
Thinking their perils all were past. 
They straggling ran clear out of 'ray. 



SCOTLAND'S SORROW. 



' ' The Englishmen burst forth apace, 

And skirmished with the Scots anon ; 
There was fierce fighting, face to faoe, 
And many a one was made to groan. 

''There men might see spears fly in speels. 

And tall men tumbling on the soil, 

And many a horse turned up his heels ; 

Outrageous Mars kept each a coil. 

"The Scots their strength did long extend, 
And broken ranks did still renew ; 
But the English archers in the end 
With arrowshot full sore them slew. 

"The English spears, on the other side. 
Among the Scots did fiercely fling. 
And through their ranks did rattling ride. 
And chased them through moss, mire, and ling. 

"Six hundred Scots lay slain on ground, 
Five hundred prisoners and more ; 
Of Englishmen, slain in that stound. 
The number was not past three score. 

" In August month this broil befel. 

The day still black with Scottish blood, 
As diverse old men yet dp tell; 

The Scots it call ' The de%-ilish road.' " 

Obstinacy of the King ; The War 
Continued. 

The warning of this most unauspicious 
beginning of the war was lost upon King 
James, though it was echoed from the hps of 
some of his best counsellors. He assembled 
a great army, placed himself at the head, and 
entered England, near the castle of Twisell, 
August 22nd, 151 3. Again he gathered great 
spoil, and took many border fortresses. The 
same ballad chronicle that we Rave been 
quoting states that he was baulked at the 
castle of Norham, until a traitorous soldier, 
who had dwelt in it for thirty years, offered 
to show him a secret entrance for a rich 
bribe. James took advantage of the offer, 
captured the castle, and then hanged the 
traitor. 

The acquisition of the castle of Ford cost 
him dear. He had taken the owner of it 
prisoner in Scotland, and now the beautiful 
lady of the castle set herself to amuse and 
delay him, like another Judith. He began a 
course of dalliance and folly, as also, it is 
said, did his son Alexander Stewart (of whom 
more hereafter) with her daughter, and twenty 
days were spent here in folly and worse, while 
the provisions which had been brought from 
Scotland for the soldiers were being eaten 
up. At the end of that time she slipped away 
to the Earl of Surrey to inform him that his 
time was now come. 

The Opponent of James. 
Meanwhile the Earl, having sent round 
his summons to all the northern shires to 
meet him on the ist of September at New- 
castle, hastened through Durham, where, 
having stayed to hear mass devoutly, and 
invoke the aid of St. Cuthbert, he arrived 



at Newcastle on the last day of August, and 
found himself at the head of 26,000 men. 
The ballad gives a glowing account of the 
gathering, — of the anxieties of wives and chil- 
dren as they saw the men going forth in 
martial array, — of the many masses said on 
"hallowed stones," — of the anxiety caused by 
a great storm, which, it was feared, would 
destroy the fleet of Surrey's son, the Lord 
High Admiral, which was on its way to New- 
castle, — of the safe arrival of this fleet, and the 
cries of joy. 

' ' Who, when the Earl of Surrey saw, 
He thanked God with heart so mild, 
And hands for joy to heaven did throw, — 
His son was saved from waters wild. 

"A merry meeting there was seen, 

For first they kissed and then embraced ; 
For joy the tears fell from their een. 
All forepast fears were then effaced." 

While the English forces were thus drawing 
to a head, the Scotch were rapidly becoming 
disorganized. Their provisions, as we have 
seen, ran short, and others went home to put 
their booty in safety. 

Surrey, feeling his own strength, sent a 
cartel of defiance to the Scottish King. James 
was desirous of accepting it at once, but his 
lords endeavoured to dissuade him. Surrey, 
they said, was like a gambler, who offered to 
stake acrooked halfpenny against arose noble. 
James angrily replied that on his return home 
he would hang anybody who should play the 
coward. Angus Bell-the-Cat, now a very old 
man, still urged caution ; the irritated King 
scornfully replied that if he were afraid he 
might go home. He should have spared the 
old earl such an undeserved taunt. The old 
man burst into tears and retired ; but his two 
sons remained, and perished in the battle. 
The King declared that he would accept 
Surrey's challenge. 

Position of the Armies. 

The two armies had now approached within 
five miles of each other. With the large 
scale Ordnance Map before us, we can follow 
all the movements with precision. The Earl 
of Surrey was at Wooler. Close by runs a 
stream called the Till — a stream of continuous 
doublings and windings, flowing northwards 
to join the Tweed, and along the east side 
of it for a couple of miles runs a plain called 
the Millfield. The Scotch were on Flodden 
Hill, an eminence surmounting, and in part 
surrounding, the north-west side of the Mill- 
field. The whole district consists now entirely 
of enclosed fields with a few plantations; it was 
then an open flat, covered with broom. On 
the side where Flodden Hill overlooks the 
Millfield it is steep in descent. This part is 
called Flodden Edge. Along the level crest 
of it lay the Scottish army. Lord Surrey 

i8s 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



beheld with so much misgiving the strength 
of the position that he sent a message to 
King James, inviting him to come down into 
the open Millfield and fight him, assuring 
him that this would be the more honourable 
and chivalrous course for him to take. 

Letter of Surrey to King James. 

The original document, or a duplicate of 
it in Surrey's own hand, is preserved in the 
State Paper Office. As I do not know 
whether it has ever been printed, I subjoin it. 

"Right high and mighty prynce. So it is that 



accomplysshing of yr honrble pmysse ye woU dispose 
yorselfe for yr parte Hke as I shall doo for myn to be 
to morrow with yor hoste in yor side of the playne of 
Mylfeld. In hkewise as I shall w' the king my 
souverayne lord subgitts on my side of the saide 
playne redy to give you bataille betweene xii of the 
clock and iii in the aftnoone upon sufficient warning 
by you to be given by viii or ix in the morning by the- 
said present. And like as I and other noble men my 
companye bynd us by this and our writing w' our" 
hande to keepe the same tyme for thentent above- 
said. It may like yor grace by your honrable act 
subscribed with yor hand to bynd yor grace for the 
accomplyshing of this our desire. Trustyng that ye 
woU depeche our said pseunt Imedyatly for the long 
delay of so honorable a jorney we think shuld sounde 




King Henry VIII. from a Portrait by Holbein. 



lately I sent unto you Rougecross pi.rsuivant-at- 
armes, and by him advertized yr grace that I and 
my soveraign lords subjectts wod come to represse 
and resiste yr invasyons of this the kyng my said 
soveraign lords Realme. And for that entent I 
offered to geve you bataill on this ffrydaye next 
comyng. Whrofe my message yr grace tok pleasr 
to hear as I am informed and by your herald Hay ye 
made aunswer that ye were right joyous of my desire 
and wold not fayle to acccmplishe the same and to 
abide me there wher ye wod at the tyme of my 
message unto your grace. Albeit it hath pleased you 
to chaunge yor sayd promyse and putte yorself into 
a ground more lyke a fortresse or a camp than upon 
any indifferent \i.e. impartial] grounde for bataill. 
Wherlor finding the day appoynted soo nygh ap- 
fTOchyng I nov/ desire of yor grace that for the 



to yr dishonour. Written in the feld in Wolleshaugh 
this vii day of Scptembre at v of the clok in the aftre- 
none. 

"T. Surrey." 
[and 14 others.] 

But the King was hardly so foolish as 
Surrey must have thought him. He returned 
for answer that such a message did not be- 
come an earl to send to a king. 

The Plan of the Battle. 

Surrey now felt himself in a serious strait. 
His men were running short of food. The 
chronicler Hall declares that for two days 
186 



SCOTLAND'S SORROW. 



they had fasted from everything but 
water. 

Whilst Surrey was dehberating, a man in 
disguise came to offer his help, provided he 
were forgiven certain past transgressions. 
The promise was given, and he then revealed 
himself as Heron, whom we have already 
seen as sentenced to death for border war- 
fare, and as having escaped. Surrey had 
thought him dead till now, but readily wel- 
comed him, and placed himself under his 
guidance, and executed a daring plan. On 
" a foul and windy day he marched north- 



quarry. Surrey was now northward of the 
Scots, 

Next morning Surrey turned and passed the 
Till by Twisell castle, near the junction of the 
river with the Tweed. In so doing he placed 
himself in a position of great danger, for the 
passage was a very difficult one, and his 
army might probably have been destroyed 
before they had taken up their position across 
the stream. It was thus that Wallace had 
won the battle of Stirling. But King James 
refused. He thought more of displaying his 
personal prowess than of saving his country, 




Relics from the Battle of FLonDEN — Pennons and Weapons. 



ward, past the Scottish lines which lay on 
his left, taking care to keep out of reach of 
their artillery, and on the evening of the 8th 
of September, he rested at Barmoor Wood, 
about two miles distant from the Scots, but 
hidden from them by a low hill. His march, 
indeed, had been seen by King James from 
a spot which is still called " The King's 
Chair," a heap of rocks in the middle of 
Flodden edge, on which the King sat, obsti- 
nately refusing all suggestions to attack them 
while in movement. The spot is now marked 
by a clump of firs, but has been greatly 
altered by the opening of a large stone 



and he wanted a stand-up fight. He scorn- 
fully refused the advice of his lords ; and when 
the commander of his artillery asked for leave 
to cannonade the English while crossing, he 
only got a threat to hang him if he fired a 
single shot. 

We have seen an act of grace done by 
Surrey. Here is one recorded of King James 
on the morning of the battle. The young 
Earl of Caithness had incurred outlawry for 
revenging an ancient feud. He came now to 
the King, accompanied by three hundred men, 
and submitted himself to his mercy. The 
delighted monarch granted him an immunity, 

187 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and, because no other parchment could be 
procured, the skins were cut from a drum- 
head. The document is still preserved by 
the family. The earl and his gallant band 
perished to a man on the fatal field. 

His crossing thus made good, Surrey took 
up his position on Brankstone Moor, between 
Scotland and King James's army. Then the 
latter was stricken with a sudden terror lest 
Surrey should enter Scotland without check, 
and lay it waste. King James therefore gave 
orders to set fire to the camp huts, and, under 
cover of the smoke, he descended the hill 
which slopes gently on that side, and marched 
up the opposite hill of Brankstone, on the 
side of which Surrey's army was posted. In 
this movement he was a good deal harassed 
by the English artillery, which opened fire 
upon him as he advanced. It was posted 
between the divisions of the English army. 

The Battle of Flodden. 

At four o'clock in the afternoon of Tues- 
day, September 9th, 1513, the furious onset 
began, after a deadly discharge of arrows 
as the two armies neared each other. 
There were no tactics in the battle, no 
blunders. It was sheer hard fighting. First 
the left wing of the Scots, commanded by 
the Earl of Huntly and Lord Home, attacked 
and repulsed the right wing of the English 
under Sir Edmund Howard, the general's 
second son. But a strong body of horse in 
reserve, under Lord Dacre, rushed to the 
rescue, and succeeded. Not only so, but 
they carried havoc into the midst of Home's 
men, who were chiefly rough borderers, and 
who, thinking that the victory was already 
gained, had begun to disperse in search of 
pillage. In the centre a desperate contest 
was carried on between James and Surrey, 
the King, forgetting that the duties of a com- 
mander were different from those of a knight, 
placing himself in the front of his spearmen, 
and surrounded by his nobles, who, though 
they grieved at his rashness, would not desert 
him. For a while his valour carried all before 
it, and the English centre was broken ; but by 
this time Lord Dacre, having been successful 
on his side, charged the Scottish centre in 
flank until it reeled again. The Earl of 
Bothwell, however, came up with the Scottish 
reserve, -and restored the day here. 

On the Scottish right were the Highlanders 
and Isle men, under the Earls of Lennox and 
Argyll. These, galled by the showers of 
English arrows, and unable to reach the 
enemy with their usual weapons, the broad- 
sword and axe, resorted to their usual method 
of fighting, — a method which had many a time 
been successful in former days, but was 
worse than useless in conjunction with Low- 
land spearmen. Their method was to rush 
rapidly on the foe, and retreat immediately 



if successful. This they did now, in spite of 
all entreaties. The shock to the English 
lines was terrible for a moment, but the pike- 
men stood their ground, and the spent force, 
unable to recover itself, became altogether 
disorganized and routed, and fell back among 
the Lowlanders and threw them also into 
confusion. 

The Decisive Moment ; Death of 
THE King. 

Yet, in spite of this disaster on the right, 
the centre still held its ground desperately. 
The ground was become slippery and soft 
with blood, and the Scotsmen pulled off their 
shoes for a firmer footing. Suddenly Sir 
Edward Stanley, who had been in command 
of the English pikemen, who had so effectually 
withstood the Highland onslaught, called back 
his men from pursuing them, and turned on 
the rear of the Scottish centre. This move- 
ment was decisive. Engaged in front by 
Surrey, in flank by Dacre, in rear by Stanley, 
the King's battle even yet fought bravely 
against these fearful odds, and James con- 
tinued by voice and gesture to animate his 
men. He was endeavouring to fight his way 
to the English commander, in hope of a 
personal combat, when he fell, pierced with 
an arrow and mortally wounded with a bill.* 
The Scottish nobles, with fierce loyalty, threw 
themselves around his body and fought des- 
perately, until darkness put an end to the 
conflict. 

So fierce was the passion, so resolute the 
Scots who were left alive, that SiuTey dared 
not move all night. He held his men to- 
gether, and waited for the morning. When 
it dawned, the Scottish artillery was seen 
standing deserted bytheside of Flodden hill, t 
The men had disappeared. The result of 
the battle was doubtful no longer. A body 
of Scots, indeed, appeared on the hill, ap- 
parently about to charge down, but a dis- 
charge of English ordnance dispersed them. 

There can be no question that one great 
cause of the English victory was owing to 
the skill and courage of the archers. Surrey, 
who was made Duke of Norfolk in reward of 
his victory, had an augmentation made to 
his arms, viz., on the bend, the Red Lion of 



* An old letter, describing the finding of the body, 
says : " He had received many wounds, most of them 
mortal. He was wounded in divers places with 
arrows, his neck was opened to the middle, and his 
left hand almost cut off, so that it scarcely hung to 
his arm." 

t There were twenty-two large brass cannon, and 
in particular seven of a very wide bore, all of the same 
size and make, called the seven sisters. These last 
were sent to Berwick ; the rest were long preserved 
in the border fortress of Etall. There is a long and 
very curious MS. description of them all preserved in 
the Herald's College, London. 



SCOTLAND'S SORROW. 



Scotland pierced through the mouth with an 
arrow. Let us hear the minstrel-chronicler 
once more : — 

" The Englishmen then feathered flights 
Set out anon from sounding bow, 
Which wounded many warlike wights, 
And many a man to ground did throw. 

•' The grey goose wing did work such grief, 

And did the Scots so scour and skait [scatter], 
For in their battle, to be brief, 
They rattling flew as rank as hail. 

" One from his leg the lance did pull, 

One through his stomach sore was stickt ; 
Some bleeding bellowed. like a bull ; 
Some through nose and mouth were prickt. 

" But yet the Scots still stout did stand. 
Till arrow-shot at length was done ; 
Then plied apace they strokes of hand 
As they to closest battle run. 

' Then spears and pikes to work were put. 
And blows with bills most dour were dealt, 
And many a cap of steel through cut. 
And swinging strokes made many swelt." 



Disastrous Nature of the Defeat. 

This is the most disastrous battle in Scot- 
tish history, not in its ultimate results, but in 
its immediate loss. There was not, it is said, 
a noble family in Scotland that did not own 
a grave on Brankstone Moor. Twelve earls 
lay dead, lords, knights, and gentlemen with- 
out numiaer.* Hall the Chronicler says : " Of 
the Scottes they slewe twelfe thousande, at 
the leaste, of the best gentlemen and flower 
of Scotlande ; and of the Englysh syde were 
slayne and taken not fifteene hundred men, 
as it appeared by the bok of wages when the 
souldiers were payed." Holinshed inclines 
to think the Scottish loss less than this, and 
the English greater. 

Alexander Stewart, Archbishop of 
St. Andrew's ; Scotland's Day of 
Sorrow. 

One of those who fell claims special men- 
tion — Alexander Stewart, Archbishop of 
St. Andrew's. He was the natural son of 
James IV. and Margaret Boyd, and was but 
eighteen years old. His father, intending 
hini for high office in the Church, had taken 
great pains with his education, and sent him 
abroad. At Padua he studied under the 
great Erasmus, who declared him his best 
scholar. Pope Juhus II., to oblige the King, 
had appointed him to the Archbishopric when 
he was but fifteen, and on his return to Scot- 
land, in 1 510, his father also made him Chan- 
cellor of the Kingdom, and he also received 



* In 1783, a gold ring was found on the field, with 
the crest of the Campbells upon it. In all probability 
it belonged to the slain Earl of Argyll. 



two rich abbeys. He did not live, as we see, 
to perform any of his sacred functions. 

One Andrew Pitcairn was killed with all 
his seven sons, but his wife gave birth to a 
posthumous son, and through him the family 
still exists, and possesses a charter stating 
the facts, signed by King James V. 

How Scotland mourned for her calamity — 
not, indeed, despairingly, but with a pride in 
the devotedness of her sons, and for their 
fortitude under the calamity — is shown by all 
the literature of the period, both in prose and 
verse. She was proud of her dead King, 
proud of those who had given up themselves 
to die with him. And yet James IV. was 
anything but a model king. His bravery 
and chivalry none can doubt ; he was good- 
natured and generous, contrasting altogether 
with his avaricious father ; he excelled in 
athletics, and loved tournaments and joust- 
ing ; was fond of riding forth unknown, and 
lodging in poor men's houses, " that he might 
bear the common bruit of himself" But he 
was reckless and self-willed, and a shameful 
libertine, glorying in his shame, and parading 
his mistresses in splendour before the world. 

Let us turn to a brighter page ; — how the 
people of Edinburgh waited in breathless 
anxiety to hear the news of their King's 
enterprise ; how they watched the beacon 
fires on the hills, and trembled as the signals 
given by them appeared to speak of disaster ; 
how at length a solitary horseman, Randolph 
Murray, appeared, and with tears and a few 
broken words uttered the sad tale, — all this 
is told in Aytoun's splendid lay, " Edinburgh 
after Flodden." And the same poem tells 
how the people wasted no time in unavailing 
regrets, but gave themselves first to prayer, 
then to defence. We shall not quote any 
lines from a ballad of which the reader will 
rejoice to read every word if he has not yet 
done so, but the proclamation is so curious, 
and so brave and wise, that we quote it at 
length : — 

' ' X day of September. We do yee to witt ; for sa 
rneikell [forasmnc/i] as tliair is ane great rumber 
\ru!noiu-\ now laitlie rysin within this toun, toucheng 
our Soverane Lord and liis army of the quilk wc 
understand thair is cumin na veritie as yet, quhairfore 
we charge straitlieand command in our said Soverane 
Lord the Kingis name and the presidents for the 
provest and baillies within this burch \^boivtigh'\, that 
all maner of persunis, nyhbours within the samen, 
have reddy their fensabill gcir [anus of defence\ and 
wapponis for weir, and compeir theirwith to the 
said presidents at jowiiig [loning\ of the comoun 
bell for the keeping and defcns of the toun agains 
thame that wald invade the samyn. 

" And also chairgis that all women and specially 
vagabounds that thai pass to thair labours, and be 
not sene upon the gait [street^ claraourand and cry- 
and under the pane of banesing of their persons but 
favor \ou pain of banishing them bodily without 
respect of persons'\ ; and that the other \\omen of gude 
[7vomen of the better sort} pass to the kirk and pray 
quhane tyme requires [at the stated hours} for our 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Soverane Lord and his army, and nyebouris being 
thairat {townsmen who are zu/tk the artny'\, and hold 
them at thair privie labors off the gait \_keep at their 
private occupations out of the street'] within their 
houses as affairs \_as becometh'\." 

The putter forth of this gallant proclama- 
tion deserves to have his name preserved. 
It was " George of Towris." 



the British Museum, in which he commends 
the King for his desire to give the corpse 
Christian burial, and announces that he has 
commissioned the Bishop of London to take 
off all censures, give absolution, and duly 
bury in sacred ground. Why it was not 
done we cannot say ; but Stow says that after 
the dissolution of the monastery of Shene, the 




Death of Sir Andrew Barton. 



The body of King James was found on the 
field quite naked, was sent to Berwick-on- 
Tweed, embalmed, enclosed in lead, and sent 
to London. At the monastery of Shene, in 
Surrey, it lay long unburied. A papal inter- 
dict had been issued, forbidding him to go to 
war ; it had not reached him, but practically 
it made him excommunicate. A letter of 
Pope Leo X. to King Henry is preserved in 



body was found in a lumber room in its lead 
coffin ; that a workman in brutal wantonness 
hewed off" the head, and that Lancelot Young, 
glazier to Queen Elizabeth, at length carried 
it off and caused itto be buried in St. Michael's, 
Wood Street. 

Scotland, in this hourof her supreme agony, 
found herself once more with an infant king. 
James V. was but seventeen months old 
190 



SCOTLAND'S SORROW. 



when he was crowned, twelve days after his 
father's death. Queen Margaret was ap- 
pointed Regent, but her Parhament consisted 
now almost entirely of clergy, its other 
members lay buried beneath Brankstone 
Field. Probably with the hope of securing 
protection and help, she married the grand- 
son of Angus Bell-the-Cat, only eleven months 



But there was one person to whom above 
all others the restoration of peace was due, 
namely, Queen Catharine of Arragon. In 
true womanly spirit, she lost no time in send- 
ing an emissary of love and tenderness to 
her bereaved sister-in-law. It was one of 
her chaplains, who appears to have exercised 
his office with discretion and gentleness. This 




The Prayer before the Battle. 



after King James's death, to the unutterable 
disgust of the Scottish people. 

Conclusion. 

The English showed forbearance after their 
victory. They could not forget that Scotland 
was now ruled by a princess of their own 
Jiation, a sister of their English King. 



produced the following interesting letter, now 
in the Record Office. It is copied from the 
original manuscript, and now for the first 
time printed. The reader will see that poor 
Queen Margaret has acquired the Scottish 
peculiarities of spelling. 



" Richt excelleunt, richt hie and mihty princess, 
oure riclit dere and best-belovit sister We recommend 



191 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



us unto you in oure maist hertie wise, and have 
ressavit youre letter the vi daye of this moneth 
written at Windsore the xviii daye of October ; and 
be thankful! of ye same. We persave you richt sory 
of ye adversitie laitlie happynit to us ye cause yarof 
was unshowen or unknawin at all times unto us. We 
als consider youre luving and hertie mind towart us 
and the grete compatience ye have for oure sake, as 
youre wellbelovit in God frere Bonaventure Provin- 
ciall of ye freres observant has shewin on youre behalfe 
with fullwise and substantious consolationes, quharof 
wee give you oure hertlie thanke, and grete comfort 
it is to us toknaw of oure brother and youre prosperous 
gude helth, in quhom oure speciall traisl is abou all 
next God ; Praying you dearest sister to have us in 
remembrance towart Our brother yat for oure sake 
oure derest brother's kindness may be knawin to our 
lieges and Realm, lik as we have shawin at gude . . . 
to ye said religious fader of quhais message comfort 



and minde shewin unto us yis time, we a richt glade 
as knawis God. Quha richt excellent, richt hie and 
mihty princes, maist dere and bestbelovit sister the 
Trinity hav in keeping. 

" Given under our signte, at oure toun of Perth, 
ye xi day of November. " 

Angry feeling gradually died away. There 
remained unbroken the tie of blood. The 
young Scottish King was the grandson of a 
King of England ; and thus, though a mighty 
shock was coming on both nations in the 
great religious struggle which was now just 
about to break out over Europe, the founda- 
tion was already laid of the happy union of 
the two nations. 

W. B. 




The "Henry Grace .\ Dieu," Built in 1513, Two Years after Flooden. 



192 




" Paper ! Paper 



THE PENNY NEWSPAPER, 



THE STORY OF THE CHEAP PRESS. 



The Most Wonderful Pennyworth in the World — How did our Ancestors Exist when Newspapers were Few ? — London News 
in the Country Parts — I'he Father of English Journalism — Nathaniel Butter Laughed at by Ben Jonson and Fletcher 
— Royalist and Parliamentary " Mercuries" — Origin of the London Gazette — Addison Reproving Newsmongery — 
An Unintended Prediction — Present Number of Local Papers — Imposition of a Stamp Duty — The Oldest Existing 
Journals — Birth and Growth of the Times — A Taxed and Dear Press — A Time of Poverty and Discontent— Defying 
and Evading the Law — Carpenter and Hetherington — Prosecutions and Imprisonments — " Pelham " to the Rescue — 
A Suggestion of Cheap Postage —Parliamentary Work — Mr. Ewart, I\Ir. Milner, Mr. Gibson, and the Select Com- 
mittee — Resolute Attacks on "the Taxes on Knowledge "— Opposition to the Publication of the Stamp Returns — 
Chambers' Historical Newspaper, and Dickens's Hnusekold Narrative — The Railway Mania and Mushroom Jour- 
nalism — Total Abolition of the Imposts — First Appearance of the Daily Telegraph — The Penny and Halfpenny Press. 




HE most wonderful pennyworth the 
whole world affords is a Penny News- 
paper. With a sheet of paper 
measuring about 3 ft. 4 in. by 4't. 2 in. (and 
sometimes half as large aj^ain when adver- 
tisements are plentiful), closely printed on 
both sides, the British reader is in possession 
of a chart of the habitable world, a record of 
its thoughts and actions, a picture in little of 
the workings of the great life which, crystal- 
lized in humanity, is to him the most imme- 
diately interesting item of the greater life of 
the universe. He could not, if he would, be 
an alien to his fellow-man. From every quarter 



of the world, throbbing through the waves, 
pulsing through the air, borne through the 
darkness of the night as well as the sunshine 
of the day by swift messengers of iron, pant- 
ing and crashing on iron roads, comes the 
voice of the world, a voice telling of joys and 
woes, triumphs and defeats, the plans of 
statesmen and projects of inventors, the 
mighty roar of the busy world, with its heroism 
ancl wisdom, its follies and its crimes, the 
" still, sad music of humanity." The news- 
paper is the focus in which are concentrated 
the rays of the moving world. No product 
of human ingenuity, no aggregate of skilled 



193 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



labour, no marvellously contrived machinery, 
no accumulation of wealth, can produce any 
other pennyworth so rich, so exhaustive, so 
sympathetic and so powerful as the modern 
newspaper. 

The cheap press is a growth of our own 
time, indeed, of the last quarter of a century. 
Before 1853, when the advertisement duty 
was repealed, and partially so until the 
penny stamp was discontinued, and till 1861, 
when the manufacture of paper was relieved 
from the excise duty, the newspaper was a 
giant in fetters. Noa^ it is free and strong. 

The Days of our Grandfathers. 

We may be disposed sometimes to wonder 
how the good folks who preceded us man- 
aged to live and be tolerably happy without 
possessing some things which seem to us 
almost essentials of life. They travelled 
slowly, they knew very little of what was 
going on in the world beyond the little circles 
in which they lived, made their wills before 
starting on a fifty miles journey (in the course 
of which they rested for a night, perhaps two 
nights, on the road), thought town streets 
well lighted by a few dismal oil lamps, and 
were well content that by-roads should not be 
lighted at all, waiting for moonlight nights if 
they wanted to be out late. A few sleepy old 
watchmen toddled about the streets of the 
great towns ; and if wayfarers were molested 
by Mohocks or other roysterers, beaten, 
robbed, or even burked, the moral was 
obvious, — " Keep early hours, and you will 
come to no harm." An enterprising youth 
went out to India, and spent the better part 
of a year getting to Calcutta or Madras, 
and nearly another year passed before the 
old folks at home could hear of his arrival. 
There were newspapers, indeed, but the 
editors possessed no greater facilities for ob- 
taining news rapidly than did the public 
generally ; and when they did publish news, 
the price of the journal was so high that even 
rich people limited their patronage of the 
press, and poor people could only get a 
glimpse at a newspaper now and then. In 
the early years of this present century the 
papers were so small that only a very little 
news could be given, even if more could have 
been obtained ; and as we know that the 
world was very busy then, and may fairly 
suppose there were accidents and offences, 
and no lack of the material which newspapers 
now collect as their daily food — for human 
nature is very much the same in all ages — • 
the conclusion seems inevitable, that people 
knew very little about each other, and that 
dwellers in one country had very indistinct 
perceptions of the character of dwellers 
in other countries. We know now an im- 
mense deal more about the campaigns of 
Napoleon than Londoners did at the time he 



was defeating armies in Germany or penetrat- 
ing to fatal Moscow ; but then the knowledge 
was long coming, and, we now know, not very 
exact. If great newspapers with all modern 
appliances had been contemporaneous with 
Napoleon I., there would have been vigor- 
ously graphic accounts of the battle of Leipsic^ 
or a dozen different descriptions of the burn- 
ing of Moscow, by special correspondents, 
published in London the morning after the 
event. But our good forefathers lived and 
died knowing nothing of the railway or the 
electric telegraph ; and if they had seen a 
modern double Times with supplement extra,, 
would have been as much startled as the in- 
mates of the castle of Otranto were by the 
spectacle of the stupendously big helmet. 

Slow Work with Newspapers. 

If v/e go back a little farther, say to the 
first half of the last century, fifty years or so 
before the Times was an infant Hercules, 
strangling snakes in its cradle, the condition 
of England, nearly newspaperless, would 
seem to us, living in bright journalistic light, 
almost deplorable. Not even " a squire or 
knight of the shire," living in Devonshire, 
Yorkshire, or Northumberland, was likely to 
know for a week or two what was doing in 
London, and news received in London from 
Devonshire, Yorkshire, or Northumberland 
was almost as scarce as news from Merv is 
now-a-days. 

Scott scarcely exaggerated the difficulty 
with which news penetrated into remote- 
parts of the country, when he described the 
process by which Sir Everard Waverley and 
his neighbours became acquainted with the 
doings in London : — " A weekly post brought 
in those days to Waverley Honour a fFi?^/t/K 
Intelligencer., which, after it had gratified 
Sir Everard's curiosity, his sister's, and that 
of his aged butler, was regularly transferred 
from the Hall to the Rectory, from the 
Rectory to Squire Stubbs' at the Grange^ 
from the Squire to the Baronet's steward, at 
his neat white house on the heath, from the 
steward to the bailiff, and from him through 
a huge circle of honest dames and gaffers, by 
whose hard and horny hands it was generally 
worn to pieces in about a month after the 
arrival." 

The Father of English Journalism. 
Looking back still another hundred years,, 
we see the very first streak of the dawn of 
newspaper light. There was long cherished 
a belief that a newspaper was published in 
the time of Queen Elizabeth, and enthusiastic 
collectors possessed a few copies of the 
English Mercurie, the first dated July 23, 
1588, and announcing the destruction of the 
great Armada. Even so acute an antiquary 
as George Chalmers, and for a time even 



194 



THE PENNY NEWSPAPER. 



Isaac Disraeli, were deceived ; but so recently 
as 1839 Mr. Watts, of the'British Museum, 
proved to demonstration that the copies of 
the il-/^;r//r/^ were clever forgeries. The first 
English newspaper was the Weekely Newes, 
published in London, in 1622, by one 
Nathaniel Butter, a stationer who had 
failed in business, and who as early as 161 1 
had given himself to the collection of news, 
which he transmitted in manuscript to per- 
sons who were willing to pay for the luxury. 
These missives were known as "news-letters," 
and the name was adopted and still survives 
in some Irish journals, as the Belfast News 
Letter and the Wicklow News Lette?: 
Until a few years ago, Simnde7-s' News 
Letter was one of the best known of the 
Dublin newspapers. It was a bold venture 
of Nathaniel Butter to start a printed news- 
sheet, and possibly he had a very faint idea 
indeed of the miportant results destined to 
result from his act. Of course the wits of 
the time made merry over the little strip of 
paper — it was scarcely more — which appeared 
once a w'eek from Butter's lumbering press ; 
but then professional wits are generally ready 
enough to make merry over anything from 
which they think they can extract comic 
"copy" ; and, besides, the name of the pro- 
jector was tempting. In 1625, Ben Jonson 
produced at the Globe Theatre, Bankside, a 
satirical comedy, The Staple of News, in which 
he indulged in a fling at Butter and his 
associate, a well-known character about town, 
commonly known as "The Captain," who 
having been for years an oracle and gossip 
in Paul's Walk in the old cathedral, took 
to collecting such news as he could get for 
the benefit of the Weekely Newes. Jonson, 
in one of the scenes of the comedy, intro- 
duces a countrywoman, who tells the news- 
monger — 

■' I would have, Sir, 
A groat's worth of news, I care not what, 
To carry down this Saturday to our Vicar." 

The great man at the desk replies contemptu- 
ously, " Oh ! you are a butter-woman ; ask 
Nathaniel, the clerk, there." In Fletcher's 
Fair Maid of tlie Inn, one of the characters, 
referring to the probability of the appearance 
of an apparition, says, " It shall be the ghost 
of some lying stationer ; a spirit that shall 
look as if butter would not melt in his mouth, 
a new RIercurius Gallo Belgicics." Poor 
Butter ! his name was made the subject of 
quips and quibbles in his lifetime, and per- 
haps the Butter was sometimes pinched for 
bread. Should he not have a memorial as 
the father of English journalism ? 



Royalist and Parliamentary 
" Mercqries." 
Other collectors of news followed the lead 
of Nathaniel Butter, and various newspapers, 



or rather news-pamphlets, appeared in the 
reign of Charles I. and during the Common- 
wealth period. A writer in the Quarterly 
Review says : — " Those who have wandered 
in the vaults of the British Museum, and 
contemplated the vast collection of political 
pamphlets and the countless Mercuries which 
sprang full armed, on either side of that 
quarrel, from the strong and earnest brains 
which wrought in that great political trouble, 
will not hesitate to discover amidst the 
hubbub of the Rebellion the first throes of the 
pen of England as a political power." In 
these small sheets thei'e was little space for 
anything but brief news of fights and victories, 
and a few fierce polemical and political 
utterances ; and advertisements, in any mode, 
were as yet almost unknown. People made 
known their wants or announced their wares 
by means of the common crier, with his loud 
voice and .louder bell. But in January, 1652, 
a poetical genius, who wished to celebrate 
the achievements of Cromwell in Ireland, 
inserted a notice in the Parliamentary paper, 
Mercurius Politicus, of the publication of 
" An Heroick Poem," entitled " Irenodia 
Gratulatoria, being a congratulatory panegy- 
rick for my Lord General's late return, 
summing up his successes in an exquisite 
manner." After that other advertisements 
appeared, some of them strange enough to 
us who live under very different social con- 
ditions. 

While the great plague was raging in Lon- 
don in 1665 the Court reinoved to Oxford, 
and there was published The Oxford Gazette, 
for the purpose mainly of making Court and 
official announcements. When the King and 
the Ministers and Court officials returned to 
the metropolis, the name of the paper was 
changed to The London Gazette, which still 
survives, known by name to everybody, but 
scarcely ever seen by the general public. 

Sir Roger L'Estrange, who had been 
appointed Censor of the Press after the Res- 
toration — an office which would seem to imply 
that the swarm of little newspapers threatened 
to be troublesome to the King and his friends 
— began the Public Intelligencer in 1665, 
and the Odservator m 1679. In 16S8, the 
year in which Stuart James fled from Eng- 
land, and his daughter Mary and her husband 
William of Orange reigned in his stead, 
appeared the Orange Intelligencer, published 
twice a week, and consisting of a single leaf 
of paper about twice the size of the page now 
before our' reader's eyes. The first number of 
the Universal Intelligencer, which appeared 
about the same time, had two advertisements. 



Addison on Newsmongers. 
The eagerness for news, like the green-eyed 
monster Jealousy, described by Shakspeare, 
grew by what it fed on, and afforded 

195 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



matter for amusement to the graceful wits 
and social censors of the Augustan age, as it 
had done for the coarser and more robust 
satirists of Ben Jonson's time. In No. 
452 of the Spectator (itself, by the way, a 
successor under the same editor, Richard 
Steele, of the Tatler, which intermixed a little 
news with essays on morals and manners), 
Addison, heading the paper with a sage quo- 
tation from Pliny, to the effect that " human 
nature is fond of novelty," amuses himself 
by joking in his mild manner about the 
absorbing appetite for hearing and reading 
news displayed by the good folks of his day : 
" There is no humour in my countrymen 
which I am more inclined to wonder at than 
their general thirst after news." He suggests 
that the reading of history would be quite as 
exciting and much more satisfactory than the 
eager perusal of newspapers. "A honest 
tradesman, who languishes a whole summer 
in expectation of a battle, and perhaps is 
baulked at last, may here meet with half a 
dozen in a day. He may read the news of a 
whole campaign in less time than he now 
bestows upon the productions ofa single post. 
Fights, conquests, and revolutions lie thick 
together. The reader's curiosity is raised and 
satisfied every moment, and his passions 
disappointed or gratified, without being de- 
tained in a state of uncertainty from day to 
day, or lying at the mercy of sea and wind. 
In short, the mind is not here kept in a 
perpetualgape after knowledge, nor punished 
with that eternal thirst which is the portion 
of all our modern newsmongers and coffee- 
house politicians." 

The late Mr. Cobden was probably not so 
well read in Enghsh literature as is his friend 
Mr. Bright, and perhaps was unacquainted 
with this Spectator paper, or had forgotten it, 
when hemade his famous comparison between 
the educational value of the modern news- 
paper press and the literature of antiquity, 
and complained that while a large number of 
our young men knew all about the position 
of the cities of Greece, and the battles in 
which the Spartans and Athenians took part, 
they knew verylittle of contemporary matters, 
and could scarcely tell where, for instance, 
Chicago was situated, or what was done 
there. If by a spirit of prophecy Addison 
could have known of Cobden's utterance, it 
is hkely that he might have smiled serenely, 
but not at all likely that he would have altered 
a single word of the following passage : — 
" All matters of fact which a man did not 
know before are news to him ; and I do not 
see how any haberdasher in Cheapside is 
more concerned in the present quarrels of the 
Cantons [17 12] than he was in that of the 
League. At least, I believe everyone will allow 
me, it is of more importance to an English- 
man to know the history of his ancestors than 



those of his contemporaries who live upon 
the banks of the Danube or the Boristhenes." 

Satirical Suggestion of Local 
Newspapers. 
The placid Spectator then quotes a letter 
from an imaginary correspondent, "a projector 
who is willing to turn a penny by this remark- 
able curiosity of his countrymen," and who 
suggests the establishment of a local news- 
paper '' which shall comprehend in it all the 
most remarkable occurrences in every little 
town, village, and hamlet that lie within ten 
miles of London, or, in other words, within the 
verge of the penny post. Such a means of 
obtaining information will, I doubt not, be 
very acceptable to many of those public- 
spirited readers who take more delight in 
acquainting themselves with other people's 
business than their own." The intelligence 
to be furnished by such a paper is indicated 
by specimens : — " By my last advices from 
Knightsbridge, I hear that a horse was 
clapped into the pound on the 3rd instant, 
and that he was not released when the letters 
came away." " By a fisherman which lately 
touched at Hammersmith there is advice 
from Putney that a certain person well known 
in that place is like to lose his election for 
church warden ; but this being boat news, we 
cannot give credit to it." 

Addison had many gifts, but not the gift 
of the spirit of prophecy. Perhaps he 
imagined his suggestion of local or parochial 
newspapers was as unlikely to be realized as 
was another suggestion which appeared also 
in the Spectator, that two persons on opposite 
sides of the globe might be able to communi- 
cate almost instantaneously with each other. 
Yet both these wonders have come to pass. 
We send telegraphic messages to the anti- 
podes, and there are more than fifty local 
newspapers, confining themselves exclusively 
to the news of the neighbourhood in which 
they appear, published in the immediate 
vicinity of the metropolis. The city of 
London alone keeps two special newspapers 
well supplied with intelligence and advertise- 
ments mostly of purely local interest. How 
Addison would have smiled placidly, how 
Steele would have roared with laughter, how 
happily might Pope have turned an epigram, 
or Arbuthnot have launched a witticism, if 
anybody had seriously proposed an Acton, 
CJiiswick, and Turnham G)'een Gazette, yet 
such a publication has existed for more than 
a dozen years, and appears likely to exist for 
many years more ; and one metropolitan 
parish alone, St. Pancras, is represented by 
two local newspapers. We may learn a 
lesson from the pleasant "chaff" of Addison: 
How many of the propositions which appear 
comical or Utopian to us may be very prac- 
tical realities to the next generation. 
196 



THE PENNY NEWSPAPER. 



Imposition of a Stamp Duty. 

In the year that Addison wrote the Spec- 
tator from which we have quoted (1712), by 
an Act of Parliament (10 Anne, c. 19), a 
stamp duty of one penny was imposed for a 
period of thirty-two years. Ten years before, 
the first daily paper had appeared, the Daily 
Co7crant, the first number of which was 
pubhshed on the nth of March, 1702, by 
E. Mallet, at Fleet-bridge, the locality which 
has since been the cradle of nearly all the 
most influential London newspapers. At 
first it consisted of one page only, with a 
blank at the back. In those days, it would 
seem, there were no enterprising advertising 
agents to " farm " that page. 

Venerable Newspapers. 

Five newspapers established before the 
year 1700 in Great Britain, are still alive : — 
the London Gazette (1665), Cotcrse of the 
Exchange (1697), Berrow^s Worcester Jour- 
nal (1690), Stamjord Merctiry (1695), and 
the Edinburgh Gazette (1690) ; and seventy- 
four existing newspapers were first published 
in the last century, the oldest being the 
Edinburgh Courant (1705), the Notting- 
ham yournal (1710), and the Diddin Gazette 
(171 1). Several of the London dailies which 
have reached to our days were established in 
the last century — the Morning Post in 1722 ; 
the Morning Chronicle (extinct in 1862) in 
1769 ; the Public Ledger in 1759 ; the Morn- 
ing Herald (amalgamated with the Standard 
in 1869), and the Morning Advertiser in 
1794. In 1769, and for two years afterwards, 
a daily newspaper, the Pjiblic Advertiser, 
which had lingered for many years in com- 
parative obscurity, flashed into notoriety, and 
its issues were eagerly looked for, with fear 
and trembling by some, the reason being that 
the powerful and mysterious letters signed 
"Junius" appeared in its columns. 

In 1753 it was computed that the aggregate 
number of newspapers annually sold in Eng- 
land, on an average of three years, amounted 
to 7,411,757; in i76oit had risen to 9,464,790; 
and in 1767 to 11,300,980. In 1758, Johnson 
wrote in the Idler, " Journals are daily multi- 
plied without increase of knowledge. The 
most eager peruser of news is tired before he 
has completed his labours." 

Birth and Growth of the " Times." 

On the 13th of January, 1785, the first 
number of the London Daily Universal 
Register was published. Three years after- 
wards the proprietor changed its title and 
plan. John Walter was an acute and far- 
seeing man, a little over sanguine, perhaps, 
as to the advantage to be gained by the use 
of Lord Stanhope's " logographic " types, that 
is, with words and frequent combinations of 



letters, as affixes and prefixes, cast in one 
piece, and so presumably saving time in 
setting up, an advantage by no means 
realized. On New Year's Day, January 
1788, the I^ondon Daily Universal Register 
did not appear, but in its place there burst 
upon the world the Tinies, or Daily Universal 
Register, printed logographically, price three- 
pence. The imprint announced that it was 
printed for J. Walter, at the Logographic 
Press, Printing-house Square, near Apothe- 
caries' Hall, Blackfriars, and the addresses 
of persons of whom the newspaper could be 
obtained were given — among them, confec- 
tioners, watchmakers, and silk-dyers. The 
Times so issued was a great advance on 
previous efforts in journahsm. It consisted 
of four pages, each with four columns, and 
had sixty-three advertisements (including 
naval and official announcements). Poetry 
appeared in the paper, and there was a fair 
admixture of what might now be described 
as paragraphs of society gossip. How since 
then the Tifnes has grown, what influence 
it has exerted, how may writers of high 
political rank and consummate ability have 
contributed to its columns, what have been 
its achievements in obtaining early and 
ample news — a recital of all this would form a 
deeply interesting chapter of modern English 
history. On the 28th of November, 1814, 
the paper was printed on a steam printing 
machine, made by Konig, the first ever used ; 
and the latest machine now used for pro- 
ducing many of the largest newspapers was 
invented in the Times' office, and bears the 
name of the Walter Press. 

A Taxed and Dear Press. 
In the first quarter of the present century, 
about a hundred newspapers came into 
existence in the United Kingdom ; but they 
had to struggle against heavy imposts. In 
1776 the stamp duty had been raised to \\d. 
for every sheet ; in 1789 had been increased 
to 2d. ; in 1794 another halfpenny was added ; 
a penny more in 1797 ; and in 181 5, for every 
sheet issued, a fourpenny stamp was imposed ; 
and that rate continued until 1836, when it 
was reduced to \d. on the sheet and \d. on 
the supplement. In addition to the stamp, 
the paper duty, 3^^. per pound for printing 
paper, was levied ; and on every advertise- 
ment which appeared, no matter of what 
length, a duty of y. 6d. was imposed. The 
publisher of a newspaper was liable to very 
heavy penalties if he issued an unstamped 
copy, and was compelled, in London, to send 
every sheet of paper to Somerset House to 
be stamped before being printed on ; and in 
the country, to certain local branches of the 
Stamp Office. All the expenses of cartage, 
etc., and the paper duty had to be considered 
in fixing the price at which the public could 



197 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



obtain the newspaper, and every advertiser 
had to pay y. 6d. beyond the price at which 
the pubhsher would have been glad to insert 
the announcement, to meet the duty on 
advertisements. Advertisers were therefore 
few, and the publisher of a newspaper was 
compelled to depend almost entirely on the 
sale of the paper for support, the price being 
•consequently high. Newspapers now selling 
for twopence or a penny a copy then charged 
sevenpence or eightpence, and it was not 
particularly easy to make fortunes even on 
those terms. 

A Time of Poverty and Discontent. 
The working and poorer classes could 
rarely afford to purchase nev/spapers for them- 
selves. One copy was circulated among the 
customers of a public-house, or was clubbed 
for by a dozen readers, and was handed from 
hand to hand until worn to a rag. The 
period between the close of the great war in 
1815 and the introduction of the Reform Bill 
in 1 83 1 was a transition period of almost 
unexampled importance in the annals of this 
country. The poorer classes suffered terribly ; 
food was dear, wages low ; there were thou- 
sands on thousands of unemployed, and the 
introduction of machinery caused a panic, 
unfounded, indeed, but terrible in its results. 
Radicalism began to assume form, and con- 
sistency. The assertion of abstract rights, 
the denunciation of the aristocracy, which 
had been so conspicuous for a few years after 
the French Revolution, had been for a time 
in abeyance during the struggle against 
Napoleon and the outburst of national feel- 
ing against the French. Enthusiasts and 
doctrinaires still talked and wrote ; but the 
master passion of the people was hatred of 
the French — a fire fanned into almost uncon- 
trollable excitement by a victory at Trafalgar, 
or another achievement in the Peninsula by 
the Great Duke. Peace was signed, the war 
fever subsided, and the working classes at 
home were easily persuaded that the upper 
classes were their natural enemies, that manu- 
facturers and users of machinery were deadly 
tyrants, and that the Congress of Vienna 
was the first step towards a practical reasser- 
tion of the claim of princes and statesmen 
to do as they liked, quite independently of 
the wishes of the people. Riots broke out, 
machinery was destroyed by " Luddites," 
who professed to be led by a mythical Cap- 
tain Ludd (as unreal a personage as the 
Captain Rock of Ireland, or the Rebecca of 
Wales) ; and Luddites, when caught, were 
mercilessly hanged. Radical leaders with 
considerable oratorical powers, Radical 
writers ready with the pen, inflamed the 
popular mind. Meetings were held and 
suppressed by force. At St Peter's Field, 
long afterwards known as Peterloo, the 



site on which now stands the Free Trade 
Hall of Manchester, a meeting summoned 
by Henry Hunt to prepare a petition for the 
reform of Parliament was suppressed by 
military force, six persons being killed and 
many wounded. In the same year the 
famous, or infamous (some persons prefer 
the latter epithet). Six Acts, better known 
as the Gagging Acts, were passed for the 
purpose of suppressing seditious meetings. 

Suffering and writhing under what it v/as 
not unnatural to consider as oppression, 
hundreds and thousands of the working and 
lower middle classes cultivated this Radical- 
ism, and nursed their wrath. Resistance 
to political authority, if it dared not be open, 
was not the less sullen and resolute ; and 
with dislike to political authority was allied 
dislike and distrust of religious teaching. 
Freedom, it came to be thought (as it was 
thought in the revolutionary times in France), 
could only be achieved by a subversion of 
all institutions, and with the institutions 
must go the faiths on which they were 
based. Stronger and stronger grew these 
volcanic forces, more alarming the indica- 
tions of a possible earthquake. The Reform 
riots were an ominous muttering, and the 
concession on the part of King and Lords 
was none too early. The popular leaders 
naturally desired an outlet in the news- 
paper press for the advocacy of their 
opinions ; but the press was so heavily 
weighted that the influence of even the 
most democratic journals was comparatively 
feeble ; and the law which rendered the pub- 
lishers of newspapers liable to imprisonment 
and fine for articles offensive to the Crown 
or the Government was an additional check 
of no slight povven A free press was 
demanded, but a free press was exactly 
what the Ministers of the day were not 
disposed to concede. 

Defying and Evading the Law. 
A few active spirits on the popular side 
resolved to evade, or even defy, the law. The 
people, in the language of a writei' of the 
time, were "hungry and thirsty for news and 
political controversy." Weekly pamphlets 
appeared with digests of general news and 
political information, and sold for twopence 

I a copy. They were eagerly bought, for a 
regular newspaper could not be procured for 
less than sevenpence. In 1830, Mr. William 
Carpenter, a journalist, a clear and forcible 
writer, possessed of considerable political 
information and an ardent Radical, dis- 
covered, as he sup[)osed, a mode by which he 
could produce an equivalent to a newspaper, 
and yet evade the law. The result proved 

! that he was more ingenious than successful. 

I He issued a prospectus of a puWication 

I entitled Political Letter, and headed the 

98 



THE PENNY NEWSPAPER. 



.•announcement with the title, " Liberty of the 
Press Asserted." After adverting to and 
denouncing the Acts of Parliament by which 
the publication of newspapers was regulated, 
Mr. Carpenter proceeded to say that he had 
-discovered a method of evading them. He 
intended to bring out his publication at 
irregular periods, and in such a form that the 
numbers would be apparently unconnected 
with each other. It was astonishing, he 
remarked, that persons connected with the 
newspaper trade had not already discovered 
so obvious a mode of evading the law. His 
publication would assume the form of a 
""Political Letter," addressed to a friend or 
enemy, as the case inight be, and containing 
a comprehensive digest of important events 
and passing occurrences, with original obser- 
vations by himself The price of each 
^' Political Letter " was to be fourpence ; and 
as no newspaper which paid the stamp duty 
-could be brought out at that price, he 
reckoned on a circulation extensive in pro- 
portion to the cheapness of the paper. 
Being a practical man, v/ith an eye to busi- 
ness, Mr. Carpenter reminded advertisers 
that his publication afforded them a capital 
opportunity of appealing to the purchasing 
public. In the first number, " A Letter to the 
Duke of Wellington," Mr. Carpenter said : 
■"' Believing that your Grace is often greatly 
misled as to what is going forward in the 
world, I have resolved to avail myself of this 
correspondence to lay before you a faithful 
chronicle of passing events, from which I 
am sure your Grace will not fail to derive 
materials for serious reflection, and for the 
framing, also, of some public measure of 
importance." Then follows a summary of 
intelligence from France, Belgium, and other 
places. In the next number, "A Monitory 
Letter to Sir Robert Peel," that statesman is 
treated to reports of a parish meeting in St. 
Pancras, of a political bancjuet at Birming- 
ham, and of stack-burning and other out- 
arages in Kent, besides the official summary 
of the state of the revenue, a considerable 
amount of foreign intelligence, doings in the 
•corn, hay, and meat markets, and in the 
money market, preceded by the announce- 
ment, " The following information, Sir Robert, 
will be useful to you." 

A Success and a Prosecution. 

The first " Political Letter " appeared in 
an octavo form, but was so successful that a 
larger page was adopted, with woodcut 
caricatures and devices as headings, very 
much in the style of George Cruikshank's 
illustrations to the pamphlets and political 
skits published by William Hone, but 
exhibiting far less humour and finish, and 
probably by Robert Cruikshank, George's 
brother and far-oif imitator. The circula- 



tion, about S,ooo for the first " Letter," made 
a jump to 19,000, and ultimately reached 
63,000, a prodigious number for those days. 
Of course the Government determined to 
take action in the matter ; but the Duke of 
Wellington's administration went out of 
office in November 1830, and Earl Grey's 
ministry, which followed, had for a time 
other matters to think about. At length, 
however, on the 14th of May, 1831, Mr. 
William Carpenter appeared in the Court of 
Exchequer on an information filed by the 
Attorney-General (Sir Thomas Denman, 
subsequently Lord Chief Justice), at the 
instance of the Commissioners of the Stamp 
Duties. The information contained twelve 
counts, in some of which the defendant was 
charged with having published and exposed 
for sale a certain weekly newspaper without 
having previously made and deposited in the 
office of the Commissioners the affidavit 
required in such cases by the 38th George 
III., c. 78. For every insta.nce of publication 
without such affidavit the defendant became 
liable to a penalty of ^100. In other counts 
the defendant was charged with " having on 
divers days " published a weekly newspaper, 
without having paid the duty of fourpence 
imposed upon every number of every such 
paper, by the 55th of the same King ; and 
for every omission in the payment of the 
duty he had incurred a penalty of £10. The 
publication was charged to have taken place 
upon the 9th of October, 1830, and on six- 
teen other subsequent days, and the descrip- 
tion of the paper was varied by calling it 
" a paper answering the purposes of a 
newspaper, and containing news, intel- 
ligence, or occurrences." The Attorney- 
General contended that the publication was 
a newspaper according to the definition 
given of a newspaper in the Act 60, George 
III., cap. 9 : — "All pamphlets and papers 
containing any public news, intelligence, or 
occurrences, or any remarks or observations 
thereon, or upon any matter in Church and 
State, printed in any part of the United 
Kingdom, for sale, and published periodi- 
cally, or in parts or numbers, at intervals 
not exceeding twenty-six days between the 
publication of any two such pamphlets or 
papers, parts or numbers, where any of the 
said pamphlets or papers, parts or numbers 
respectively, shall not exceed two sheets, or 
shall be published for a less sum than six- 
pence exclusive of the duty, shall be deemed 
and taken to be newspapers, within the true 
intent and meaning of the several statutes." 
Mr. Carpenter addressed the jury for six 
hours ; but the Lord Chief Baron (Lord Lynd- 
hurst) said, in summing up, that he was most 
clearly of opinion that the paper was a news- 
paper, and the jury returned a verdict for 
the Crown. The Attorney-General pressed 



199 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



for only one penalty for each class of 
offences, amounting to only ^120 ; but the 
defendant was of course liable for the amount 
of the stamp duty on the whole of his pub- 
lication. 

Yielding to the necessities of the case, Mr. 
Carpenter took out a stamp, so converting 
his publication into a regular newspaper, and 
charged sevenpence a copy. The result was 
an immediate fall of the circulation to five 
hundred, and very soon afterwards the 
" Letters " died. The former purchasers not 
only objected to the increased price, but the 
publication was no longer a defiance of the 
law, and was therefore uninteresting. 



impressed at Somerset House on news- 
papers; but in the centre was the repre- 
sentation of a printing-press, with " Liberty 
of the Press " marked on the sheet just lifted 
from the types ; and above and below it, in 
the places filled in the real stamp by the 
amount of the duty, the phrase, " Knowledge 
is power." In the prehminary announce- 
ment on the first page, there was an 
abundance of italics, capitals, and dashes, 
then considered essential to vigorous 
political writing, and so plentifully em- 
ployed by Cobbett and others. A short 
specimen may be enough for more modern 
readers : — 




The Walter Press. 



William Hetherington in the Field. 
Another and more doughty champion, 
with a clearer perception of the popular 
taste, then appeared in the field. William 
Hetherington, a bookseller and newsvendor 
in the neighbourhood of Holborn, published 
on the 9th of July, 1831, the first number, 
price one penny, of the Poor Man's Guar- 
dian, announcing it to be " established 
contrary to law, to try the power of 
might against right." It consisted of eight 
pages, about the size of the well-known 
Family Herald of later days. In the upper 
corner of the first page appeared a device 
j-esembling in size and shape the stamp then 



" We buckle on our armour of patience and per- 
severance—we draw forth our sword of reason, and 
we brave the whole host of tyranny. Defiance is our 
only remedy ; — we cannot be a slave in all : we 
submit to much— for it is impossible to be wholly 
consistent — but we will try, step by step, the power 
of RIGHT against might, and we will begin by pro- 
tecting and upholding this grand bulwark and 
defence of all our rights— this key to all our liberties 

— THE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS — the press, ioo, of 

the IGNORANT and the POOR ! We have taken upon 
ourselves its protection, and we will never abandon 
our post ; we will die rather . . . ' THE POOR MAN'S 
guardian' will contain 'news, intelligence, and 
occurrences^ and ' remarks and observations thereon^ 
and ' iipon matters in. Church a?id State, leading, 
decidedly, to excite hatred and contempt of the Govern- 
ment and Constitution of the tyramiy of this country, 
as BY LAW established, ' and also ' to vilify the abuses 



THE PENNY NEWSPAPER. 



of religion'' . . . despite the 'laws' or the will and 
pleasure of auy tyiant or a7i.y body of tyrants, what- 
soever, anything hereinbefore, or any-where-else, 
contained to the contrary, notwithstanding." 

This comical and audacious paraphrase of 
the technical language of the Act of Parlia- 
ment he was so deliberately violating was 
rather a neat specimen of Mr. Hetherington's 
vein of humour. The first number contained 
reports of Mr. Hetherington's appeal to the 
Middlesex Sessions against a conviction 
obtained by the Corhmissioner of StnmDs 
at Bow Street 
Police Court ; 
of the trial of 
Cobbett for 
publishing an 
article in his 
"Register;" 
and articles on \ 
the trial of i 
the Rev. R. 
Taylor for 
b 1 a s p h e my, 
and the pro- 
ceedings in 
Parliament, 
with abun- 
dance of 
italics and 
capitals, inter- 
iections of 
"Oh! oh!" 
and "Ha! 
ha !" and an 
amount of 
strong lan- 
guage and 
full-flavoured 
e p i t h e t s 
rather trying to 
the nerves of 
readers accus- 
tomed to the 
more elegant 
and certainly 
not less vigor- 
ous journalism 
of the present 
day. 

Many Prosecutions and Punishments. 

Between 1831 and 1835, about seven 
hundred prosecutions for selling unstamped 
newspapers were instituted, and nearly rive 
hundred persons suffered rine or imprison- 
ment. Some of the offenders were mere 
sellers, whose political opinions were nil ; 
others, like Hetherington, were men of con- 
siderable ability, who fought for a cause as 
well as for the means of establishing a pro- 
fitable trade in cheap newspapers. One of 
these men was John Cleave, a dealer in 
newspapers and periodicals, who was after- 



wards a prominent, able, and temperate 
member of the Chartists' Convention which 
met in the large room of the Dr. Johnson 
Tavern in Bolt Court, Fleet Street, a year or 
two before the abortive demonstration on 
Kensington Common, in which Chartist 
agitation ended so ignominiously. 

One of the projects for evading the stamp 
duty was the production of a "Political 
Handkerchief," on which items of news and 
comments should be printed, which would, 
the suggestor argued, " answer all the ends 

of a weekly 
j ournal." 
We wonder 
whether 
Dickens was 
thinking oi 
this when he 
made Old 
Weller talk 
about send- 
ing "moral 
pockethand- 
kerchers to 
the young 
niggers." 

There was 
unquestiona- 
bly a wide- 
spread sym- 
pathy with 
the persis- 
tent attempts 
to obtain a 
cheap press. 
Politicians of 
the " a d - 
vanced " or- 
der desired 
an extended 
means of ap- 
pealing to 
the masses of 
the people ; 
and men of 
literary tastes 
o b j e c t e d in 
the abstract to 
the " taxes on 
knowledge," as the imposts began to be 
called. A Parliamentary champion of great 
popularity as an author and no mean 
powers as an orator soon appeared upon 
the scene. 

" PELHAM " TO THE RESCUE. 

On the 14th of June, 1832, the author of 
"Pelham," Mr.Edward Lytton Bulwer,moved 
in the House of Commons these four resolu- 
tions : — '' I, That all taxes which impede the 
diffusion of knowledge are injurious to the 
best interests of the people ; 2, That it is pecu- 
liarly expedient at the present time to repeal 




Mr. Kwart .moving the Repeal of the Advertisement Duty. 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the stamp duty on newspapers ; 3, That it is 
also peculiarly expedient to repeal or to 
reduce the duty on advertisements ; 4, That 
it is expedient, in order to meet the present 
state of the revenue, to appoint a select com- 
mittee to consider the propriety of establish- 
ing a cheap postage on newspapers and other 
publications." In his speech he remarked, 
" A newspaper was in truth almost the only 
publication (rehgious ones excepted) that the 
poorer classes were ever tempted to read ; 
and above all, it was the only one in which 
they could learn those laws for the trans- 
gression of which ignorance was no excuse. 
A newspaper, then, was among the most 
popular and effectual modes of instructing 
the people." The speaker then proceeded to 
describe the existing taxes on newspapers, — • 
a duty of threepence per pound weight on 
the paper, or about a farthing a sheet ; a 
duty of fourpence on every copy of a weekly 
paper, with a discount of twenty per cent^ for 
a daily paper, and a tax of 3^-. 6d. upon 
every advertisement. Comparing the results 
of an untaxed press in America with a taxed 
press in this country, he showed that in the 
British Islands there was only one paper a 
week for every thirty-six of the population, 
while in Pennsylvania there was a newspaper 
to every fourth inhabitant. The cause of 
this discrepancy was that in one country the 
newspaper sold for less than a fourth of 
what it sold for in the other. In one year 
twelve of the daily papers in New York had 
published 1,456,416 advertisements ; but in 
the same year the 400 papers of Great 
Britain had published 1,020,000 advertise- 
ments. In America, advertisements could 
be inserted at a low rate ; in this country, in 
consequence of the duty levied by Govern- 
ment, the price was high, "the charge for 
the insertion of an advertisement of twenty 
lines in a London paper, if published every 
day throughout the year, would' amount at 
the year's end to ^202 16s. In New York, 
the same advertisement for the same period 
would be ^6 18^. 8rf." 

It was scarcely fair, however, for Mr. 
Bulvver to attribute all this "preposterous 
disparity "' to the advertisement duty, which 
on the 313 insertions in the London daily 
paper amounted only to ^54 15^., the 
remainder of the total being charged by the 
proprietors of the paper ; and, after all, the 
balance of the charge (^148 \s. od.), after 
deducting the duty, was a matter for the 
consideration of the advertiser himself, for if 
he had not derived an advantage from paying 
tt, he would have ceased to do so ; and that 
advantage probably was greatly in excess of 
that experienced by the New York advertiser 
who paid only a little less than £7 in the 
course of the year. 



Cheap Postage Suggested. 

To compensate in some measure for the 
removal of the stamp and advertisement 
duties, Mr. Bulwer suggested a cheap 
postage for printed matter, that all news- 
papers, poems, pamphlets, tracts, circulars, 
printed publications of whatever descrip- 
tion and weighing less than two ounces, 
should circulate, through the medium of 
the General Post, at the rate of one penny ; if 
through the twopenny or threepenny post, at a 
halfpenny. He would also propose that all 
works under five ounces should circulate 
through the same channels, and at a low and 
graduated charge. Bulwer has many claims 
on the admiration of his countrymen ; but, 
perhaps, few persons know how nearly he 
approached the proposition for establishing 
cheap postage. In the course of his speech 
he asked, " What could be so monstrous a 
principle as that any tax should be requisite 
for a man to publish his opinions 1 A tax on 
opinion is a persecution of opinion ; it is a 
persecution of poverty also. If we say that 
no one shall declare his sentiments without 
paying a certain sum, and if, not being able 
to afford that sum, he yet does publish his 
sentiments, and is fined (that is, in conse- 
quence of his poverty, cast into prison) for 
the offence, you punish him not for the badness 
of his opinions, but you punish him, that, being 
poor, he yet dares to express opinions at all. 
We have been monopolizing the distribution 
of other blessings, let us, at least, leave 
opinion untaxed, unfettered, the property of 
all men. ... Is it not time to consider 
whether the printer and his types may not 
provide better for the peace and honour of a 
free state than the jailer and the hangman ? — 
whether, in one word, cheap knowledge may 
not be a better political agent than costly 
punishment ? " 

Lord Althorp, on the part of the Govern- 
ment', thinking that it was not a fitting time for 
discussing the subject, which required a con- 
siderable amount of preliminary inquiry, and 
involved financial considerations, moved the 
previous question. Mr. O'Connell, in a brief 
and temperate speech, supported the reso- 
lution ; and after some debate, Mr. Bulvver, 
yielding to what he perceived to be the 
general feeling of the House, withdrew his 
motion, announcing, however, that he would 
reintroduce it at some future time. 

Vested Interests. 

The proprietors of the existing newspapers 
were by no means anxious for a i-eduction of 
the duties, Avhich would bring a host of 
rivals into the field. Readers were daily 
increasing, and their only choice lay among 
the journals de facto. The stamp, advertise- 
ments and paper duties were paid by the 



THE PENNY NEWSPAPER. 



publit, not by the owners of the newspapers, 
who, perhaps, however, would not have 
objected to a shght reduction of the adver- 
tisement duty sufficient to attract more 
advertisers, but not to encourage new ventures 
in journahsm. The London daily papers 
were the Times, steadily rising in circulation 
and influence ; the Morning Chronicle, a 
formidable rival ; the Morning Post, beloved 
of the fashionable world ; the Morning 
Herald, champion of the Tories and the 
clergy (sometimes disrespectfully styled " my 
grandmother"), and \!a.& Morning Advei'tiser, 
the publicans' paper. There were three 
-evening papers, the Standard, Tory, under 
the editorship of Dr. Giffard, a slashing 
writer ; the Courier, a very ably conducted 
journal, and enterprising in the matter of 
foreign news ; and the Globe, a Whig organ. 
The leading weeklies were, for the agricultu- 
rally minded country gentlemen. Bell's IVeekly 
Messenger J the Observer, credited with 
extraordinary means of obtaining political 
and official information ; BelV s Life in 
Eondon, the oracle without a rival of all who 
were interested in horse-racing, pugilism, 
ratting, pedestrianism, yachting, and angling ; 
the Sunday Times, started by the once ardent 
Radical, Daniel Whittle Harvey, Member for 
Finsbury, and afterwards Commissioner of 
the City Police ; and, last and biggest, the 
Weekly Dispatch, Radical to the backbone. 
The last-named newspaper had attained an 
enormous circulation for those times, by its 
vigorous denunciation of the Police and the 
new Poor Laws ; the audacious and often 
outrageously outspoken letters signed " Pubh- 
cola," written by Daniel Williams, and letters 
of a different kind, signed " Censorius," by a 
writer named Whittle, who attacked com- 
mon informers and tricks of trade generally. 
This great Radical paper, of course, had, 
in the abstract, the greatest desire to advo- 
cate popular liberties, but could scarcely 
be expected to approve of the conduct of 
Hetherington, when he started an unstamped 
Eondon Dispatch, imitating the tone as well 
as the title of the original, and selling it for 
less than a third of the price. The provincial 
newspapers, many of which are now so able 
and influential, rivalling the leading metro- 
politan organs, were little known beyond their 
own localities, and did not possess London 
offices and agents in Fleet Street as they do 
now. At this time there were about3oo news- 
papers in existence in the United Kmgdom. 

Reduction of the Duties. 
In 7833, the advertisement duty was 
reduced to is. 6d. ; and in 1836, the stamp 
duty was lowered to id. In that year, we 
hnd from an official return, 36,000,000 stamps 
were impressed. The opposition to " the 
taxes on knowledge " — a phrase by that time 



in general use — grew in activity. An asso- 
ciation was formed, with an active secretary, 
Mr. Collet, and no exertions were spared 
to interest the people in the subject, and 
urge upon Parliament the necessity of 
repealing the taxation. That such a remis- 
sion was right in principle few denied ; 
and it was only because they could not see 
their way to sparing the money that one 
Chancellor of the Exchequer after another 
turned a deaf ear to the appeal. Newspaper 
proprietors saw that it must come, and 
"resigned themselves to the inevitable," 
doing their best in the meanwhile to " make 
hay while the sun shone." The Times was 
a colossal property, priding itself on being 
one of the institutions of the country, and 
could afford to smile at the idea of competi- 
tion ; the Dispatch yielded a profit of about 
^20,000 a year to the proprietors, and, with 
an enormous capital at command, hoped to 
be able to hold its own. There was, in those 
days, no Renter to supply telegraphic in- 
formation (the telegraph, like Guy Fawkes 
in the once popular comic song, " warn't 
aborn till arter that ") to all comers at a 
fixed rental, and intelligence of important 
events could only be obtained at a great 
outlay, by relays of post-horses, mounted 
messengers, and, as railways became avail- 
able, by special engines, costing large sums 
of money. No doubt if the imposts were 
removed, many new journals would be 
started ; but something more than ambition 
and enterprise would be required, and the 
wealthy occupiers of the position knew by 
experience — an experience very amply con- 
firmed in later years— that although some 
large fortunes could be made, many more 
could be lost in newspaper speculations. 

Publication of the Stai\ip Returns. 
One incident of the stamp duty was 
objectionable to some newspaper proprietors, 
— the annual publication of the number of 
stamps issued, specifying the number required 
by each newspaper. As a stamp on every 
copy was compulsory, of course the circula- 
tion of each journal was made known, and 
advertisers were able to judge of the advan- 
tages offered. The great newspapers were 
pleased with this, because their superiority in 
circulation was officially announced ; but the 
others objected to their comparative poverty 
being made known. So great, on the whole, 
was the objection to this return, that it was 
discontinued in 1837 ; but when a committee 
(the proceedings of which will presently be 
referred to) was appointed in 1851, it called 
for the omitted returns, and they were pub- 
lished as an appendix to the report. Early 
in the session of 1853, Mr. Brotherton 
moved for a continuation of the return, but 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Glad- 



203 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



stone) refused to assent to the motion, on 
the ground that it would be an unjustifi- 
able interference with the private business 
of the proprietors of newspapers, and the 
Government objected to publish private 
information respecting any classes of persons 
en"-aged in business— "the returns of income 
might as well be made public." Mr. Brother- 
ton withdrew the motion. 

Mr. Ewart's Motion. 
The Parhamentary advocates of the remis- 
sion of the taxes were not idle. On the yth of 

May, 1850, Mr. 

Ewart intro- 
duced a resolu- 
tion for the re- 
peal of the ad- 
vert! sement 

duty, described 

by him as " a 

tax which 

pressed upon 

literature to such 

a degree that 

Mr. M'CuUoch 

did not hesitate 

to characterize 

it as amongst 

the heaviest 

burdens in the 

way of taxation 

that impeded the 

production of 

literary works 

It was a tax on 

the poor, for the 

humble authoi 

of a sixpenn\ 

pamphlet. the 

distressed 

needlewoman on 

her appeal foi 
employment, 
paid as heav} 
a tax as the 
wealthier capi 
talist upon the 
amount of a 
vast estate foi 
sale." Previous 
to the reduc- 
tion of the duty in 1833, the number of 
advertisements in newspapers averaged 
700,000 or 800,000 a year ; but after the 
reduction they gradually increased until 
they reached about 2,000,000 annually ; and, 
argued Mr. Ewart, that increase was un- 
doubtedly due to the reduction of the duty 
from 3J. 6^. to \s. 6d. Mr. Milner Gibson 
seconded the resolution. Sir Charles Wood, 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, opposed 
the motion on the part of the Government. 
" It was utterly impossible," he said, " that 



the financial credit of the country could be 
sustained if all the sources of pubHc income 
were frittered away," — a discovery certainly 
very creditable to the astuteness of the 
Chancellor. On a division, the resolution 
was supported by 39 votes ; but there were 
208 against it. Among those who voted in the 
minority were Hume, Cobden, and Bright. 

A Rich Harvest of Advertisements; 
The Railway Mania. 
A striking proof of the pecuniary value of 
advertisements to newspaper proprietors was 

afforded at the 

time of the great 
railway mania of 
1845, when so 
many schemes 
were launched, 
when draughts- 
m e n were 
worked to death 
m preparing 
plans to be de- 
posited at the 
Board of Trade, 
when extem- 
porised sur- 
veyors and 
levellers 
cropped up by 
the thousand, 
and when the 
newspapers pub- 
lished sixteen or 
even twenty-four 
extra pages of 
advertisements, 
the prospectuses 
of new lines 
possible or im- 
possible. Dozens 
of newspapers 
assuming rail- 
way titles were 
started for the 
sake of the ad- 
ver tisements, 
and for a few 
weeks went on 
merrily. One 
daily paper, 
even, the Iro^t Times, was launched by 
a clever journalist, Thomas Littleton Holt, 
who had gained a large experience as a 
projector of periodicals, and for a time it 
was a flourishing concern. When the adver- 
tisements disappeared, when " stags " ceased 
to gamble around the Stock Exchange, and 
"scrip" was no more the absorbing subject 
of everybody's talk, the papers vanished as 
suddenly as they had appeared, and the 
ingenious projectors were left to seek new 
resources in " fresh fields and pastures new. 




MiLNER Gibson opposing the Taxes on Knowledge 



204 



THE PENNY NEWSPAPER. 



Report of a Parliamentary Committee. 

On the 7th of April, 185 1, a Select Com- 
mittee of the House of Commons was 
appointed to inquire into the present state 
and condition of newspaper stamps. The 
members were — Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. 
Tufnell, Mr. Ker Seymer, Mr. Rich, Mr. 
Stafford, Mr. Cobden, Mr. G. A. Hamilton, 
Sir Joseph Walmsley, Sir T. F. Lewis, Mr. 
Chichester Fortescue, Colonel Mure, Mr. 
Shafto Adair, Mr. Ewart, Mr. Sotheran, and 
Sir W. Molesworth. A considerable number 
of witnesses, among them several proprietors 
and managers of important newspapers, were 
examined ; and on the conclusion of their 
labours the Committee reported to the 
House; and there can be little doubt that 
the report considerably influenced Parlia- 
mentary opinion. In the last paragraphs 
the Committee said : — 

" The established newspapers, particularly 
the London daily press, collect the valuable 
information which they report to the public 
at a very great expense, and publish it at a 
very costly celerity. It has been stated, that 
if the newspaper duty were abolished, there 
would be a great temptation to the numerous 
halfpenny and penny pubhcations which 
would then spring up to pirate the public 
intelligence collected at so much cost 
and exertion. It has been proposed that 
some short privilege of copyright should 
therefore be conferred. In conclusion, your 
Committee consider it their duty to direct 
attention to the objections and abuses 
incident to the present system of newspaper 
stamps, arising from the difficulty of defin- 
ing and determining the meaning of the 
term ' news,' and the inequalities which 
exist in the application of the Newspaper 
Stamp Act, and the anomalies and evasions 
that it occasions in postal arrangements ; to 
the unfair competition to which stamped 
newspapers are exposed with unstamped 
publications ; to the limitation imposed by 
the stamp upon the circulation of the best 
newspapers, and to the impediment which it 
throws in the way of the diffusion of useful 
knowledge regarding current and recent 
events among the poorer classes, which 
species of knowledge, relating to subjects 
which most obviously interest them, call out 
the intelligence by awakening the curiosity 
of those classes. How far it may be expedi- 
ent that this tax should be maintained as a 
source of revenue, either in its present or any 
modified form, your Committee do not feel 
themselves called upon to state ; other con- 
siderations not within their province would 
anter into that question. But, apart from 
financial considerations, they do not consider 
that news is of itself a desii'able subject of 
taxation." 



Effect of the Stamp on Supplements. 

In the next session (April 22nd, 1852), Mr. 
Milner Gibson, who had on the former 
occasion supported Mr. Ewart, took the lead 
in opposing the taxes on knowledge by pro- 
posing resolutions on the subject. He 
asserted, on the authority of Mr. Mowbray 
Morris, manager of the Times, that the 
effect of the stamp duty on the supplements 
(one halfpenny) was to render it necessary 
for the managers to prevent the circulation 
going beyond a certain amount ; for when 
the fund for the advertisements in supple- 
ments was exhausted, then, as far as the 
supplement was concerned, profit ended and 
loss began, so that the circulation must be 
stopped. " Thus," continued Mr. Gibson, 
" the effect of the stamp is first to lessen the 
circulation of the leading paper to half what 
it might be, and also to effect all the other 
papers by causing a declining circulation, 
and, what was worse than all, to prevent the 
working classes from having any newspaper 
at all." 

The resolution affecting the paper duty — 
" That such financial arrangements ought to 
be made as will enable Parliament to dis- 
pense with the duty on paper"— was first 
debated. Mr. Disraeli, Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, opposed the resolution, not on 
principle, but because " we must consider 
the ability which we have to relieve the 
industry of the country, and which is the 
wisest direction in which we can move, so as 
to redress any wrong or to effect any good." 
On the resumption of the debate a fortnight 
afterwards, Rlr. Cowan, Member for Edin- 
burgh, and a paper manufacturer, supported 
the resolution, and Mr. Gladstone spoke at 
some length, to the effect that he objected to 
support an abstract resolution which might 
embarrass the Government in its financial 
plans, but he should be heartily glad when 
the time came that the duty might be 
repealed. Mr. Hume spoke strongly in 
favour of the resolution, reminding the 
House that the question was not that they 
should immediately repeal the paper duty, 
but that financial arrangements ought to be 
made which would enable Parliament to dis- 
pense with that duty ; and, with regard to 
the results of its removal, he said that he 
knew of persons who were at that moment 
ready to embark ^20,000 in a daily news- 
paper to be sold for a halfpenny. The three 
resolutions were lost by majorities of 88, 99, 
and 65. 

Dickens's " Household Narrative." 
A new interest was imparted to the ques- 
tion in the following December. Mr. Charles 
Dickens had started a monthly summary 
of news, entitled the Household Narrative, 



205 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



similar in size and general appearance to 
his popular HotiseJiold Words. The idea 
was not original, for nearly twenty years 
before, at the time when Carpenter and 
Hetherington were endeavouring to establish 
unstampednewspapers,thebrothers Chambers 
of Edinburgh started Chainber^ Historical 
Newspaper, to be published on the ist of 
every month, at the price of threehalfpence. 
The first number, of sixteen pages folio, ap- 
peared on Friday, November 2nd, 1832. The 
publication not only called itself a news- 
paper, but actually was one, containing 
foreign, colonial and home news, " latest 
news of the month," prices of the public funds, 
lists of bankrupts, etc., etc., and social and 
political leaders. At the end of three years 
it was discontinued. 

Although sanctioned by this precedent, the 
Stanip Office authorities considered the 
Household Narrative\.o be a newspaper within 
the meaning of the Act, although published 
at intervals of more than twenty-six days, 
and therefore liable to stamp duty. An 
information was filed against Messrs. Brad- 
bury and Evans, the publishers ; and three 
of the four judges of the Court of Exchequer 
were of opinion that the publication was 
liable to the duty, but Mr. Baron Parke 
held that it was not liable. An appeal to 
the Court of Exchequer Chamber would 
have been made, but Lord Derby's ministry 
went out of office on the 17th of Decem- 
ber, and was succeeded by the ministry 
formed by the Earl of Aberdeen. Mr. 
Gladstone, the new Chancellor of the Exche- 
quer, thought it right to adhere to the 
opinion of the majority of the Court; and being 
extremely anxious, for the sake of literature, 
to prevent the litigation likely to occur, in 
order to settle the question definitely, the 
Attorney-General, Sir Alexander Cockburn, 
obtained leave to bring in a Bill to amend 
the law, and give a substantive definition of 
a newspaper which would exclude from the 
operation of the stamp duty the publication 
in question, and other publications of a like 
nature containing news, but not published at 
intervals of less that twenty-six days. On 
the second reading of the Bill, the Attorney- 
General pointed out that, under the existing 
definition, a paper sold for more than six- 
pence was not liable to the duty. The object 
was to establish the law and make it uniform 
with regard to all classes of newspapers, 
whether large or small. The Bill was read a 
second time without a division, and receiving 
no opposition in the Lords^ became law. 

Success of Mr. Milner Gibson. 

The early part of the session of 1853 was 
marked by another effort on the part of Mr. 
Milner Gibson, who, on the 14th of April, a 



few days before the time fixed for the intro- 
duction of the Budget, again submitted his 
three resolutions, and notwithstanding the 
protest of Mr. Gladstone against abstract 
resolutions on financial matters before th© 
introduction of the ministerial scheme, carried 
that which referred to the advertisement 
duty by a majority of 31, the number being 
200 to 169. The resolution respecting the 
newspaper stamp was lost by 98 to 280. 

It was almost compulsory on Mr. Glad- 
stone to include a reduction, if not abolition^ 
of the advertisement duty in his Budget. A 
resolution passed by a considerable majority 
of the House must not be shghted even by 
the most powerful of ministers. The Budget 
was introduced four days after the discus- 
sions on Mr. Gibson's resolutions ; and Mr. 
Gladstone proposed to discontinue the stamps 
on newspaper supplements, and to reduce the 
advertisement duty to sixpence. He was 
evidently annoyed at the interference by 
resolution with his carefully prepared scheme. 
In the previous debate he had said that if 
the House undertook to settle the ways and 
means by resolutions introduced by private 
members, the office of Chancellor of the 
Exchequer might as well be abolished. 

When, on the ist of July, the resolution for 
reducing the advertisement duty to sixpence 
was formally put to the Committee, Mr. 
Milner Gibson moved as an amendment 
" that all duties now chargeable on advertise- 
ments be repealed in accordance with a 
resolution of the House on the 14th of April 
last." Mr. Cobden supported the amend- 
ment, which, however, was rejected by a 
majority of 12 ; 97 voting for it, and 
109 against. Mr. Crawford then moved, 
that instead of the figure 6, a cipher (o) should 
be inserted. On a division the Government 
was beaten by a majority of five ; and when 
the amended resolution was put as a substan- 
tive motion it was carried by 70 against 
60. The mode of procedure appeared 
unusual, and Mr. Hume, who certainly was 
in favour of the remission of the duty, asked 
the Speaker if the House were in order in 
carrying a resolution so worded. The 
Speaker decided that the amendment was 
strictly in order ; and so, to the unconcealed 
annoyance of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,, 
the duty on advertisements passed into the 
limbo of dead imposts, and was seen no 
more. 

Abolition of the Newspaper Stamp. 
One great step in advance had been made, 
but much more remained to be achieved. 
In 1854, the indomitable Mr. Milner Gibsork 
succeeded in carrying a resolution in favour 
of discontinuing the stamp ; and in the 
following session an Act (18 and 19 Vic. cap. 
27) was passed, by which the stamp on 
206 



THE PENNY NEWSPAPER. 



newspapers, as such, was abolished, except 
that it would be employed henceforth for 
postal purposes only. 

In introducing the Bill, tfie Chancellor of 
the Exchequer, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, 
acknowledged that the subject had become 
"not simply a question whether we shall 
retain, or shall not retain, a revenue of 
_;;^20o,ooo, but it is whether we shall enter on 
a crusade against a large portion of the 
existing newspaper press for the sake of 
enforcing a law which can only be enforced 
by the verdicts of juries, which are sometimes 
doubtful in their result." The second read- 
ing of the Bill was carried in the Commons 
by a majority of 54, and in the Lords no 
division took place. 

The public received the benefit of the 
reduction, paying a penny less for a news- 
paper ; and of course the circulation of the 
journals increased considerably, and many 
new ones were started, many of them, how- 
ever, doomed to an early death. That was 
a wonderful year for newspapers, the incidents 
of the war in the Crimea being of painful 
and absorbing interest. 

The Rise of Reuter. 

The time was at hand, however, when the 
practical monopoly enjoyed by the wealthy 
newspapers was to receive a shock. Mr. 
Reuter, an industrious purveyor of commer- 
cial and monetary intelligence for the Con- 
tinent, was perfecting arrangements des- 
tined almost to revolutionize the machinery 
by which newspapers obtained intelligence. 
On New Year's Day, 1859, the Emperor of 
the French, at the diplomatic levee, addressed 
some ominous words to the Austrian ambas- 
sador, rightly taken as a prelude to a declara- 
tion of war. An agent of Mr. Reuter flashed 
the words across the Channel, and the 
Times published them, before they were 
known even to the Ministers themselves. 
The readers at first disbelieved, then doubted, 
then becameaware that Mr. Reuter was indeed 
a wonderful personage, whose unknown agents 
possessed marvellous means of procuring 
intelligence. Very soon it appeared that 
he had means of obtaining authoritative 
news from almost every part of the habitable 
globe. He established an office, and for an 
annual subscription any newspaper could 
receive copies of all the telegrams which 
arrived at any hour of the day or night. The 
small papers paid the subscription, and were 
at once on an equality with the Times, 
Standa7-d, or Daily N'ezas ; the provincial 
papers published at Manchester, Leeds, 
Edinburgh, Glasgow, and almost everywhere 
else, had preciselythe same intelligence which 
the metropolitan newspapers could supply, 
and at the same time, having received it by 



telegraph from Renter's oftice in London. 
From the office in Moorgate Street an active 
brigade of lads were perpetually carrying the 
orange-colouredenvelopes, containing "mani- 
fold,"ormore familiarly " flimsy,"copiesof the 
telegrams received. The success of the plan 
was complete, and the unfailing authenticity 
of the telegraphic intelligence supplied by 
Reuter inspired the public with confidence. 
It is not too much to say, that an absolute 
contradiction of news furnished by his agents 
is almost unknown. In another way, not 
only Reuter's system, but the use of the 
submarine and other telegraphs generally, 
greatly affected newspapers. Not only were 
they all nearly on a level as to the receipt of 
intelligence, but the brief telegraphic infor- 
mation "discounted" the interest of the 
detailed narrative. Formerly the result and 
the details came together ; now theelaborated 
story had the freshness taken off it by the 
few words passed through the wire, and' was 
perused at leisure almost as stale news. 
Times had changed, and newspapers changed 
with them. 

Battle of the Paper Duty. 
But the paper duty remained. At length 
Mr. Gladstone succeeded in removing the 
burden ; and the mode by which he did sO' 
marks a memorable episode in Parliamentary 
history. The great Budget of i860, that 
famous modification and rearrangement of 
so many imposts, included a proposition for 
totally abolishing the excise duty on paper. 
The remissionwasintendednotonlyas a relief 
to the book and newspaper trade — not only 
as the removal of the last remaining of the 
taxes on knowledge, but was applicable to 
many other trades and manuflictures in which 
paper could be advantageously employed. 
Mr. Gladstone said he had received com- 
munications from the representatives of sixty- 
nine trades in which paper could be made 
use of if the duty did not stand in the 
way. He proposed that the duty should be 
abolished afterthe istof July. Theimmediate 
loss to the revenue would be ^1,100,000; 
but so much less labour would be required 
in the Inland Revenue establishment that a 
yearly saving of ^20,000 would be eft'ected. 

j The Chancellor also proposed to get rid of 
the impressed stamp on newspapers for 
postal purposes. 

There was considerable opposition in the 
House of Commons to the abolition of the 
paper duty ; and divisions were taken at 
every stage, the majorities in favour of the 
resolution being less and less. The Bill 
founded on the resolution passed, however ; 
but when it reached the House of Lords, 
Lord Monteagle moved its rejection, and 
found a powerful supporter in Lord Lyndhurst, 
who, although in his eighty-ninth year, made 

207 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



occasional displays in the House which 
showed that " e'en in their ashes lived the 
wonted fires." He emphatically declared 
that the House of Peers had a right to refuse 
assent to propositions for repealing taxation ; 
and that in the existing state of European 
politics it would be most unwise to reduce 
the revenue which might be called on to 
meet great emergencies. The cheap press 
was not popular with many members of the 
House, who thought that to cheapen paper 
would be to offer facilities for disseminating 
dangerous, if not absolutely revolutionary 
doctrines. The foreboding of the aged 
Lyndhurst, combined with this dislike, caused 
the Bill to be rejected by a majority of 80. 

Lord Palmerston, the Prime Minister, was 
not the man to accept this rebuff quietly. 
He at once obtained the appointment of a 
Committee of the House of Commons to 
inquire into the practice of each House with 
regard to Bills imposing or repealing taxes. 
The Committee met, examined witnesses, and 
carefully inquired into precedents, and came 
to the conclusion that the Lords had a con- 
stitutional right to reject a Bill imposing a tax. 
One member of the Committee, no less a 
person than Mr. Bright, dissented from the 
conclusion, and drew up a report of his own, 
in which he denied that the Lords had a 
right to reimpose a tax which the Commons 
had repealed, because if they did so, the 
Commons would not have absolute control 
over the taxation of the country. Palmerston 
appears to have accepted Mr. Bright's view, 
for on the presentation of the Committee's 
report, he proposed and carried a series of 
resolutions, re-affirming the claim of the 
Commons to " a rightful control over taxation 
and supply." Mr. Gladstone, always nervously 
sensitive to a " snub," protested against " the 
gigantic innovation ; " but Lord Palmerston 
took the matter more easily. Mr. Gladstone 
would have liked to fight the matter out at 
once, had time permitted ; but it was absolutely 
necessary to settle the finances for the year, 
and he contented himself with carrying a 
resolution for removing, in accordance with 
the provisions of the commercial treaty with 
France, so much of the Customs duty on im- 
ported paper as exceeded the Excise duty 
on paper made in this country. He had 
another arrow in his quiver. 

Gladstone's Tactics. 

On the 15th of April, 1861, the Chancellor of 
the Exchequer came forward with another 
Budget, and announced that he estimated a 
surplus of nearly ^^2,000,000, and among 
other remission of taxation proposed to 
repeal the paper duty. 



After considerable opposition the resolu- 
tion was carried, and then Mr. Gladstone 
announced that he intended to include all the 
resolutions in one Bill, and in that form the 
Bill went up to the House of Lords, where it 
passed without a division, their Lordships 
apparently not desiring to continue the 
fight. 

The Penny Press a Triumphant 
Fact. 

The Newspaper Press was at length free 
from special imposts. One by one the adver- 
tisement duty, the stamp duty, and the paper 
duty had disappeared ; and the effect was a 
general lowering of price to the public and the 
appearance of many new journals. Most 
of the weeklies, Lloyd's, Reynolds's, the 
Weekly Times, among them, reduced their 
price to one penny. The Dispatch held out 
till 1869, then came down to twopence, and 
in 1 87 1 accepted its fate and fell to the 
inevitable penny. On Friday, January 29th, 
1855, appeared the first number of the Daily 
Telegj-aph and Courier, price twopence. 
It consisted of four full-sized pages and 
twenty-four columns. In an announce- 
ment as the leading article the editor said, 
"We have resolved that the advertising 
columns of the Telegraph and Courier shall 
in no instance exceed the first page;" but 
occasional supplements of advertisements 
were promised. On Monday, the 20th of 
August, the words " and Courier " appeared 
in very small type under the chief head- 
ing, and a few weeks afterwards vanished 
altogether. At that time the paper had less 
than three columns of advertisements, all 
told. On the 17th of September, the Daily 
Telegraph lowered its price to one penny. 
In due time, the Standard (formerly an 
evening paper), having become amalgamated 
with the old Morning Herald, retained the 
former title, and was published at one penny. 
In the autumn of 1881, the aristocratic and 
fashionable Morning Post descended to the 
plebeian penny. The Pall Mall Gazette, and 
its young opponent, the St. Jame^s Gazette, 
reduced their charge from twopence to a 
penny at the opening of 1882. Of the 2,080, 
or thereabouts, newspapers now in existence 
in the United Kingdom, about 1,190 have 
been started subsequently to 1861, when the 
paper duty, the last shackle of the Press 
giant was struck off ; and about 1,160 of all 
the newspapers published belong to the ranks 
of the Penny Press, with a lively family 
(the Echo being eldest) of nearly forty little 
brothers at "only one half-penny each." 

G. R. E. 



208 




Castle at Porto Ferrajo, Napoleon's Residence at Elba. 



FROM ELBA TO WATERLOO 

THE STORY OF THE HUNDRED DAYS. 

"The desolator desolate ! — the victor overthrown ! 
The arbiter of others' fate a suppHant for his own ! " 



Napoleon I. becomes Ruler of Elba — Description of the Island — A great King and a small Empire — Activity and Pros- 
perity in the Island — The Emperor's Plans of Improvement — Want of Good Faith towards him — His Pension — Errors 
of the Bourbon Government in France — Demands of the Emigres — Priestcraft and Intolerance — The Emperor's 
Return to France — Flight of the Imperial Eagle to Paris and the Tuileries— The Government and the Army — 
Attachment of the Troops to Napoleon — Flight of the Bourbons — Plan of the Campaign of 1813 — The Duke of 
Wellington and Marshal Bliicher — Active Operations — The Historical Ball at Brussels — Battles of Ligny and Quatre 
Bras — Retreat and New Position South of Waterloo — The Great Battle — Incidents of the Day — A Defensive Posi- 
tion — The Issue of the Conflict — End of the Vanquished Conqueror's Career. 



Napoleon L becomes Ruler of Elba. 



p^^OWEVER various may be the opin- 

EWk j ions expressed by historians and 
.hrJ biographers on the character and 
actions of the great founder of the 
imperial house of the Bonapartes, — whether 
we find that unscrupulous leader of many 
legions covered with fulsome laudation, and 
represented as a little lower than the angels, 
as in the Lives written by Hazlett and Abbott 
— or represented in the light of a " Scamp 
Jupiter," a successful trickster, destitute of 
human feeling and of honest principle as 
he was full of genius and mental resource, 
as he is represented in the " Representa- 
tive Men " of Emerson, and in Sir Walter 
Scott's somewhat long-winded book, — on 
one point at least his puffers and detractors 



are fully agreed, namely, as to the consum- 
mate ability, energy, and courage with which 
he fought out the struggle to the bitter end 
in 1 8 14. Surrounded on every side by over- 
whelming numbers of elated foes, his own 
troops harassed by fatigue, and rapidly 
melting away in the series of desperate 
battles crowded together in the space of a 
few weeks ; compelled to make one small 
army do the work of four or five ; and with 
the net closing round him, in spite of the 
furious bounds of the hunted lion, the 
achievements of the short campaign of 1814 
excited the highest admiration for the mili- 
tary quahties of Napoleon, even among those 
who hated him most ; and even to the last 
suggested the advisableness of making a 
compromise with the man who proved him- 
209 P 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



self capable, under the most unfavourable 
conditions, of inflicting so much damage 
upon all who ventured to take the field 
against him. Thus at the Congress, opened 
at Chatillon earl> in the year, an opportunity 
was offered to the "vanquished victor" to 
end the contest by an arrangement that 
would have still left him at the head of the 
French nation, though with greatly curtailed 
power and territories. But " double or quits 
— all or nothing," was the game at which 
Napoleon loved to play ; and a slight gleam 
of success was sufficient to rekindle in him 
all the arrogance of ambition. He had fought 
five battles in as many days, and had been 
victorious in each — at Champaubert, Mont- 
mirail. Chateau Thierry, and Vauchamps ; 
and his sanguine temper and untiring ac- 
tivity prevented him from seeing that no 
amount of temporary success could do more 
than retard by a few weeks his ultimate fall 
in the face of the tremendous forces arrayed 
against him. He let the last chance of 
accommodation with his enemies pass away, 
by his evident chicanery to gain time at 
Chatillon; and thus the allies were compelled 
to take the resolution they successfully carried 
out, namely, that of marching on Paris, and 
compelling the capital to surrender before 
the Emperor, with his exhausted and worn- 
out army, which was daily being lessened by 
desertion, could arrive to its rescue ; and on 
the 31st of March, Paris capitulated. 

Napoleon had penetrated the design of 
his enemies ; and after beating back more 
than one of their armies towards the frontier, 
had suddenly turned from the pursuit, and 
hastened with forced marches towards Paris. 
But it was too late. Before he reached 
Fontainebleau, the sound of distant can- 
nonading warned him of what was going on 
' around the capital ; and at Fontainebleau 
itself the fatal news reached him that 
Marmont and Mortier had given up the 
contest, and then he knew that the game of 
ambition was over. For a few days he 
lingered with the wreck of his army at 
Fontainebleau, undecided what course to 
take, and drinking the cup of humiliation to 
the very dregs. For the imperious Master 
of Europe had made but few friends, even 
in the days of his success. His best and 
truest counsellor had been lost to him on 
that fatal day, when Duroc, mortally wounded, 
clasped his hand, and uttered those emphatic 
words of warning which for a time shook 
even the conqueror's iron soul, and robbed 
him for a few hours of his self-possession. 
To his marshals he had been liberal of titles 
and rewards ; but they were conscious of 
being only tools in his hands ; and in the 
mind of nearly every one of them rankled the 
remembrance of harsh or imjust words and 
scornful treatment, from the man in whom 



gigantic intellect was found joined to utter 
coldness of heart, whose aspirations were 
" pent within the circle of a sword-sweep," 
and who was beloved only by those too far 
removed from him by their humble position 
to know anything of his personal character. 
Even those whom he had accounted his 
friends, and had distinguished by marks of 
especial favour, — Oudinot, Berthier, Ney, — 
deserted him when their interest and his 
fortunes diverged. There are few pages in 
history more pathetically illustrative of the 
depth to which human greatness can fall, 
than are furnished by the events of those 
few days at Fontainebleau, when the fate of 
the fallen Emperor was to be decided by the 
kings on whose necks he had had his foot 
only a few short years before. 

The Abdiel of the Empire, "among the 
faithless faithful only found," was brave, 
true-hearted Marshal Macdonald, whose 
Scottish descent was nobly apparent in the 
honour with which he clung to the chief 
whom fortune had so completely deserted. 
The cold heart of Napoleon, wrung with an 
anguish that even made him attempt self- 
destruction, was touched at Macdonald's 
fidelity ; and in a few pathetic words he 
acknowledged that he had given this true 
and gallant gentlemen too much reason for 
dissatisfaction, and expressed his sense of 
the noble revenge the Marshal was taking. 

For it was Macdonald who acted as the 
intermediary between the fallen Emperor at 
Fontainebleau and his triumphant foes in 
the capital ; and it was greatly owing to his 
exertions that a shadow of sovereignty was 
still left to the fallen ruler of miUions. 

It was arranged that Napoleon — who had 
at first vainly endeavoured to preserve his 
dynasty, by offering to abdicate in favour of 
his little son, the King of Rome, and had 
afterwards signed an unconditional abdica- 
tion of the French throne — should receive, 
for himself and his descendants, the 
sovereignty of the little island of Elba, the 
Ilva of the ancients, situated a few miles 
from the coast of Tuscany ; and he was to 
retain the title of emperor. Elba had come 
into the possession of France in 1802. It 
certainly seems a strange oversight that the 
discrowned Caesar should have been per- 
mitted to take up his residence at a point 
within an easy distance of the French coast ; 
and can only be explained on the assump- 
tion that his power was considered to be 
over and gone — completely a thing of the 
past. 

As regards its physical features and 
capabilities, Elba is, in many respects, a 
favoured spot. The high mountains, of 
which it is chiefly composed, contain an 
abundance of mineral wealth; copper, iron, 
lead, and even gold and silver, being 



FROM ELBA TO WATERLOO. 



reckoned among its products, besides quar- 
ries of slate, marble, and granite. The 
tunny fishery is the chief source of support 
to the inhabitants next to the iron mines, 
for which Elba was famous even in ancient 
times. In some parts the land is well 
adapted for agriculture ; and a great variety 
of wild flowering plants, here as elsewhere 
in beauteous Italy, " own the kindred soil, 
nor ask luxuriance from the planter's toil." 
Altogether, it was far from an undesirable 
domain of which Napoleon took possession 
on the 4th of May, 1814, having arrived 
there, on a British ship, on the 3rd, — the day 
on which the restored Bourbon king, 
Louis XVIII., made his entry into Paris. 

A Great King and a Small Empire. 

During his journey southward through 
France, before embarking on the British 
ship of war that was to convey him to his 
■new home, the Emperor had practical 
experience of the mutability of popular 
favour. As Coriolanus was '"'by the voice 
of slaves whooped out of Rome," so was 
Napoleon followed by the execrations of the 
populacejwho had worshipped him in the day 
of his success ; he had at last been com- 
pelled, for safety, to travel in disguise. In 
Porto Ferrajo, the capital of Elba, he was 
received, on the contrar}', with every sign 
of welcome and rejoicing ; the inhabitants 
shrewdly considering that the residence of 
so distinguished a man among them as 
their ruler, could not fail to draw many 
visitors to the island, and to bring increased 
prosperity. In this conjecture they were 
perfectly right. "Never," says Bussey, "was 
Elba so busy or so prosperous as during the 
abode, among its sea-beaten rocks, of ' the 
Emperor ' ; never did its ships traverse seas 
infested with Moorish pirates with so much 
impunity, as v.'hile they were protected by 
the golden bees of Napoleon." 

The Emperor himself seemed pleased with 
his reception, and soon manifested much of 
his old energy and activity. Within a few 
days he had made a tour of inspection 
through the whole island, examining, ques- 
tioning, and planning, as was his wont. " It 
must be confessed that my empire is very 
small," he observed with a smile, when he 
found how soon his territory was traversed ; 
and, indeed, his new subjects were only about 
twelve thousand in all. It was not in his 
nature to be without projects, or without 
finding work to do. He immediately set 
about improving his little principality. New 
roads were laid out, new fortifications begun, 
new buildings for salt works and for the 
tunny fishing were commenced, as well as a 
handsome house for the Emperor's sister, 
the beautiful Pauline, Princess Borghese, 
who was soon to join him, with his mother. 



the venerable Madame Letitia. It seemed 
as though he had thoroughly adapted him- 
self to his altered fortunes, and was content 
to end his career as the ruler of this little 
sea-girt empire. 

Soon afterwards. General Cambronne 
arrived, with about four hundred soldiers of 
the old Guard, who had volunteered to serve 
the " Little Corporal " under these changed 
circumstances. Colonel Sir Neil Campbell 
also came, as British Commissioner; which 
shows that the British Government, at least, 
did not feel quite secure as to Napoleon's 
intentions, and accordingly considered it 
advisable to have a confidential agent on the 
spot, to keep a vigilant eye upon his pro- 
ceedings. In his " Life of Napoleon," Sir 
Walter Scott speaks of Elba, during the Na- 
poleon year, as resembling a huge barrack, 
"filled with military, gens-d'armes, refugees 
of all descriptions, expectants, dependents, 
domestics, and adventurers." In truth, a 
somewhat dangerous and explosive compound 
of elements, and one that might easily, if 
incautiously handled, burst into a flame. 

Among the visitors admitted to an inter- 
view by the Emperor was Lord John Russell, 
destined afterwards to do many notable 
things as a British statesman. To him 
Napoleon expressed some amount of doubt 
as to what the Duke of Wellington would 
do, now that the contest was over ; and 
could hardly be made to believe that the 
illustrious warrior, his task as a military 
leader being finished, would simply take his 
place as a British peer in the civil councils 
of his country. The Emperor could hardly 
conceive the idea of a distinguished career 
or exalted usefulness apart from the " pomp 
and circumstance of glorious war." 

It was obviously the interest, no less than 
the duty, of the restored government of 
France to be scrupulous in fulfilling the 
conditions of its treaty with the exiled Em- 
peror, that he, on his part, might have no 
pretext for breaking his share of the compact, 
or endeavouring to disturb the new state of 
things. But the fatality that attended all 
the proceedings of the first ministers of 
Louis XVIII. seems to have betrayed them 
here into a fatal blunder, the consequences 
of which were disastrous in the extreme. 
On his abdicating the throne, the allies had 
covenanted to pay Napoleon a yearly pen- 
sion of six millions of francs ; and this sum 
was to form an item in the " grand livre," or 
national budget of France, and was to be 
paid in advance to the ruler of Elba. With 
a parsimony equally unjust and shortsighted, 
the French Government withheld this pen- 
sion ; and when Lord Castlereagh — who,, 
though by no means a very sagacious min- 
ister, yet had sufficient sense toj see the 
danger of the proceeding — addressed the 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Government of Louis XVIII. on the subject, 
he was told in reply that the conduct of 
Napoleon, in recruiting soldiers in Corsica 
for his guard, had been equivocal, but that 
some means would be taken to afford him 
" some help," — a subterfuge unworthy of the 
administration of a great country. 

Meanwhile Napoleon was in real and 
serious pecuniary embarrassment. The 
revenues of his island empire being incon- 
siderable, he depended chiefly upon the 
pension so unrighteously withheld ; and had 
the mortification of finding himself obliged 
to stop the improvements and works he had 
taken in hand, and to quarter his guards 
upon the inhabitants, who were unable to 
pay taxes. His earnest remonstrances to the 
French Government were entirely unheeded ; 
and to one who has for years had at his dis- 
posal the resources of a great kingdom, this 
embarrassment was as novel as it was galling. 

Thus, not unnaturally, the suspicion arose 
in his mind that the sovereignty of Elba had 
not been given to him in good faith, but 
merely as a temporary measure, until the 
allies should consider it safe to dispose of 
him in another quarter. And as to his 
ultimate destination a dark foreboding had 
taken possession of him. The island of 
St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, long held 
by the East India Company chiefly for the 
supply of fresh water it afforded to their 
ships, was purchased by the British Govern- 
ment ; and Napoleon was haunted by the 
apprehension that to this far-off island of 
St. Helena he was in due time to be trans- 
ferred. And so in the capital, Porto Ferrajo, 
whose name he had changed to Cosmopoli, 
Napoleon sat meditating on these things, 
and maturing a resolution that was soon to 
startle all Europe. 

The Bourbon Government and its 
Errors. 
When Talleyrand, the most versatile, clear- 
headed, and unscrupulous of political intrigu- 
ers, declared that the Bourbons " had 
learned nothing and forgotten nothing " in 
exile, he might with equal justice have ex- 
tended his bitter epigram to the adherents 
and followers of that self-deluded race. With 
the Restoration there came thronging back to 
France an infinite number of emigres — 
people whose royalism was far more intense 
than that of the King their master, and who 
were utterly unable to appreciate the change 
that a most eventful quarter of a century 
could not fail to make in the sentiments and 
ideas of an active and quickwitted nation. All 
that these people could understand was the 
bare fact that the good cause had triumphed, 
that the usurper had been cast down from 
his high estate, and that the King was to 
enjoy his own again ; and to their minds the 



reinstatement of the King involved as a 
necessary consequence that they themselves 
were to be restored to the positions they had 
held before the Revolution had sent them 
flying for dear life, to the protection of 
foreign lands. King Louis XVIII., a fat, 
good-natured gentleman enough, would have 
been content to take the goods the gods had 
provided him, and to content all parties, so 
far as it was practicable. Like Charles II., 
he had not the slightest wish to " go on his 
travels again ; " and like a later chief magis- 
trate of France, "y'jK suis^ et fy reste" was 
j the motto he felt inclined to adopt ; and he 
had been content to acknowledge the altered 
spirit of the time by the concession of im- 
portant privileges to the French people, — 
such as the " Charte," which guaranteed 
to them a certain amount of constitutional 
freedom ; the abolition of the consolidated 
taxes, which were looked on as a great 
national grievance ; and that most important 
element in a popular government, the freedom 
of the press. The words of the King him- 
self, repeated from mouth to mouth with 
great satisfaction, in which Louis XVIII. 
declared that there was nothing changed by 
his return, that there was only one French- 
man more in France, were taken as a royal 
promise that existing rights should be 
preserved. 

But the King did not keep his word ; pro- 
bably the influences around him were too 
strong to allow him. The returned emigres 
looked upon France as their exclusive pro- 
perty, whicii they now demanded to have 
restored to them, in the condition in which 
they had left it more than twenty years before. 
In the good old times of marquises and 
feudal lords of the manor, none but men of 
noble birth could be officers in the army. 
Consequently the returned exiles claimed 
to be put in the places of the veterans of 
Austerlitz, Wagram and Smolensk, who were 
dismissed accordingly, or compelled to retire 
on utterly insufficient pensions to make room 
for commanders who had never seen a shot 
fired in anger. Bdranger the poet made 
terrible fun of these untried warriors, and 
contributed not a little to spread abroad the 
disgust excited by their usurpation. In the 
public offices, too, officials, against whom 
nothing could be urged except that they had 
received their appointments under the Re- 
public or the Empire, were turned away, to 
make room for the " supporters " of the 
restored dynasty. A censorship of the press 
was established, as rigid as ever that of 
Napoleon had been ; estates purchased in 
open market under the Republic and Empire 
were handed back to the former possessors, 
who, by the law passed under a government 
of acknowledged legality, had been declared 
to have forfeited them years before ; and the 



FROM ELBA TO WATERLOO. 



sense of the people was continually outraged 
by the denunciation of every political act 
done since the overthrow of the monarchy 
as wicked and heinous. The power of the 
priests was also restored, under the patron- 
age of the King's brother, the Comte d'Artois, 
afterwards Charles X., who in his bigotry and 
his inability to temper zeal with discretion, 
as well as in his ultimate fate, furnishes a 
parallel to the English James II. ; like whom, 
indeed, he was fated, after a few years of 
misrule, to end his life in exile. The Jesuits, 
the most obnoxious of all the ecclesiastical 
orders, come flocking back to France ; and 



discontent that should ripen into a harvest 
of hate. 

The extent to which the illiberal spirit of 
the Government was carried, appeared in 
the case of Mademoiselle de Raucourt, an 
actress of the Theatre Francais, which 
excited intense indignation in Paris, and 
almost provoked a riot. At the age of 
sixty Mademoiselle de Raucourt died ; and 
the obsolete law, which pronounced those 
of her profession excommunicate, and there- 
fore denied them the rites of the Church in 
burial, was actually revived in her case. 
The scandal was the greater as the woman's 




Meeting of the Emi'eror and Marshal Ney. 



for a time their influence was paramount in 
every department ; and the Legion of Honour, 
the coveted prize that had inspired many a 
deed of daring and self-devoted courage 
during the period that had just closed so 
mournfully, was systematically degraded by 
being scattered broadcast among the lowest 
and most despicable of the spies and intriguers 
who did the dirty work of the Government. 
It seemed as though the partisans of Louis 
were bent on showing the old feeling of con- 
tempt for the " canaille," in its most offensive 
form, upon every occasion. Never did men 
work more industriously to sow among the 
nation they came to govern the seeds of a 



reputation was without a stain. When the 
corpse was refused admission into the 
church of St. Brigue, the people were roused 
to fury. An immediate application to the 
King to order the interment was met by a 
refusal, on the ground that His Majesty 
could not interfere in a matter that con- 
cerned the ecclesiastical authorities alone. 
But the populace persisted, and the fellow 
actors and actresses of Mademoiselle Rau- 
court declared, in a second application to 
the King, that unkss the rites of the Church 
were accorded to their dead sister, they 
would go over in a body to the Protestant 
faith ; whereupon His Majesty gave way. 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



What would have been said in England if 
Christian burial had been denied to Mrs. 
Siddons on the score of her profession ? 

The Emperor's Return from Elba to 
France. 

It had been arranged by the Treaty of 
Paris, that two months after the signing of 
that document a Congress should meet in 
Vienna, to discuss various matters of para- 
mount importance to the Governments of | 
Europe, and especially to readjust the 
frontiers of the various nations ; on the 
general principle of rewarding, with an 
increase of territory and other advantages, 
those Powers who had been prominent in 
the struggle against Napoleon, and punish- 
ing by curtailment and restrictions those 
unfortunate rulers, who, like the King of 
Saxony, had thrown in their lot with the 
fallen Emperor. Various circumstances 
delayed the meeting, and the Congress 
did not assemble until the ist of November. 

It was a most brilliant gathering. All the 
Powers of Europe were represented by their 
most distinguished public men. The astute 
Metternich was present on behalf of Austria. 
The interests of Russia were placed in the 
experienced hands of Nerselrode, with Rasu- 
mowsky. Capo d'l stria, and Stockelberg as 
his coadjutors ; Lord Castlereagh, and Wel- 
lington, lately raised to the rank of a duke, 
with a grant of ^400,000 to maintain the 
dignity of his exalted position, watched over 
the interests of the British Empire ; while 
Talleyrand and Dalberg were the deputies of 
the restored Government of France ; Prince 
Hardenberg, and Wilhelm von Humboldt, 
the brother of the great traveller and scien- 
tific author, were present for Prussia ; while 
Freiherr von Stein, who had done so much 
for the regeneration of Germany, and was 
especially known as the trusted friend and 
adviser of the Emperor Alexander, was there 
to give to the deliberations of the council the 
weight of his sagacity and experience, though 
not as the officially accredited representative 
of any separate State. The whole affair was 
a strange incongruous mixture of diplomacy 
and fiddling, of grave diplomatic conferences 
and balls and masquerades ; feasting and 
statesmanship, intrigue and "bon-ton" fri- 
volity. Vienna was crowded with wealthy 
strangers, princes and their retinues, Hunga- 
rian and Bohemian magnates blazing with 
gold and jewels. 

Factions and cliques were soon formed 
among this motley assembly; and it was not 
long before serious differences threatened to 
arise. Indeed, the great Powers who had 
united to put down the power of the French 
Emperor were ready to go to war with each 
other for the division of the spoil ; when 
suddenly, at the beginning of March 181 5, 



the intelligence came like a thunderclap upon' 
them that Napoleon had broken loose from 
Elba, and had landed in France. Rough old! 
Bliicher burst into the room of the English 
envoy, with the blunt inquiry, whether the 
British Government had or had not a 
squadron on the Mediterranean coast of 
France ? It seemed incredible that such 
an enterprise could have been carried into 
effect unchecked. 

The Flight of the Imperial Eagle 
TO Paris. 

The startling news was true. Napoleon^ 
dissatisfied and alarmed at his situation in 
Elba, had at the same time been kept accu- 
rately informed by friends, among whom 
were Fouch^, his former Minister of Police,. 
Davoust, Maret, Carnot, and othei's, of the 
course of events in France ; and as the 
popular discontent increased, hints were 
given that a remedy would presently be found 
for the evils complained of Among the army 
especially, which was deeply offended at 
finding itself, after years of favour and 
supremacy under Napoleon, slighted and 
undervalued by the Bourbon Government, 
this expectation was raised and kept alive. 
The violet was chosen as a sort of mysterious 
emblem, and worn by tl^e secret partisans of 
the exiled Caesar ; among whom it was whis- 
pered that when the spring brought back 
the violets, Pere Violette also would come 
again ; and the Father Violet in question- 
was Napoleon. 

Among the little army he had gathered 
i-ound him in Porto Ferrajo, or as he called 
it, Cosmopoli, Napoleon had suffered some 
idea of his intended enterprise to get abroad, 
so that more enthusiasm than astonishment 
was aroused when, on the 26th of February,, 
the announcement was made to the seven or 
eight hundred men of whom the force con- 
sisted, that their chief was about to embark 
for France. The men, among whom were 
four hundred of the Old Guard, were de- 
lighted at the prospect of seeing their 
country again, and raised the old shout of 
" Vive r Eiiipcreur ! " with unanimous hearti- 
ness. The embarkation at once began ;: 
on the evening of the same day the expe- 
dition sailed from the island m six vessels, 
of which the brig Inco7istant, that carried 
Cresar and his fortunes, was the chief. 

The armament arrived safely at Cannes, 
near Frejus, and Napoleon at once began 
that famous march towards Paris, which has 
been somewhat magniloquently, but not 
inaptly, described in one of his own procla- 
mations by the expression that " the Imperial 
eagle should fiy from steeple to steeple- 
through France, until he alighted on the 
towers of Notre Uame." During the passage 
to France, several of those proclamations 
:i4 



FROM ELBA TO WATERLOO. 



had been prepared by which Napoleon knew 
so well how to work upon the passions of the 
more vainglorious of the French nation. 
Soberminded men talked of the stilted lan- 
guage and exaggerated fustian of his an- 
nouncements to the army ; but he well knew 
the people he was addressing. He now 
declared that in his retreat he had heard 
the voice of the French nation calling him 
back ; he reminded the French of the vic- 
tories he had been gaining in the short 
campaign of 1814, and attributed the blame 
of the capitulation of Paris to Marmont and 
Augereau ; had he been better seconded, he 
would have driven the allies out of France. 
These proclamations were distributed as he 
moved on with his followers with great 
speed towards Grenoble. Everywhere his 
advent was hailed with enthusiasm by the 
people, whom he roused against the restored 
dynasty by reminding them of the bitter fact 
that the Bourbons had been reseated on the 
throne of France by the power of foreign 
bayonets. "When Charles VII. re-entered 
Paris," so ran the text of one of these pro- 
clamations, " and overthrew the ephemeral 
throne of Henry V., he won his sceptre by 
the valour of his followers, and did not hold 
it by the permission of a Prince Regent." 
A paragraph in one of his proclamations to 
the army of France reads like a paraphrase, 
or rather a parody, of Shakespeare's speech 
of Henry V. to his troops before the battle 
of Agincourt : " Soldiers, come and range 
yourselves under the banners of your chief. 
His existence is identified with yours ; his 
rights are yours, and those of the people ; 
his interest, his honour, his glory, are your 
interest, honour, and glory." Then came 
the sentence about the eagle and Notre 
Dame. " Then you will be able to show 
your scars with honour," the proclamation 
continued ; " then you may boast of what 
you have done. You will be the liberators 
of the country. In your old age, surrounded 
and honoured by your fellow-citizens, they 
will listen with respect while you recount 
your high deeds ; while you exclaim with 
pride, ' And I also was one of that grand 
army which twice entered within the walls of 
Vienna, of Rome, of Berlin, of Madrid, of 
Lisbon, of jNIoscow, and which delivered 
Paris from the stain imprinted upon it by 
treason and the presence of the enemy. 
Honour to those brave soldiers, the glory of 
their country ! and eternal infamy to the 
French criminals, in whatever rank they 
were born, who for twenty-five years fought 
beside foreigners, tearing the bosom of their 
country I " The allusion to the " foreigners " 
and their partisans was a subtle appeal to 
the national pride. It was brilliantly suc- 
cessful, and it seemed likely that the Im- 
perial eagle's return to its former nest at the 



Tuileries would be hailed with acclamation. 
Whether it would be suffered to establish 
itself there once more was another and a very 
doubtful question. 

The Government and the Army. 

The news of the landing of Napoleon was 
received by the Government in Paris at first 
with blank bewilderment, and then with 
scornful incredulity. It was represented to 
the King that this last attempt of the usurper 
would be as short-lived as it was desperate. 
In the official journal, Bonaparte was repre- 
sented as wandering among the mountains, 
deserted by his few followers, and certain to 
be speedily arrested. The marshals who 
had abandoned his cause the year before to 
worship the rising sun of the Bourbons were 
particularly emphatic in their demonstrations 
of loyalty to their new master. Marshal 
Soult, the wily " Monsieur Renard" of the sol- 
diery, issued a fiery proclamation, in which 
he contrasted the well-grounded claims of 
the legitimate monarch with the frantic 
lunacy of an adventurer who desired to 
plunge France into civil war. Massena 
wrote from the south, setting forth the cer- 
tainty of Bonaparte's speedy capture ; and 
Ney, before joining a large force with which 
he was to march southward, promised Louis 
XVIII. that he would bring back the dis- 
turber of Europe as a prisoner in an iron 
cage. 

But the heart of the French army turned, 
not unnaturally, towards the chief whose 
name was associated with twenty years of 
unexampled conquest and glory. Soon after 
his landing. Napoleon was encountered at 
Vizille by a line regiment despatched 
against him. Trusting in the power his 
presence always exercised over French 
soldiers, Napoleon advanced alone to meet 
his opponents, who at sight of him became 
instantly converted into friends and parti- 
sans. They raised the old shout of " Vive 
V EmpcreiirP and went over to him in a body. 
At Grenoble, the people forced open the 
gates, and declared for Napoleon. Colonel 
Labedoyere and the 4th line regiment did 
the same thmg; and it appeared that the 
soldiers had tricoloured cockades concealed 
in their shakos and in the regimental diums, 
ready to be displayed when the time came. 
A great force, sent out under the Comte 
d'Artois, Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, 
and Marshal Macdonald, likewise went over 
in a body to Napoleon. Ney, at Lons-le- 
Saulnier, also deserted his new master's 
cause, to join the man with whom all his 
own glory was identified. It is supposed 
that the brave, weak man was sincere when 
he made the promise to Louis XVIII. about 
the iron cage ; but that the sight of his old 
master was simply too much for him, and he 



215 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



at once resumed the old habit of obedience 
to the guiding spirit, whose behests he had 
been accustomed to obey. 

Thereupon the Bourbon Government fled, 
the King getting across the frontier with all 
speed, and betaking himself to Ghent, from 
which safe retreat he watched the progress 
of events. He was at best a negative, 
apathetic man, the representative of a system 
that had become effete and superannuated. 

The Congress of Vienna, however, had 
been roused into activity by the gravity of 
the crisis. All questions of dispute were put 
aside for the time, in the presence of the 
great and pressing danger. The Duke of 
Wellington emphatically reminded Talley- 
rand that he considered himself the soldier 
of the King. It was at once determined that 
the Powers must stand together, to maintain 
the restored Government in France. It 
was resolved that Napoleon Bonaparte, by 
appearing again in France in arms, had put 
himself beyond the pale of society, and 
drawn upon himself the public vengeance 
{vindique publique). The four great Powers, 
England, Austria, Russia, and Prussia, 
entered into a fresh compact against 
Napoleon, each Government binding itself 
to put 150,000 soldiers into the field, or to 
furnish an equivalent in money for each 
man short of the minimum number ; and 
the other states of Europe were invited to 
join the coalition ; an appeal to which they 
responded,— with the exception of Sweden, 
where Bernadotta was discontented at not 
having received the French crown, and 
Portugal, which, exhausted by the long 
Peninsular struggle, required repose. There- 
upon the Congress broke up ; for the 
question of redistribution of power and 
rectification of frontier was necessarily post- 
poned in the presence of the more pressing 
danger. Meanwhile Napoleon had reached 
Paris, and on the 4th of April was once 
more at the head of the Government. Con- 
scious of the desperate nature of the game 
he was playing, he endeavoured to conciliate 
goodwill by a profession of moderation ; 
acknowledging the errors into which, in his 
former rule, he had been betrayed, and pro- 
mising that the French should enjoy consti- 
tutional freedom under his renewed sway. 
He also made overtures for peace to the 
various Governments ; but his letters were 
either returned or left unanswered ; and he 
soon understood, that as to the army he 
owed his return to France, to the army also 
he must look for the establishment of his 
authority. And he made active preparations 
for the struggle he saw to be inevitable. 

The Plan of the Campaign of 1815. 
Napoleon was soon convinced that his 
promises of moderation, of reigning as a 



* constitutional monarch, and of abstaining 
from war, would have no effect upon the 
allies, who were determined to look upon 
him as an enemy, with whom no compact 
could be made. Accordingly he nerved 
himself for a task whose difficulties he well 
comprehended ; for he would shortly have 
Europe in arms for his opponent. 

The crisis seemed to have given him 
back all his former activity. He toiled in- 
cessantly to bring the army, which, under the 
Bourbon system, had been diminished until 
it numbered only 90,000 available men, into 
an effective state, and to increase its numbers 
by offering inducements to volunteers and 
veterans to join the standards : to have 
resorted to the conscription would have 
deprived his cause of all its popularity. 

On the 1st of June the Parisians were 
treated to an imposing spectacle, when, in 
the assembly of the Champ de Mai, the lately 
returned ruler, in the midst of an immense 
crowd, took the oath of adherence to the 
Constitution, declaring that his aspirations, 
his glory, and his happiness had always been 
indissolubly bound up with the welfare of 
France. The ceremony ended with a dis- 
tribution of eagles to the various branches of 
the army, and a general march-past before 
the Emperor's throne, amid all the pomp of 
martial music and acclamation. 

The situation was exceedingly serious, as 
the Emperor well knew. Europe was arming 
to prevent his re-establishment on the throne 
of France ; and he calculated that the levies 
would amount to a milHon of men. By 
great exertions Napoleon had been enabled 
to raise the French army to about half 
that number ; but only 217,000 were armed, 
equipped, and in a condition for taking the 
field immediately. They were divided into 
seven great corps, and placed respectively 
under the command of Ney, Reille, Van- 
damme, Gerard, Rapp, Loban, and Suchet. 
The cavalry were placed under the command 
of Excelmans, Killerman, Grouchy, Pagot, 
and Michaud. Massena was appointed 
governor of the important fortress of Metz ; 
Davoust became Minister of War, and Mar- 
shal Soult, the astute Monsieur Renard, 
Major- General of the army. 

To attack his enemies in detail, and en- 
deavour to dispose of the armies of one 
nation before another should be ready to 
oppose him, was the plan the Emperor re- 
solved, after mature consideration, to adopt ; 
and, indeed, it is doubtful if he could have 
done better. England and Prussia, with 
large contingents of Dutch, Belgian, Hano- 
verian, and Brunswick troops were already 
in the field. If he could obtain a victory 
over these by attacking them separately, 
before Russia and Austria, with Bavaria and 
the rest of his enemies, were ready, the 

16 



FROM ELBA TO WATERLOO. 



resolution of the allies not to treat with him 
would probably be shaken, especially as the 
Opposition in England would dislike the 
prospect of a protracted and expensive war, 
and he might secure a peace on favourable 
terms. Moreover he was aware that the 
recent union of Belgium with Holland was 
exceedingly unpopular with the former 
nation, the Belgians looking upon themselves 
as annexed to the Dutch in the manner of a 
dependent province ; and it was considered 
that they would much rather be joined to 



to the selection of the leader to be sent to 
cope with him. The Duke of Wellington, 
the hero of the long Peninsular struggle, was 
the one man to whom this vitally important 
duty was naturally to be entrusted. The 
Duke had from the first expressed himself 
ready to undertake any position in which he 
could be useful. Accordingly he accepted 
the command of the army ; and by the be- 
ginning of April 1815, he had established 
his headquarters at Brussels. His advice as 
to the plan of operations was to act in concert 




Napoleon on the Evening of Waterloo. 



France than to Holland. The Emperor might 
therefore hope to see them come over to his 
side at the first opportunity. Accordingly the 
French army was put in motion towards the 
Belgian frontier; and Napoleon, quitting Paris 
at daybreak on the 12th of June, proceeded 
to Avesnes to place himself at their head. 

The Duke of Wellington and Mar- 
shal Blucher. 
From the moment when it became known 
in England that Napoleon and his army 
must be encountered, there was no doubt as 



with Prussia and Austria, bringing such a 
force into the field as should make the con- 
test short, sharp, and decisive. " The war 
would linger on," he said, " and end to our 
disadvantage," if anything were attempted 
with a small force. His experience in the 
Peninsula had fully taught him that lesson. 
Consequently great exertions were made to 
provide the Duke with as numerous and 
efficient an army as could be brought together 
on so short a notice. 

The conjuncture was not favourable. Many 
of the splendid soldiers of the Peninsular 



217 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



war, troops thoroughly seasoned and disci- 
pHned, with whom, to use the phrase of their 
illustrious chief, a commander " might go 
anywhere and do anything," had been dis- 
banded and dismissed to their homes with 
small gratuities or pensions. Another portion 
of the British forces had net yet returned from 
America, having been engaged there in the 
foolish andpreventible war in which the nation 
had been involved by the Ministry. Many of 
the regiments had been filled up at the last 
moment with raw recruits, or with volunteers 
from the militia. Indeed, such was the want 
of time, that many were despatched to the 
seat of war in the militia jackets they wore 
when they were drafted into the line. They 
were not exactly the kind of force the Duke 
would have chosen to command against the 
greatest captain of the age ; but " their 
hearts were in the trim," and the youngest 
stripling soldier upheld the honour of his 
country manfully during that short but event- 
ful campaign. 

Combined operations, for the purpose of 
striking a great blow, formed the plan of the 
Duke ; while Napoleon on the other hand, 
was determined to force on a contest at the 
earliest moment, and attacking each of the 
allies separately, to crush them one by one. 

The Duke was certainly fortunate in his 
officers. Picton, Ponsonby, Lord Uxbridge, 
better known afterwards as the Marquis of 
Anglesea, Lord Saltoun, Lord Fitzroy 
Somerset, with Clinton, Colville, Alten, Sir 
Alexander Gordon, and a number of other 
distinguished names brighten the roll of the 
campaign of 1815. Men and officers alike 
were full of zeal. 

The number of the army under the Duke 
of Wellington in Belgium amounted to 78,500 
men. The British, Hanoverian, and Belgian 
troops formed about two-thirds of this force ; 
the rest were Germans, chiefly from Bruns- 
wick and Nassau. Among the infantry were 
the 42nd and 92nd Highlanders, and the 
33rd Regiment, in which the Duke had begun 
his career in the army. The Horse Guards 
Blue and the Life Guards, with some regi- 
ments of heavy dragoons, and fourteen 
regiments of light dragoons, made up the 
cavalry force. 

Bliicher, the brave old field-marshal, 
" Marschall Vorwarts," or " Forward," as 
his soldiers called him, from his eagerness 
to ad^vance, was in command of the Prussian 
forces, numbering in all some 130,000 men; 
but of these only about 80,000 were available 
for iinmediate service. When the Duke 
received intelligence of Napoleon's march 
upon Flanders, he made preparations for 
effecting a junction with Bliicher so soon as 
it should become apparent in what direction 
Napoleon's attack would be made. Bliicher 
had the courage of a lion, and an amount of 



energy marvellous in a man of seventy. But 
he was a veteran whose first period of service 
dated from the times of the great Frederick 
and the Seven Years' War, and his method 
was obsolete. Napoleon looked upon him 
as merely a brave " sabreur," and Napo- 
leon's estimate of a military leader was 
generally correct. 

Napoleon's plan, which Lamartine desig- 
nates rightly as " the only one suited to the 
exigencies of the time, the natural genius of 
the Emperor and his troops, and, finally, to 
the genius of impetuosity and despair," was 
to concentrate his army on the Sambre, to 
advance to Charleroi as speedily as possible, 
andfall upon the Prussians at the point of junc- 
tion of their army with that of the EngHsh ; 
then, having driven them back upon Luxem- 
burg, to attack the English in turn, and hurl 
them back towards the coast. This would 
leave him the command of Belgium ; and he 
would then be free to turn his forces against 
the two fresh armies that Avere advancing" 
against him on the Upper and Lower Rhine,, 
and who were tc be vanquished like the rest. 
It was a desperate scheme, which could only 
have succeeded by a marvellous union of 
genius and good fortune. 

Active Operations ; Historical Ball. 

Among the English quartered in and 
around Brussels, there was in general but 
a vague idea of the nature of the work in 
which they were engaged, and of its tremend- 
ous possibilities. The prevailing impression 
at first was, that Bonaparte was to be crushed 
without a struggle ; and the old delusion 
concerning a military promenade to Paris 
was revived. The Belgian capital had never 
been so bright and joyous, so full of gay- 
company, as during the month of May and 
the first half of June 181 5. There were 
fetes and entertainments of all kinds in 
abundance ; there was a sound of revelry 
by night throughout the Belgian capital, long 
before that memorable ball given by the 
Duchess of Richmond, which subsequent 
events have made matter of history. The 
more experienced among the officers, how- 
ever, especially those who had seen service 
in Spain, were of the opinion which Thack- 
eray, in Vanity Fair, puts into the mouth 
of the plucky Irish colonel, that some of the 
dancers would soon be dancing to a tune 
they little expected. During all this time, 
however, the Duke himself, while preserving; • 
his usual imperturbable aspect, and even 
taking part in the gaieties that were going 
on, was vigilantly watching the course of 
events, and preparing for the encounter. 

When the Emperor joined his army, he at 
once proceeded to stimulate the zeal of his 
troops, and to awaken their thirst for glory^ 
by those speeches that seem so bombastic 



218 



FROM ELBA TO WATERLOO. 



and inflated when read in cold blood, but 
which had frequently such a wonderful effect 
when spoken in the presence of an excited 
and eager soldiery. On the 14th of June, the 
anniversary of the great victories of Marengo 
and Friedland, he delivered one of these 
speeches, reminding his hearers that " these 
Prussians, now so insolent," had been beaten 
at Jena, JN'Iontmirail, and elsewhere by 
French armies much inferior to them in 
number. He roused the hatred of his 
hearers against the English by allusions 
to the EngHsh "prison-ships," in which a 
number of their countrymen had perished ; 
represented the Belgians, Hanoverians, and 
other nations as unwilling allies of his 
enemies, who would be glad to quit the 
alliance to which they were only bound by 
fear of the vengeance of the great Powers, 
whose princes were the foes of justice and of 
the rights of nations. " Soldiers ! we have 
forced marches to make," said the Emperor, 
in concluding his address, " we have clangers 
to encounter ; but let us be constant, and 
the victory will be ours. The rights, the 
honour, and the happiness of our country 
will be reconquered. For every one who has 
a heart, the moment has now come for victory 
or death." 

It was on the 15th of June that Napoleon 
at daybreak marched from Beaumont to- 
wards the Sambre, the passage of which 
river was speedily effected. He then at- 
tacked and took the fortress of Charleroi, 
which was occupied by the Prussian General 
Ziethen. He divided his army into two 
parts ; himself advancing with the main 
body towards Fleurus against the Prussians, 
while Marshal Ney was ordered, with a 
body of 40,000 men, to move. on towards 
Fleurus, and so to Ouatre Bras. The name 
Ouatre Bras applies to the four roads 
leading respectively to Charleroi, Namur, 
Nivelles, and Brussels, that hereintersect each 
other. The object of Ney's movement was 
to operate against the English, and prevent 
their junction with the Prussians, whom 
Napoleon meant to attack without delay. 

The Duke, in his head-quarters at Brussels, 
had received early intelligence that the French 
army was now in motion, and of the general 
disposal of the two bodies. He at once gave 
orders that everything should be in readiness 
for marching out of Brussels at a moment's 
notice ; but, like Nelson at Copenhagen, he 
evidently thought it would not do to be 
in a hurry ; and accordingly everything was 
done with a quietness and deliberation which 
in some quarters has been misrepresented as 
evidence of ignorance or indifference. The 
Duke knew perfectly what he was about, and 
understood the necessity of avoiding any- 
thing that would cause a panic in the capital. 
Therefore everything seemed outwardly to 



go on as usual ; and when the Duchess of 
Richmond, who had invited a large and 
brilliant company, including many officers of 
the English army, to a great ball for the 
evening of the 15th, inquired whether the 
entertainment should not be put off, the 
Duke requested that it should proceed, as 
though nothing unusual had happened. 

This is the ball described by Byron in the 
immortal verses in which the poet portrays 
the cannon's opening roar as mingling with 
the sounds of revelry. Something must be 
allowed in the way of latitude to a poet 
describing a tragic scene. There was no 
sound of cannon to interrupt the festivities 
at the Duchess's brilliant party ; but certain 
it is that, while the dance was proceeding in 
the festive halls, the bugles were blowing in 
the streets and squares of Brussels ; and by 
the Duke's command the men were being: 
rapidly and quietly mustered^ and marched 
out of the city, in perfect order, on their way 
to that field whence so many of them were 
never to return. The necessary orders had 
all been given, and the general officers had 
been instructed to attend the ball, and to 
take an opportunity of retiring separately 
and quietly, to join their various corps, that 
anything like alarm or confusion might 
be avoided. It is related that the brother 
of the Duchess, the Duke of Gordon, in 
command of the 92nd (the Gordon) High- 
landers, had, at his sister's request, ordered 
various non-commissioned officers and pri- 
vates of the regiment to be in attendance, as 
the Duchess wished them to show her foreign 
guests hovN? the national Scotch dances were 
performed by men to the manner born. 
Before twenty-four hours were over, the 
dance of life was over for many of the gal- 
lant fellows who had good-humouredly con- 
tributed to the amusement of the Duchess's 
guests. 

The Duke himself stayed to occupy the 
place of honour at the supper-table, and to 
return thanks, when General Alava proposed 
his health, and that of the army he com- 
manded. Then, with a quiet bow and smile 
to the assembled guests, he quitted the ball- 
room, to devote himself to the tremendous 
task before him ; and within ther next three 
days the fate of France and of Europe for 
many a year was decided. 

With all the care that had been taken to 
avoid undue excitement, it was a sad break- 
ing up, tliat of the briniantytV6' of her Grace 
of Richmond at one in the morning of the 
1 6th of June. Byron's description of the 
hurrying to and fro, of the distress and tears^ 
of the " cheeks all pale that but an hour ago 
blushed at the praise of their own loveli- 
ness," is true enough, if his inti-oduction of 
the cannon, and of the effect of the sound 
on "Brunswick's fated chieftain," is imagina- 



219 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



tive. Very many parted there to meet no 
more in this world ; so sudden had been the 
summons, that many of the officers marched 
to join their regiments in festive attire of silk 
stockings and pumps. As a writer on these 
events has observed, it was a rough transi- 
tion from the delights of the ball-room to 
the stern realities of the battle-field, but 
illustrative of the vicissitudes that form part 
of the life of the soldier, whose philosophy 
must be always that of Wolfe's favourite 
song,— 

' ' Why soldiers, then, 

Should we be melancholy, then, 

Whose trade it is to die ? " 

The manner in which the march from 
Brussels was effected was admirable in its 
evidence of cool self-possession and perfect 
management. It was not till long after the 
Waterloo year that the absurd story that 
the Duke had been "surprised" on that 
occasion began to gain currency ; and it 
was copied into at least one history whose 
author ought to have known better. The 
Duke simply waited, in perfect readiness to 
move, until he could feel sure in what direc- 
tion the attack of the enemy would be made ; 
and then he led forth his army to repel that 
attack in the most efficient way. 

LiGNY AND OUATRE BRAS. 

To the strains of martial music the various 
regiments marched from the Place Royale 
of Brussels, not without much lamentation 
and many tears from the populace, especially 
the fairer portion, as well as from their own 
friends and compatriots; for the British army, 
notably the Highlanders, had become ex- 
ceedingly popular during a few weeks' stay 
in Brussels. Eight infantry regiments, form- 
ing the fifth division, under the heroic Picton, 
and divided into two brigades, under Sir 
James Kempe and Sir Denis Pack, with the 
Duke of Brunswick's corps and some Nassau 
troops, moved upon Ouatre Bras. They 
numbered 15,000 men in all, and had neither 
infantry nor cavalry to support them. On 
the other side Marshal Ney was marching 
towards Quatre Bras with all speed. 

Napoleon, whose game depended on 
promptitude, had pressed forward with such 
speed as considerably to harass his troops. 
He came in sight of the Prussians about 
noon on the i6th, and found their army 
about 80,000 strong, including 9,000 cavalry, 
and with 250 guns, occupying the heights of 
Bry, from Sombreff to St. Amand, with the 
rivulet and village of Ligny in front of them. 
The Duke of Wellington, having ridden 
across the country to Bry, had an interview 
with the old Field-Marshal ; and having by 
personal observation convinced himself that 
the threatened attack of Napoleon on the 
Prussians would be a real one, and concerted 



measures for co-operation with his ally, he 
rode off towards Quatre Bras, where Picton's 
division had by this time arrived. 

At about three in the afternoon. Napoleon 
began the battle against the Prussians by a 
tremendous cannonade, under cover of which 
his infantry and cavalry advanced to the 
attack with great gallantry and determina- 
tion. The Prussians replied with equal 
bravery. Every house and barn in Ligny 
and the neighbouring hamlets became a 
fortress ; for six hours a deadly strife was 
waged ; and so great was the exasperation 
on both sides, that no quarter was given. 
The French were burning to avenge the 
insults of the invasion of their territory in 
1 8 14, and the defeat of Leipsic, in the 
previous year ; while the Prussians still 
remembered with unappeased hatred the 
terrible disaster of Jena, the subsequent 
occupation of their capital, and the purloined 
sword of Frederick the Great. After waver- 
ing for a long time, victory at last favoured 
the French. The intrepid Bliicher, whose 
seventy-three years had not robbed him of 
his energy, encouraged his men throughout 
the day with untiring zeal. But his horse 
was killed under him, and entangled him in 
its fall ; a charge of the enemy's cavalry 
swept past the old leader as he lay bruised 
and helpless on the ground, and passed him 
again presently in full career. It was only 
owing to the drizzling rain that had begun to 
fall, and the descending shades of evening, 
that he escaped being recognised and made 
prisoner by the enemy. His aide-de-camp. 
Von Nostitz, remained by him until some 
of his own soldiers, missing their leader, 
made a desperate charge and carried him 
off ; but when he had been borne from the 
field, the battle was lost ; and the advancing 
French drove the Prussians back in the 
direction of Wavre and Gembloux. 

Thus the first object of Napoleon had 
been, as he supposed, completely gained. 
The Prussians were in retreat, and the next 
thing was to prevent their rallying and 
forming a junction with the English. For 
this purpose. Marshal Grouchy was ordered 
by the Emperor to pursue the Prussians to a 
sufficient distance to render their reappear- 
ance on the field of battle impossible, and 
then to return with his 35,000 men and assist 
in the operations against Wellington. This 
task Grouchy failed to fulfil ; and to his 
shortcomings, which were suspected to be 
the result of deliberate treachery, Napoleon 
afterwards persisted in attributing, in a 
great measure, the tremendous disaster that 
brought ruin upon the French army two 
days later. Grouchy, on his part, published 
a defence, in which he retorts the blame 
upon the Emperor. Whether he did his 
best, and merely blundered, or treacherously 



FROM ELBA TO WATERLOO. 



betrayed the cause he had taken up, will 
always remain a doubtful point. Certain it 
is, that several of the French generals had 
become conscious of the desperate nature of 
Napoleon's enterprise ; and that one at 
least, General Bourmont, with two colonels, 
went over to Bliicher just before the battle 
of Ligny began, mounting the white cockade 
in lieu of the tricolour. The brave old Field- 
Marshal was far more disgusted at the 
treachery than pleased at the acquisition of 
these notable allies. " It's all the same what 
symbol the fellows set up," he grumbled, 
" rascals are rascals always." 
While Napoleon was gaining the victory, 



who wore the death's head and cross-bones 
on their caps, as a token at once of mourn- 
ing and of vengeance for their Duke, mortally 
wounded at Jena, — charged gallantly, and 
repeatedly made a diversion in favour of their 
allies, it was a most anxious time. 

Many of the soldiers in Picton's division 
were young recruits, whose very impetuosity 
might bring disaster. But they behaved 
nobly, and showed themselves thoroughly 
amenable to command. At their great chiefs 
orders they formed squares, standing four 
deep, the leading files kneeling to receive the 
enemy's charge, and with the musket resting 
against the knee forming a double chevaiix-de- 




The Gateway at Hougoumont. 



destined to be his last, the British army ard 
its German allies were enduring a hard 
fight at another point. On the morning 
ot the 1 6th, Marshal Ney, with some 
40,000 troops, attacked the Belgian con- 
tingent, under the Prince of Orange and 
General Perponcher, whom he compelled to 
fall back upon the cross-road of Ouatre 
Bras. The battle was about to conclude, 
with entire discomfiture of his opponents by 
the fiery Marshal, when Picton's division, 
arriving from Brussels, appeared on the 
scene ; and the Duke and his staff likewise 
arrived. The British cavalry and artillery 
had not yet come up ; and though the 
" Black Brunswickers," — a body of hussars 



fi'ise of bayonets, over which the rear ranks 
fired at the advancing foe. Over and over 
again the heavy cavalry of the enemy, the 
formidable cuirassiers, came thundering 
against these squares, and strove to break 
them, but in vain. The horses could not be 
brought to face the glittering bayonets, and 
invariably drew off to the right and left when 
they came close to the living ramparts. It 
was here that, in heading a most gallant and 
spirited charge of his black horsemen, their 
young leader, the "Brunswick's fated chief- 
tain " of Byron, met a hero's death. 

Among the regiments, who all acquitted 
themselves well, the 42nd and 92r,d High- 
landers may be singled out for especial praise ; 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the 92nd especiaHy distinguishing itself by a 
tremendous charge against the French at 
seven in the evening, when the battle had 
been maintained with great fury for five hours. 
This charge cost the regiment its gallant 
leader, Colonel Cameron, who, with three 
other officers, was struck down. 

The 28th Regiment, known as the " Slash- 
ers," and the Royal Scots, led to the charge by 
Sir Thomas Picton in person, also excited 
-admiration by their daring and endurance, 
•conspicuous even among that gallant body, 
■where " groom fought like noble, squire 
like knight, as fearlessly and well ; " and 
fresh spirit was infused into the hearts of all, 
when the Guards, under Sir Peregrine Mait- 
land, appeared upon the scene. Ney made 
the most frantic efforts to secure the victory 
he saw slipping from his hands, as the long 
midsummer day drew towards a close ; but 
the British ranks, wofully thinned by shot 
and shell, still stood imperturbable, and were 
not to be driven off. When night approached, 
the French marshal sent for a reserve corps 
he had kept back for a final effort ; but found, 
to bis mortification and disgust, that it had 
been removed by Napoleon, who had called 
it up to his own aid against the Prussians at 
Ligny. When the fight had raged ten hours, 
the exhausted assailants were called off, and 
the battle of Quatre Bras was as surely a 
victory for the British, with their allies of 
Hanover and Brunswick, as Ligny was a 
triumph for Napoleon. 

But it was a victory dearly purchased by 
the loss of 2,251 men and officers in the 
British army alone ; and the losses among 
the foreign troops would bring up the list of 
killed, \vounded, and missing to more than 
double the number ; 5,000 is the general esti- 
mate, and the carnage among the French 
had been even greater. The Highlanders 
had suffered terribly, having been for some 
hours prominently engaged. It is recorded 
how the piper of the 92nd, at ten o'clock that 
night, " played up " to collect his comrades. 
■" Long and loud blew Cameron," says the 
account ; " but although the hills and valleys 
echoed the hoarse murmurs of his favourite 
instrument, his ultimate efforts could not pro- 
duce above one-half of those whom his music 
had cheered on their march to the field of 
battle." 

Retreat, and a new Position south 
OF Waterloo. 
The Duke of Wellington passed the night 
after Quatre Bras on the field of battte by a 
fire made for him by some men of the 92nd. 
It had been his intention to attack Ney next 
morning in the position at Frasnes, to which 
the Marshal had retired ; but the disastrous 
news of the discomfiture of the Prussians at 
Ligny, and their consequent retreat, necessi- 



tated a change in his plans ; for now Napoleon 
would be at liberty to act with his whole 
force against him. Accordingly, in the morn- 
ing of the 17th, the order was given for the 
army to fall back, to take up a new position 
nearer to Brussels. The retreat was effected in 
perfect order by the three roads leading to 
the new position ; and military authorities 
have agreed that the movement, executed 
in the face of an advancing enemy, was a 
masterpiece of skill. The cavalry, under 
Lord Uxbridge, most gallantly covered the 
retreat, a service of great danger and difficulty ; 
for so soon as Ney found that the British 
army was falling back, he launched his heavy 
cavalry against the covering force ; and the 
day was signalised by furious charges and 
counter-charges of the horsemen of the two 
armies ; the most splendid and effective 
being that of the Life Guards. " Its rapid 
rush down into the enemy's mass," says a 
chronicler of these events, Captain Siborne, 
" was as terrific in appearance as it was de- 
structive in its effects ; for although the French 
met the attack with firmness, they were 
utterly unable to hold their ground for a 
single moment." The charge in question is 
further described as having rendered the 
enemy far more cautious in his pursuit. The 
Duke had been strongly reinforced, and the 
artillery and rocket brigade did good work 
in keeping back the pursuers. 

The work on the i6th and 17th had been 
very heavy for the army that took up its 
position on the field of Waterloo, the centre 
laeing in front of Mont St. Jean, on the 
evening of the latter day. First there had 
been the march of twenty miles from Brus- 
sels ; then the harassing and protracted 
fighting at Ouatre Bras ; and lastly, the 
retreat, pursued by an eager and untiring 
foe. The weather also on the two days had 
been excessively hot ; but now a tremendous 
thunderstorm cooled the air, though it satu- 
rated the ground and converted the roads 
into deep mud. During the night the rain 
at intervals fell in torrents, so that the 
bivouac on the field of Waterloo was far 
from a desirable one. 

During the day the Duke had found means 
to communicate with Bliicher, to whom he 
announced his intention of offering battle to 
the French, from his position, on the fol- 
lowing day, if Bliicher would support him 
with two Prussian army corps. Gallant old 
" Vorwarts " sent back word in reply that he 
would come, not with two corps, but with 
the whole Prussian army ; and in the face of 
great difficulties he kept his word. On re- 
ceiving this answer, Wellington proceeded to 
make the best dispositions in his power for 
strengthening himself for the morrow's fight. 
The centre of his position was three hundred 
yards in advance of the farm of Mont St. 



122 



FROM ELBA TO WATERLOO. 



Jean, and three-quarters of a mile south of 
the village of Waterloo, — a long, straggling, 
double row of houses on the road leading 
southward from Brussels to Charleroi. On 
a row of heights across this road the British 
anny was drawn up, the reserves and a part 
■of the force being posted in the declivities 
between the undulations, to hide them from 
the view of the enemy. The farmhouse, or 
rather chateau, known as the Chateau Gou- 
mont or Hougoumont, on the right of the 
Duke's position, was immediately strength- 
•ei:ed, as far as practicable, by piercing the 
walls for musketry, and other means ; for the 
Duke saw at once the great importance of 
•occupying it, and the danger of having his line 
pierced if it were taken by the enemy. To 
the north-east of Hougoumont another 
farmhouse, known as La Haye Sainte, was 
likewise occupied. Some companies of the 



on raw carrots or turnips, dragged out of the 
soddened ground. 

Napoleon exhibited exultation on finding 
the British army drawn up opposite him on 
the following morning. ^^ Ah, je les Hens 
enfi7i, ces Anglais ! " is his recorded ex- 
pression. Still he was in no hurry to begin 
the contest, and let hour after hour go by 
unemployed. It is conjectured that he 
was awaiting the return of Grouchy, con- 
sidering the Prussians as hopelessly beaten 
and scattered. Others have thought he 
waited till the ground, saturated by the 
rains, should be more practicable for artil- 
lery. Be that as it may, it was not until 
nearly noon that he gave the signal for attack, 
and the famous battle of Waterloo began. 

The Great Battle and its Issue. 
On the part of the English, Waterloo may 




Monuments on the Field of Waterloo. 



•Guards and Brunswick troops were stationed 
at Hougoumont, while La Haye Sainte was 
entrusted to a part of the German Legion. 
The forest of Soignies, supposed to be the 
" forest of Arden " of Shakespeare, iii the 
I'ear of the Duke's position, offered a con- 
venient and safe retreat in case of repulse ; 
for a pursuing foe would hardly venture into 
its depths. 

The French, following close upon the 
heels of their foes, took position on the 
■opposite heights ; the space between the two 
armies forming a shallow valley about three 
quarters of a mile in breadth. The French 
underwent the same discomforts in their 
bivouac as those suffered by their foes ; and 
are said to have been far worse off in the 
matter of commissariat, for the speed with 
which they had marched had not enabled 
the waggons to keep up with the advance, 
and many a poor soldier supped that night 



be described as a battle of endurance. A 
series of tremendous onslaughts were made 
by the French, and these were successively 
beaten back by the steady and stubborn 
valour of their foes. The quaint remark 
made by the Duke himself cluring its pro- 
gress, as he rode past a regiment in the 
thick of the fight, well describes its nature : 
" Hard pounding, gentlemen," said the im- 
perturbable chief; "let us see who can 
pound longest." In a letter to a friend 
he described "our battle of the i8th" as a 
strife of giants. " Never did I see such a 
pounding match," he wrote. " Both parties 
were what in boxers' language would be 
called gluttons." And again, " Bonaparte 
did not manoeuvre at all. He simply ad- 
vanced in the old fashion, in columns of 
attack, and was beaten off in the old 
fashion." 

The unaccountable delay of Napoleon, 



223 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



who had everything to gain by promptitude, 
caused the battle not to begin until about 
noon ; when the French Emperor sent six 
battahons of infantry, under his brother 
Jerome, to attack the British position at 
Hougoumont, which was defended by the 
Guards and by the Brunswick troops. In 
a short time the battle became general along 
the whole extent of the lines. 

The French never fought better. Their 
attacks were most vigorous, and were re- 
newed again and again with equal fierceness 
and determination. 

Especially about Hougoumont and La 
Haye Sainte did the conflict rage, through 
the long June afternoon and evening, with 
unexampled fury. The Coldstream Guards 
defended the former important point, which 
was considered the key to the English position, 
in a way that gained them immortal honour, 
under their brave leaders. Lord Saltoun, 
Colonel Macdonnell, and Sir John Byng. 
"Your Grace need not fear for Hougoumont, 
for Saltoun is there," was the answer of an 
aide-de-camp despatched to see how things 
were going at this important point. The old 
gateway at Hougoumont still bears traces of 
the conflict of that day on its smoke-blackened 
and bullet-scarred beams. The court-yard 
was held against the assailants with the most 
stubborn determination, and all the efforts of 
the French to get possession of Hougoumont 
were vain. 

At La Haye Sainte they were more success- 
ful. The unfortunate failure of the defenders' 
ammunition enablc'd them to take the place ; 
from whence they advanced with great de- 
termination against the allied position, but 
only to be driven back with great loss ; for 
Picton's division, with its gallant leader at 
its head, charged them, and hurled them 
back discomfited ; gaining this success, 
however, at the price of the life of the brave 
Picton himself, who fell struck by a musket- 
ball in the temple while leading his men to 
the attack. 

The union brigade of cavalry, consisting 
of the Royal Dragoons, the Enniskillen 
Dragoons, and the Scots Greys, under the 
command of the Earl of Uxbridge, signalised 
itself by a tremendous charge, in which 3,000 
of the enemy and two eagles were captured. 
Here it was that the gallant Sir WiUiam 
Ponsonby fell. 

The advance of the French cuirassiers 
against the British centre was beaten back 
in a similar manner by the Life Guards and 
Blues, under Lord Edward Somerset. The 
fire of the artillery on both sides was tremen- 
dously heavy during the whole day. The 
defensive position in which the English were 
so long kept was naturally most harassing ; 
for thousands were struck down by the 



enemy's artillery fire as they stood in theii 
ranks. Thus, as the Duke passed in front 
of the regiments, he was frequently received 
with urgent cries, begging him to allow his 
men to charge ; but his invariable reply was, 
" Not yet, my men, not yet." 

It was at four o'clock that a more combined 
effort than they had yet attempted was made 
by the French cavalry to sweep the British 
infantry from their position. But the English 
formed into squares, and, as at Quatre Bras, 
the French cavalry found these impregnable, 
and after the most gallant exertions and the 
heaviest losses were compelled to retire. 
Napoleon, meanwhile, had been watching 
with surprise and disquietude the stubborn 
resistance of foes, who, according to his idea, 
had been beaten, though they did not seem 
to know it, and who ought to have retired 
from the field hours before. On this point, 
however, Soult, who knew the quality ol 
these troops, undeceived his master, assur- 
ing him that the British would stand until 
they were cut to pieces, but would not give 
way. How the long day ended has been 
told a hundred times. The Prussians had 
gallantly striven to redeem their leader's 
pledge of coming to the support of the 
English ; and through roads in which their 
gun carriages sometimes sank axle deep in 
the mire, were struggling onward to the 
scene of strife, while Grouchy still came 
not. 

The evening had come when Napoleon 
made his last effort by sending forward the 
Imperial Guard, which he had kept in re- 
serve. The " deliberate and sedate " valour 
of the English, never more confident and 
steady than towards the close of a hotly- 
contested day, was here brilliantly displayed. 
The long thin lines that had stood all day 
on those heights were ready as ever for the 
combat, when their leader, profiting by the 
confusion caused among the foe by the 
tremendous artillery fire, and the volleys 
of musketry poured into Ney's advancing 
columns, gave the long-wished-for word for 
the whole line to advance ; and when the 
British came pouring down from the heights 
they had occupied all day, spite of shot 
and shell sabre and bayonet, and then 
Napoleon, aghast amid the rout of his 
legions, declared that his men were in inex- 
tricable confusion, and that the battle was 
over : "//j- sont ineles ensemble — c'est fini ! " 
and with the wreck of his army he turned 
and fled. 

From Elba to Waterloo, the Hundred 
Days, had been a period of short but intoxi- 
cating triumph ; from Waterloo to St. 
Helena was the next and the last stage in 
the life journey of the vanquished conqueror 

H. W. D. 



224 




An Ancient Scottish Feudal Castle. 



SCOTLAND'S GREAT VICTORY: 

THE STORY OF THE BATTLE OF BANNOCKBURN. 

" Stories to read are delitable, 
Suppose that they be nought but fable ; 
Then should stories that soothfast [true] were. 
And that were told in good manere 
Have double pleasure in the telling. 
* * * * » 

I tell of Robert of Scotland, 
That hardy was of heart and hand ; 
That of his praise and chivalry 
In far-off lands renown'd was he." 

Barbour's " Bntce.'* 



Introduchon— Bntons, English, Picts, Scots— Scotland, Edinburgh— A Glance at the early Scottish Kings— The English 
Connection begins— Want of Unity of Races in Scotland— Wars with England, Battle of the Standard— The King of 
Scotland becomes the King of England's Vassal— Progress in Wealth— A Heavy Trouble begins— The Trouble 
Thickens- England the Arbitrator— Humiliation-Scotland Arises, but is Trampled down— Wallace to the Rescue- 
Still Unconquered— Robert Bruce— King Edward's Vow of Vengeance— The Avenger laid low— Adventures of the 
Fugitives, etc.— Brighter Days begin— King Edward XL— Frivolity takes the place of Fierceness— The Siege of 
Stirling Castle— A Battle imminent— Site of the Battle— The Battle-Flight of King Edward— Bruce's Nobleness in 
Tnumph— Results of the Battle. 



Introductory ; Britons, English, 
PiCTS, Scots. 
]LL readers of history know that the 
island which we call Great Britain 
contains the three portions, England, 
Scotland, and Wales, and that it once con- 
tained a Celtic population, most commonly 
known by the name of " Britons." This 
island of Britain was conquered by the 




Romans, and held in subjection nearly five 
hundred years. Then there came into the 
southern part a new race of Teutons, or 
Germans, and these are generally named the 
" English." For more than five hundred 
years the English settlers were divided into 
seven kingdoms, then they were joined in 
one (a.d. 814). 

It is the purpose of the present narrative 
225 Q 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



to trace the growth of the nation inhabiting 
the northern part of the island. I suppose 
our first memory of its history is that the 
Britons, when their Roman conquerors left 
them, weakened by their long subjection, 
found themselves greatly harassed by "the 
Picts and Scots." The reader might easily 
imagine to himself that he knew who the 
Scots were, but was not so clear about the 
Picts, and yet might be mistaken on the 
first head. The Picts were really the whole 
inhabitants of Northern Britain, except the 
south-west portion of it, comprising the 
modern counties of Argyll and Dumbarton, 
and the isles of Arran, I slay, and Jura. Here 
the Scots had settled themselves, a colony 
whose native home was Ireland. This must 
be remembered to begin with when we study 
the history of our sister nation of the north. 

Scotland ; Edinburgh. 

In the middle of the ninth century the 
Scots overcame the Picts, and so all the 
country north of the Firths of Forth and 
Clyde came to be called Scotland, after the 
conquerors (a.d. 843). The land south of 
this had varying fortunes ; sometimes it was 
a separate kingdom, sometimes it was subject 
to the King of Northumberland. In 617, the 
latter kingdom had become for the time the 
most powerful in the Saxon heptarchy, and 
its king, Edwin, carried his conquests as far 
as the Forth, and founded a city, named 
after him, Edwin'sburgh — Edinburgh. From 
that time the country south of the Forth, 
known by the name of Lothian, was really 
English in blood. The Scottish kings, how- 
ever, pushed southward by invasions of the 
Scandinavians in the north, pressed within 
the English border, until about the beginning 
of the eleventh century Lothian was given to 
them to be held, not as part of Scotland, 
but as an English earldom ; they acknow- 
ledging the supremacy of the English king 
over this territory. There was another portion 
of which we have not spoken. Strathclyde 
was the name of the district which now 
comprises Cumberland and the south-west 
counties of Scotland. It had been con- 
quered by the English, but was granted to 
the Scottish crown as an appanage. Thus 
it will be seen that the Scottish kings held 
three separate dominions on three different 
' tenures ; the first of which, the kingdom of 
Scotland, was quite independent of England, 
but not the other two. 

A Glance at the Early Scottish 
Kings. 

Meanwhile Scotland had become con- 
verted to the Christian faith, and the history 
of the conversion of the north forms a beau- 
tiful chapter in the records of missionary 
enterprise, though it is no part of our present 



subject. Nor can we speak of the earliest 
kings of Scotland ; but in 1004 we note the 
accession of Duncan. There is a tradition 
that his succession was secured by the 
murder of one, who had a better claim ; if 
so, judgment followed the deed. The mur- 
dered man's sister, Gruach, married the 
Chief of Moray, Macbeth ; and he revenged 
the deed by murdering Duncan in a smith's 
hut. Shakspeare's magnificent tragedy, 
therefore, has some truth in it, but more 
fiction. Macbeth ruled wisely and well, but 
Duncan's father got up a rebellion in favour 
of the dead king's sons, Malcolm and Donald. 
They were assisted by Siward, Earl of Nor- 
thumberland, and after a long struggle, Mac- 
beth was defeated and slain. The new king, 
Malcolm, is brought into close connection with 
English history by his marriage, and from 
this time, more than ever, the manners and 
language of the Scottish Court are English, 
and not Celtic. To see how this marriage 
came about we must turn to England for a 
little. 

An English Connection Begins. 

The Danish conquests had wrought great 
woe to England for the time being, though 
good in the end came out of them. 

When Edmund Ironside was murdered in 
1016, his two sons fell into the power of Cnut. 
They were sent first to Sweden, then to Hun- 
gary ; and in this latter country, which was ruled 
by a good king, they were well and happily 
nurtured. One died there ; the other, after 
some years, was invited to England by his 
cousin, Edward the Confessor. Two years 
afterwards he also died, leaving a son and 
two daughters ; the son, Edgar, being the 
youngest, apparently only six years old. But 
though he was the lineal descendant of Alfred 
the Great, the Confessor made no reference to 
him in his will. Not only his youth but his 
foreign connexion, probably barred him from 
the succession in Edward's eyes, who be- 
queathed the crown to Harold. How William 
the Norman fought Harold, and slew him, and 
became King of England, we need not pause 
to tell. The little Edgar was presented ta 
him ; William took him up in his arms and 
kissed him, promised to be his friend, and 
kept his word. But the friends of the three 
children, apparently dreading some treachery,, 
resolved on sending them back to their mother's 
relations in Hungary, They were driven by 
storm on the Scottish coast, and were brought 
to King Malcolm. He remembered his own 
obligations to the old English court, became 
their partizan, and encouraged two disaffected 
English lords to revolt against the Conqueror. 
This was in 1071. The rebellion was quelled ; 
then William marched to the north, cossed 
the Forth, and was met by Malcolm, who- 
swore solemn fealty for Lothian and Cum- 



226 



SCOTLAND'S GREAT VICTORY. 



berland, thereby admitting William's royalty. 
This trouble was at an end then. Next year 
Malcolm married Edgar's beautiful sister, 
Margaret ; the other sister went into a convent. 
Queen Margaret thus found herself the 
chief lady in a court which was little better 
than a horde of untamed, savage warriors. 
By her gentleness she civilized them ; and to 
her, more than to any one, we must attribute 
the nobler and better vie w of life and its duties 
which grew up in the northern court. King 
Malcolm was slain in 1093, and his good 
Margaret only survived him a few days. 
Then heavy troubles fell upon Scotland for 
five years, after which Malcolm's son Edgar 
succeeded, and reigned prosperously. When 
the Red King was slain in the New Forest, 
his eldest brother, Robert, was in Italy, and 
Henry Beauclerc, the Conqueror's youngest 
son, seized the crown. He strengthened his 
position both with the Scots and the English 
by his marriage with Malcolm's daughter 
Edith. The Scots were pleased for the 
honour done to them, and the English be- 
cause Edith was connected with their 
ancient dynasty. Her name was changed, 
however, to Matilda or Maude, to please the 
Normans, who disliked Saxon names. 

Want of Unity of Races in Scotland. 

As the Scottish kings came more and more 
to attach themselves to English customs, and 
to look upon Lothian as their richest pos- 
session, they alienated the dwellers in the old 
Pict country in a great degree from them. 
There was in fact the same sort of antipathy 
which we see between England and Wales 
later on, and between England and Ireland 
now, z'.^., the antipathy between Teutonic and 
Celtic blood. Many troubles arose out of 
this during the " English period," as it is 
sometimes called, which began with the 
marriage of Malcolm and Margaret. Thus 
in the reign of Edgar (1097-1107) the King 
of Norway invaded the northern part of the 
country, and the " lords of the Isles " declared 
in his favour. In the next reign the men of 
Moray rose again ; but the King, Alexander I., 
put them down with such vigour as to win 
for himself the surname of "The Fierce." 
The next king was David I., who by his- 
marriage with the heiress thereof became 
English Earl of Huntingdon. But when he 
went to take possession of his new fief, the 
Moray men again rose, and on their defeat, 
Moray was divided among the Norman 
knights who had helped King David. 

Wars with England ; Battle op the 
Standard. 

When Stephen was made King of England, 
David took up the cause of his niece Matilda ; 
and his armies, comprising Scots from the 
north, Northmen from the Orkneys, Teutons 



from Lothian, committed great ravages in the 
northern counties. The English barons, 
though themselves torn with contentions 
between Stephen and Maude, were indignant 
at the doings of the Scottish king, and made 
common cause against him, and met him at 
Northallerton, in a battle known as the Battle 
of the Standard. The English were drawn 
up round a standard, which consisted of the 
consecrated host, elevated on a ship's mast, 
with banners of saints floating around it. 
One main cause of the Scottish defeat on 
this day occurred again and again in after 
years, and was in great measure the cause of 
the disaster at Flodden, namely the different 
mode of fighting adopted by the men of 
Lothian from that of the northern Highlands. 
The former were well-armed, well-disciplined 
men, who would stand their ground ; the latter 
were wont to rush with terrific force on the 
enemy, in the hope of breaking their ranks ; 
but if they failed in this, they retreated in 
order to make a fresh attempt. Unfortunately 
for both themselves and their allies, this 
retreat too often had the effect of throwing 
the latter into confusion. In the present case 
the English arrows drove back the Highland 
men, and the battle was lost. David, how- 
ever, still continued to fight until his death at 
Carlisle in 11 53. After him came in succes- 
sion his two sons, Malcolm IV. and William 
the Lion. The latter, aiding the rebellious 
sons of Henry II. against their father, was 
by him surprised and captured at Alnwick, 
and sent a prisoner to Falaisein Normandy, 
I174. There King Henry gave him his 
freedom on condition of signing a treaty that 
he would hold the whole kingdom of Scotland 
on the same terms that he and his predeces- 
sors had hitherto held Lothian, that is, as a 
vassal of the King of England. 

The King of Scotland becomes the 
King of England's Vassal. 

Next year, in accordance with this treaty, 
the King of Scots, with his nobles, did homage 
to the King of England in York Minster. 
This treaty held good until Henry's death. 
Then Richard I., being in want of money, 
released King William from his bond on the 
payment of 10,000 marks, retaining, however, 
on the old footing the suzerainty of Lothian. 
And in accordance with this, on the accession 
of King John, William did homage for Lothian, 
as was the manner before the Treaty of 
Falaise. These points are all-important to 
note, as much turns upon them in the great 
after struggle. 

Progress in Wealth. 

Meanwhile the progress of commerce and 

the growth of free towns had greatly increased, 

and the increase of William's power is 

shown by his being able to hold his court at 



227 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



such far-off places as Nairn and Inverness ; 
and although there was one of the usual 
risings in Moray at the accession of his 
successor Alexander II. (1214), it was put 
down more easily than had ever been the 
case before. Alexander III. (1249- 1266) 
married Margaret, daughter of Henry III. 
He went up to Westminster to do homage to 
Edward I. for his English fiefs, as his fore- 
fathers had done. Edward claimed the 



death of her grandfather Alexander, for his 
only son died a year or two before him. 

The Trouble Thickens. 

King Alexander had been killed by falling 
from his horse over a cliff. The suddenness 
of the event had contributed to the confusion 
which followed it. Six regents were appointed 
to govern on behalf of the three-years- old 
queen ; three of them being chosen from the 




King Robert Bruce. 



overlordship of all, but it was not admitted, 
nor did he then attempt to enforce it. But 
now fresh troubles were to arise, and to pro- 
duce most important results. 

A Heavy Trouble. 

In 1281, King Alexander's daughter Mar- 
garet married the heir to the throne of Nor- 
wa>y. She only lived two years after this, 
leaving an infant daughter. This daughter 
became heiress to the Scottish crown on the 



land north of theForth, and three from Lothian 
and Galloway. The incident shows how 
much the different portions of the country 
still held aloof from each other. The regents 
had not long to hold their office, for on her 
way to Scotland the "Maid of Norway" died. 
As she was the last lineal descendant of 
William the Lion, her successor had to be 
sought from the descendants of his brother 
David, Earl of Huntingdon. There were 
many claimants, but the real contest lay be- 



228 



SCOTLAND'S GREAT VICTORY. 



tween three. David had left three daughters. 
John Balliol, Lord of Galloway, was grand- 
son of the eldest ; Robert Bruce, Lord of 
Annandale, a Norman by descent on the 
father's side, was son of the second ; and 
John Hastings, Lord of Abergavenny, son of 
the third. The latter, too, had clearly no 
right, unless the country were regarded as a 
fief of the English crown, and not an inde- 
pendent kingdom. In that case, indeed, the 
fief was divisible among the representatives 
of the three heiresses ; but in the case of an 
independent kingdom, the choice was be- 
tween Balliol and Bruce. According to our 
present ideas, Balliol's right would be in- 
contestible. 

England the Arbitrator ; 
Humiliation. 

All Scotland looked to Edward L to settle 
the difficulty, for by universal consent he was 
overlord over Lothian, though the rest was 
matter of dispute. He opened a Parliament 
at Norham, in 1291, to settle the question, 
and began by claiming overlordship of the 
whole country. The Scots were taken by 
surprise. The lords and many of the claim- 
ants were fain to yield. They saw no practi- 
cal evil likely to ensue, for they were mostly 
Normans themselves, and allied in many 
ways with the English nation. The Com- 
mons, indeed, refused to admit Edward's 
claim, but they were feeble and unable to 
act. He carried his point, therefore, and 
was acknowledged as overlord of Scotland, 
and the fortresses were handed over to him 
as a pledge of this till he should make his 
award. He decided, and rightly, according 
to the principles of modern law, in favour of 
Balliol, as the representative of the eldest 
daughter. The award was accepted, and 
Balliol did homage to Edward for his king- 
dom. 

Scotland arises, but is trampled 

DOWN. 

But the wound thus caused rankled in 
many a breast, and before long Balliol re- 
fused to admit the right of the English king 
to hear appeals against his legal decisions. 
To this step he was urged not so much 
by the Scots as by Philip the Fair, King of 
France, who was jealous of the great and un- 
precedented power of the English monarch, 
and hoped, by kindling strife between the 
two nations of Great Britain, to gain an 
opportunity to seize the Enghsh possessions 
in France. A war of England against both 
nations was the consequence, but we have to 
follow only the northern. The first result 
of it was the destruction of Berwick-upon- 
Tweed. It had been the greatest merchant 
city of the north ; it never became a great 
town again. Edward then marched north- 



wards, Bruce joined his standard, the great 
towns opened their gates, Balliol himself 
surrendered, and was sent to an English 
prison. The submission was complete. Ed- 
ward carried away the sacred coronation 
stone from Scone, and placed it in West- 
minster Abbey, before the shrine of Edward 
the Confessor, underneath a stately chair, 
which has been used as the coronation chair 
of English monarchs to this day. 

A Hero Appears ; Sir William 
Wallace. 

But a very few months saw all his schemes 
undone. One cause of anger to the Scots 
was that they saw English clerics and barons 
intruded into Scottish lands ; another was 
that the strict administration of justice spoiled 
the doings of freebooters and cattle-lifters — ■ 
just and unjust alike clamoured against the 
English usurpation. An outlaw knight, Sir 
William Wallace, called the people to fight 
for their national freedom and birthright, 
and the response was enthusiastic. In Sep- 
tember 1297, Wallace, with the army thus 
called together, met the English, under John 
de Warrenne, near Stirling. The English 
were crossing the Forth by the only availa- 
ble bridge, and half of them had got over 
when Wallace fell on them and cut them to 
pieces ; the remainder of the English army 
fled over the border. Then Edward himself 
took the field. He came with an immense 
host, and met Wallace, July 22nd, at the battle 
of Falkirk. The struggle was fierce and 
bloody, and ended with an utter rout of the 
Scots. 

And still Scotland was unconquered. Her 
national life had been roused by Wallace's 
patriotism. Edward was hard put to it for 
supplies, and the French war also was so 
dangerous to him that he had to withdraw 
homewards. In 1304 he came again, again 
was acknowledged as overlord by the nobles, 
proceeded to make arrangements for better 
administration of justice in Scotland, and 
once more returned to London, carrying 
Wallace with him as a prisoner, he having 
been betrayed during the King's visit. There 
seems too much reason to believe that he 
had gratified his hatred to the English by 
horrible cruelties ever since the Falkirk de- 
feat ; but Edward's conduct towards one whom 
the Scots loved was unwise. Wallace was 
tried as a traitor in Westminster Hall, and 
hanged. His head was stuck on a pole on 
London Bridge, and the four quarters of his 
body were sent to be hung up in four Scottish 
towns. The resentment of the Scots was 
bitter and lasting. 

Still Unconquered ; Robert Bruce. 

Hardly was the sentence executed when 
they again rose in arms, headed by Robert 



229 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Bruce, the grandson of the original competitor 
with Balliol. His father and grandfather 
had been partizans of the English crown in 
the war with BaUiol ; but now that Balliol 
was withdrawn, and Scotland seemed alto- 
gether at the mercy of the conquerer, Bruce 
revived his grandfather's claim to the crown. 
Comyn, one of the Scottish nobles to whom 
he had communicated his views, disclosed 
them to the Englishjwhereupon Bruce stabbed 
him to death in a church in Dumfries, and 
then, feeling that there was no longer any 
possibility of temporizing, he went to Scone 
and had himself crowned king. It seemed 
a desperate step ; for King Edward, half- 
maddened with fury, once more marched to- 
wards Scotland, vowing terrible vengeance. 

King Edward's Vow of Vengeance. 

He would " execute vengeance for the con- 
tempt done by Bruce to God and the Church, 
after which he would never more bear arms 
against Christians, but would finish his days 
in warring against the infidels in the Holy 
Land." His son Edward also, — whom with 
three hundred other youths he knighted at 
starting for the war, — vowed never to tarry 
two nights in one place till he arrived in 
Scotland. King Edward was now old, 
however, and could move but slowly. 
Having reached Lanercrost, in Cumberland, 
he determined to rest there ; but he sent 
justices to Berwick to try all prisoners, 
especially those that were accused of com- 
plicity in the death of Comyn ; and all 
against whom a conviction could be obtained 
were ruthlessly hanged and quartered. The 
Countess of Buchan, who had put the crown 
on Bruce's head, was sentenced to be shut 
up in a wooden cage on the top of one of the 
towers of Berwick Castle, and Bruce's sister 
an like manner on Roxburgh. But this com- 
bination of the sword of justice with that 
of war, the execration of the Church,* the 



* The Cardinal of Spain came to Lanercrost just 
at this time with a message from the Pope respect- 
ing the marriage of the Prince of Wales with Isabel of 
France, and was induced to gratify Edward by joining 
the English bishops in cursing Bruce. ' ' He put on his 
vestments with the other bishops who were present,'' 
says the chronicler Hemingford, "and with lighted 
candles and the ringing of bells, they terribly cursed 
Bruce and his fellow malefactors." In Sir Walter 
Scott's poem, "The Lord of the Isles," the Abbot 
of Icolmkill, addressing Bruce, thus vividly paints 
the terrors of excommunication : — 

' ' And thou, 
Unhappy ! what hast thou to plead, 
Why, I denoimce not on thy deed 
That awful doom which canons tell 
Shuts Paradise and opens hell ? 
Anathema, of power so dread, 
It blends the living with the dead, 
Bids each good angel soar away, 
And every ill one claim his prey ; 



piercing domestic wounds, — all were unable 
to break the courage of Bruce and his people. 
On the contrary, the spirit of insatiable 
revenge was kindled afresh every day by the 
sight of the cruelties inflicted with the forms 
of law, and the people determined to spend 
the last drop of blood before yielding. The 
English King, more in desperation, perhaps, 
than in the effort of a great mind, and in 
order to confute a report of his death which 
had gone abroad, set out once more for 
Scotland. But his race was run. On the 
first two days he advanced only at the rate 
of two miles a day. On the third he rested. 
On the fourth he reached the village of 
Burgh-on-the-Sands. He was carried — un- 
able to walk and hardly to speak — into a 
house. Next day the end came. 

The Avenger laid low. 

Barbour, the Scotch poet, tells — let us hope 
his tale is not true — that the King knew 
himself dying, and was making his arrange- 
ments for his kingdom when the tidings 
reached him that some prisoners had just 
been taken. Thereupon he " grinned," and, 
to the horror of the bystanders, ordered them 
to be all hanged and quartered. 

" Wonder there was of sic saying. 
That he that unto death was near 
Should answer upon such manere, 
Withouten pity and mercy. 
How might he trust on Him to cry 
That rightuisely doth doom all thing. 
To have mercie for his crying 
On one that through his felony 
At sic a point had no mercy ? " 

So writes the stern poet. The cruel sentence 
was executed, and was followed the same day 
by the King's death. It was July 30th, 1307. 

Adventures of the Fugitive King. 

The Earl of Pembroke took up the cam- 
paign as English general on King Edward's 
death, and led an army across the border. 
He found himself unresisted ; Bruce had 



Expels thee from the Church's care. 

And deafens Heaven against thy prayer, 

Arms every hand against thy life. 

Bans all who aid thee in the strife ; 

Nay, each whose succour, cold and scant. 

With meanest alms relieves thy want ; 

Hunts thee when hving, and when dead. 

Dwells on thy yet devoted head. 

Rends honour's scutcheon from thy hearse, 

Stills o'er thy bier the holy verse. 

And spurns thy corpse from hallowed ground, 

Flung like vile carrion to the hound : 

Such is the dire and desperate doom 

For sacrilege, decreed by Rome ; 

And such the well deserved meed 

Of thine unhallowed, ruthless deed." 

It is noticeable that, in spite of repeated bulls, the 
native Scottish clergy, throughout the whole struggle 
that followed, took no heed of this excommunica- 
tion, but continued to perform their functions. 



2'^0 



SCOTLAND'S GREAT VICTORY. 



fled for his life. After rnost distressing hard- 
ships he crossed the Frith of Clyde to Cantire, 
and thence, diffident of his safety, he sought 
it in the small and almost deserted Isle of 
Rauchrin [Rathlin], in the wild Atlantic. 
His adventures are among the foremost in 
the records of Scottish heroism. They have 
found a chronicler in the poet we have just 
referred to, John Barbour, Archdeacon of 
Aberdeen. Some of them are very likely 
legendary, but they one and all indicate the 
conviction of a high and noble character, 
raised up by God to be the deliverer of a 
nation. By way of specimen, we will quote 
one story from him, modernizing only suffi- 
ciently to make the language intelligible to 
the general reader. This story belongs to a 
period following soon after his coronation : — 

" To the King Robert again go we 
That in Rauchrj'ne with his menye [following] 
Lay till winter near was gone. 
And of that isle his meat has ta'en. 
James of Douglas was angry 
That longer they should idle lie ; 
And to Sir Robert Boyd said he, 
■* The poore folk of this country 
Are charged upon great manere 
Of us that idle ly thus here. 
And I here say that in Arran, 
In a strong castle built of stone, 
Are English men that with strong hand 
Do hold the lordship of the land. 
Thither go we ; it well may fall 
That harm them in some thing we shall.' 
Sir Robert said, ' I grant there till [agree thereto] 
To lie here more were little skill ; 
Therefore to Arran pass will we. 
For I know right well the countre6 ; 
Also the castle right know f. 
Vv''e shall come there so privily, 
That they shall have perceiving, 
Nor yet witting of our coming. 
And we shall near ambushed be 
Where we their outcome plain may see. 
So shall it on no manner fall 
But scathe them in some wise we shall. ' 
With that they armed them anon. 
And of the King their leave have ta'en, 
And went them forth straight on their way. 
Into Cantire soon come are they : 
Thus rowing always by the land 
Till that the night was near on hand ; 
To Arran then they went their way, 
And safely there arrived they. 
And in a glen their galley drew. 
And soon they made it fast enough : 
Their tackle, oars, and eke their steer [helm] 
They hide all on the same manere, 
And held their way on through the night, 
So that before the dawn of light 
They were ambushed the castle near, . 
All armed upon their best manere ; 
And though they wet were, and weary. 
And through long fasting all hungry. 
They thought to hold them all privy 
Till that they well their point might see. 
Sir John of Hastings at that tide. 
With many knights of mickle pride, 
And squires, and also yeomanry. 
In truth a goodly company. 
Was in the castle of Brathwike. 
And ofttimes, when it would him tide [please], 



He went a hunting with his men, 
And so the land abandoned then. 
None durst refuse to do his will. 
And he was in the castle still 
The time that James, lord of Douglas, 
As I have told, ambushed was." 

A convoy, with the victaile and clothing, 
coming in three boats, is captured by Douglas 
and his men. Some are slain, and the rest 
raise a cry of terror. 

" When they that in the castle were 
Did hear the folks so cry and roar. 
They issued forth then to the fight ; 
But when the Douglas saw that sight, 
His men to him he 'gan to rally, 
And forth to meet them he did sally. 
And when they of the castle saw 
Him coming on them without awe, 
And how they fled without debate, 
And so were followed to the gate 
And smitten down, as they in passed ; 
The gate they straightway barred fast, 
That they might come at them no more. 
Therefore they left them each one there. 
And turned to the sea again, 
Where lay the men that they had slain. 
And when they that were in the boats 
Saw how they came, and how they smote 
So grievously their company, 
In haste they put themselves to sea. 
And rowed away with all their might. 
But soon the wind, as in despite, 
Against them made the breakers rise. 
That they could wield [master] the sea no wise ; 
And as they durst not come to land 
They tossed about, a helpless band. 
That of the three boats sunk were two. 
When Douglas saw that it was so, 
He seized the arms, the clothes , the food. 
The wine, and everything of good 
That he found there, and went his way. 
Right glad and joyful of his prey." 

Our next story must be in plain prose. It 
is one of the best-known stories of King 
Robert Bruce. Tidings came to him in 
Rauchrin of the execution of his brother by 
King Edward, and of skirmishes in which 
his followers were defeated, till he was quite 
in despair. One morning he lay upon his 
bed, sick at heart, and deliberating within 
himself whether any good purpose was to be 
served by his making further attempts on 
behalf of his country. Would it not be 
better to betake himself to the Holy Land, 
and fight against unbelievers ? For then he 
might also make his peace with the Church, 
which had been broken by the murder of 
Comyn. But then, on the other hand, the 
inner voice of conscience told him that what- 
ever the popular religion of the time might 
think, it was a plainer duty which lay before 
him to fight to the death for the restoration 
of the freedom of the country that he loved 
so dearly than to slink away to a land far 
off. Here indeed he might fail, but it 
would be cowardly, yea wicked, to leave his 
country deserted because the achievement of 
her liberty was the harder task. 



231 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Thus he ruminated ; and as he did so, he 
looked up to the roof of his chamber, and 
saw a sight which engrossed his attention. A 
spider, hanging at the end of a long thread 
of its own spinning, was endeavouring, as its 
custom is, to swing itself from one beam to 
another, for the purpose of fixing the line 
on which to stretch its web. Six times, as 
Bruce counted, it failed. He bethought 
himself that he had fought six unsuccessful 
battles against the English, and waited for 
the omen of the seventh attempt. By that 
he would be guided, and he looked on with 
eagerness. The attempt was renewed. The 
spider gathered all the force it could muster, 
and swung itself again. It was successful ! 

The reader who shall visit Westminster 
Abbey will see the incident depicted on one 
of the stained glass windows of Henry the 
Seventh's Chapel, — a memorial of one who 
was descended from the brave Bruce, and 
whose last years were spent in a manner 
worthy of her ancestor's name, in working 
bravely and zealously on behalf of the poor 
of Westminster, — Lady Augusta Stanley. 

Brighter Days Begin. 

King Robert accepted the omen, and went 
forth from Rauchrin island full of courage 
and joyous hope. First he crossed to Arran. 
Inquiring if there were any strong men 
there, a woman answered that a strong body 
of men had lately come thither and slain the 
English warden, and that they were dwelling 
at "a stalwart place" hard by. 

" ' Dame,' said the King, ' would thou me wiss 
To that place where their dwelling is ; 
I shall reward thee but lesing [without lying], 
For they are all of my dwelling ; 
And I right gladly would them see, 
And so, trow I, they would see me." 
'Yes,' said she, ' Sir, I will blithlie 
Go with you and your company, 
Till that I show you their repair.' 
' That is enough, my sister fair. 
Now go we forward,' said the King. 
Then went they forth without letting [hindrance], 
Following her as she them led ; 
Till at the last she showed a shed 
To the King, in a woody glen, 
And said, ' Sir, here I saw the men 
That ye speir [ask] after make lodging ; 
Here, trow I, is their repairing.' 
The King then blew his horn on high, 
And made the men that were him by 
Hold themselves still and all privie. 
And soon again his horn blew he. 
Then James of Douglas heard him blow, 
And in a moment 'gan him know, 
And said, ' Of truth, yon is the King ; 
I know long time since his blowing.' 
A second time King Robert blew, 
And then Sir Robert Boyd it knew, 
And said, ' Yon is the King, no dread. 
Go we foith to him with all speed." 
So to the King they all did hie, 
And kndl to him all courteously ; 



And blithely welcomed they the King, 
Who joyful was of their meeting. 
He kissed them , and kindly speired 
How each and all of late had fared. 
They told but [without] leaving everything, 
Then praised they God for this meeting." 

King Robert's next step was to cross to 
the mainland of Scotland. He knew that 
he would be near his birthplace, and there- 
fore likely to find friends there. He sent 
a trusted servant over first to reconnoitre ; 
and if he saw good hope of support, he was 
to light a beacon fire. The messenger saw 
no such hope, for the English seemed strong ; 
but, by accident, some one unknown to him 
happened to light a fire, which Bruce took 
for his sign, and crossed. When he found 
out the mistake, however, he resolved to 
stand his ground. 

Little by little men gathered to him ; he 
won many successes, and many of his fol- 
lowers did brave deeds of arms. Still, as 
we have already seen, so long as Edward L 
lived, Bruce could only carry on desultory 
warfare and harass the enemy. He could 
not set up a court. But the English were 
afraid to venture into the open country, as 
they had formerly done. They lay still in 
their garrisons and waited for fresh help 
from the King of England. 

Douglas's Larder. 

One ghastly story of those days we must 
chronicle. Douglas— the same whom we 
have seen with King Robert at Rauchryne — 
found to his disgust the English in possession 
of his castle, which they had stored with 
corn and wine and cattle to help the English 
army when it came. He fell upon it sud- 
denly, on Palm Sunday, whilst the garrison 
were at church, slew or imprisoned the 
soldiers within the church, and then, as he 
knew he would not be able to hold it against 
the forces which would be sent against him, 
he resolved to render it uninhabitable and 
the provisions useless. He was, moreover, 
infuriated by the murder of a favourite 
servant. So he caused all the barrels of 
meal and wheat and malt, and all the hogs- 
heads of wine and ale, to be staved in, and 
the contents to be mingled together in a 
great heap. With this he mingled the flesh 
of the cattle which he had slain ; and then, 
horrible to tell, he slew his prisoners, and 
flung their dead bodies into the hideous 
heap, the name of which has come down in 
history as Douglas's Larder. Then he flung 
dead horses into the well to poison the water, 
set fire to the castle, and went away. 

But let us leave King Robert for a while 
with his brave though too often cruel heroes, 
and cast a look on the English Court under 
its new monarch. 



232 



SCOTLAND'S GREAT VICTORY. 



King Edward II. ; Frivolity takes the 
Place of Fierceness.- 

The weak and dissolute youth who had 
succeeded Edward I. seemed to ihink that 
he should not be really king unless he con- 
temned and counteracted his dead father's 
will. Having received at Roxburgh the 
fealty of such of the Scots as were disaffected 
to Bruce, he returned to Carlisle and thence 
to London. Hither he recalled Gaveston. 

r 



formidable union of nobles and prelates had 
been formed, that Edward was obliged to 
send Gaveston out of England, and he there- 
fore made him lieutenant of Ireland. 

The news came that Robert Bruce had 
overcome his enemies in Western Scotland ; 
but as these victories were at a distance from 
the English border, no uneasiness was felt at 
the English court. Moreover, although in 
the early part of 1308 Edward had married 
Isabel of France, her father, Philip, jealous 




A Battle with the Archers. 



a companion in vice, whom his father had 
banished. He talked much of what he in- 
tended to do in Scotland, and issued orders 
of preparation for carrying on the war ; * 
but all other concerns were put aside for 
idle and base pleasures with the favourite, 
whose rapacity and insolence still further 
embittered the hatred of the English nobility 
towards him. At midsummer 1308, such a 

* E.g., there was one order for "three thousand 
salmon to be barrelled " for provisions. 



always of English power, was inclined to 
■favour Scottish independence ; and as the 
Pope was now his absolute tool, Philip used 
him also to favour Bruce. The two com- 
bined to persuade Edward to make a truce 
with Robert to last from the beginning of 
1309 till All Saints' Day in that year. The 
respite from danger which this seemed to 
offer induced the wretched King to recall 
Gaveston from Ireland, and the two com- 
panions in evil met at Chester in June of 
that year. Perhaps the fury in England at 



233 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



such shamelessness induced the Scots to 
break the truce. At any rate they did so, 
and preparations were renewed in England 
for fighting. 

The campaign opened with evil auguries 
for the English King. The nobility were 
angry and shocked at the abuses and crimes 
of the King and Gaveston ; and when Par- 
liament met in the beginning of 1 310, they 
were able to carry a measure empowering 
twenty-one persons, prelates, earls, and 
barons, to ordain, i.e., set in order, every 
reformation which they saw necessary in the 
royal household. 

The Scots were now active and confident. 
The first English measure was the sending a 
fleet to the relief of Perth, which Bruce was 
besieging; and the maritime towns of England 
were requested to fit out ships, each accord- 
ing to its ability, amounting in all to forty, 
for transporting a body of troops from 
Ireland, who were coming to the King's 
aid. In the beginning of August Edward 
came to Northampton, whence he issued 
summonses to his military tenants to be at 
Berwick, with the service that each owed 
him, on the day of the Virgin's nativity 
(Sept. 8th). 

In September he entered Scotland, and on 
the 20th was at Roxburgh. He had left a 
disaffected country behind him, some of the 
greatest of his barons having refused to 
follow him so long as Gaveston was in his 
company. He led his army as far as the 
Friths of Forth and Clyde, destroying and 
ravaging the lands of the Scots, while they, 
without hazarding a general engagement, 
made sudden and fierce attacks from their 
woods, caves, and morasses. 

In one of these attacks three hundred 
English and Welshmen were cut off. Scar- 
city of provisions and severity of weather 
forced Edward in the beginning of November 
to retire to Berwick, where he spent the 
remainder of the season in the company of 
the Queen and nobles. In Scotland the 
dearth was so terrible that many were obliged 
to feed on the flesh of horses and other 
carrion. 

From Berwick Edward sent Gaveston as 
Commander-in-Chief into Scotland, in order 
that he might have the opportunity of win- 
ning military glory. He is said to have 
acquitted himself with courage and ability, 
for he led his army across the Firth of Forth, 
and endeavoured to bring the Scots to a 
battle. They, however, eluded him by re- 
tiring into mountains and behind morasses. 

The English Parliament, however, refused 
any compromise. The Ordainers ordered 
Gaveston into perpetual exile ; the Parlia- 
ment ratified this, and the favourite passed 
over into Flanders. 

Bruce saw the advantage he possessed in 



fighting against an incapable king. Entering 
England by the Solway Firth, he ravaged the 
parts adjacent; then returning, he captured 
the strong fortress of Dumbarton, and early 
in 1 3 12 he took Perth, executing all Scotsmen 
who had opposed him, but treating the 
English with consideration. 

And in the face of all this, the miserable 
King could not conquer his infatuation for 
Gaveston, brought him back from Flanders, 
reversed all the proceedings against him, and 
took him in his company to Newcastle, on 
his way to Scotland. But the barons had a 
leader in the Earl of Lancaster, the King's 
cousin, who was not only very able and 
courageous, but the richest man in the country. 
They declared at once that they would enforce 
the Ordinances by arms. Edward, accord- 
ing to the Monk of Malmesbury, secretly 
went to Bruce to beg for an asylum for 
Gaveston, until the storm was blown over, 
offering to confirm the Scottish crown to 
him. But Bruce replied that he could have 
no confidence in the promises of a man who 
had violated his solemn oath to his own 
lieges. There was no help here, then. 
Gaveston fled to Tyneniouth, thence to 
Scarborough. In the castle there he was 
besieged ; was presently captured; and on 
Blacklow Hill, near Kenilworth, he was put 
to death as a traitor, July ist, 131 2. 

In August, Bruce, having taken and de- 
stroyed many other castles, entered England 
again, burnt Hexham and a great part of the 
city of Durham. Next year, while the inha- 
bitants of Roxburgh were holding festival on 
Shrove Tuesday, Sir James Douglas took 
Roxburgh ; but a greater achievement was 
won by Randolph, the King's nephew, who, 
on the 14th of March, took Edinburgh Castle. 
, He, with thirty men, clambered up the face 
of the tremendous rock on which the fortress 
is built in the thick darkness of night, planted 
a ladder against the wall, and threw himself 
into it. 

In the midst of all this, the English King 
and Queen went to France for six weeks. 
They were not happy together, and seemed, 
to have gone there to endeavour to come, by 
Philip's help, to a better understanding. 
Bruce was not idle. He had given a pledge 
to the French King not to invade England, 
and kept it, but he reduced the Isle of Man 
to submission, and placed it under the 
government of his nephew Randolph. He 
also spent much time in training his men to 
fight on foot, v.'hich proved of the greatest 
use to him in his great battle next year. 

On King Edward's return, he immediately 
called on the Parliament for money for the 
Scottish war. It was granted. Parliament 
showing itself willing to befriend him now 
that Gaveston was out of the way. But 
when he set out on the march, the Earl of 



234 



SCOTLAND'S GREAT VICTORY. 



Lancaster still refused to accompany him, as 
did some other influential lords, in conse- 
quence of his refusal to ratify some other 
Ordinances. 

The Siege of Stirling Castle ; 

A Battle Imminent. 

Edward Bruce, King Robert's brother. 



that he would deliver the castle up to the 
Scottish King by a given day, if the English 
King should prove himself unable to relieve 
him. The relief of this castle was the object 
on which King Edward was now bent. 
Robert Bruce, animated by his past suc- 
cesses, and confident in the valour of his 
troops, resolved to risk a battle. He was 




Olu Ldi uukoh 



emulous of the glory of Douglas and 
Randolph, had laid siege to Stirling Castle, 
but it was a fortress of extraordinary strength, 
and the English governor. Sir Philip Mow- 
bray, was able to hold out against him ; but 
as the siege continued, Mowbray promised 



wise as well as bold, and used every precau- 
tion where so much was at stake. He knew 
that his army was far inferior to the English 
in point of numbers, and especially in 
cavalry. And he knew also that the ground 
in front of Stirling was most commodious 



235 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



for himself, considering these circumstances. 
Here, then, he determined to await the 
English army. 

About the i8th of June, 1 3 14, King 
Edward set out with an army of about 
100,000 men, 40,000 of them, according to 
Barbour, were horse, and of these, 3,000 " in 
complete plate and may]," who were to be 
placed in front of the battle. There were 
52,000 archers. Such an army had never 
marched out of England before. They were 
divided into ten bodies of 10,000 each, 
" The whole country round shone with arms 
and ensigns." The Earls of Gloucester and 
Hereford led the van. As the army could 
draw no supplies from a country not only 
desolated by war but purposely stripped of 
everything which might help the invaders, 
multitudes of carriages moved with the 
army,* conveying not only provisions and 
baggage, but also articles of luxury and 
splendour, which soon afforded a rich spoil 
to the conquerors. 

The Site of the Battle. 

The village of Bannockburn lies about 
three miles south-east of Stirling. The 
writer of these lines visited it just ten years 
ago. The Bannock flows through the middle 
of the village, its waters but little tainted 
with the forges of the nailers. Low hills lie 
on the north, here and there covered with 
woods, and on the south, on the other side of 
the carse (valley), you see a bold barrier of 
downs. This was the spot which King 
Robert chose on which to stand his ground. 
His rendezvous was the Torwood, on the 
high road between Falkirk and Stirling, 
whither, on Saturday, June 22nd, 30,000 men 
had assembled. These he led to Bannock- 
burn on the evening of that day. For he 
knew that the English, to reach the castle, 
must either come here, or through a morass. 

But let the minstrel chronicler, Barbour, 
take up the tale awhile. He had probably 
his information from old men who had been 
eye-witnesses of the battle. 

" The worthy king when he has seen 
His host assemble all bedene [as bidden], 
And saw them wilful [full of good will] to fulfil 
His pleasure, with good heart and will ; 
And to maintain well their franchise. 
He was rejoiced many wise. 
Then straightway called his council he, 
And spoke them thus : ' Lords, now ye see 
That Englishmen with mickle might 
Have all prepared them for the fight. 
For they yon castle would rescue. 
Therefore 'tis good we settle now 
How we may let [hinder] them of this aim. 



* Malmesbury says, ' ' The multitude of carriages, 
if extended in a line, would have occupied sixty 
leagues." 



Now let us their way close to them. 

That they pass not with our consent ; 

We have with us, them to prevent. 

E'en thirty thousand men and more ; 

Now make we straight battaLons four, 

And place ourselves in such manere. 

That when our friends have comen here, 

We to the New Park* hold our way, 

For that gait certes pass must they. 

But if they will belowt us go. 

And on the marshes passing so. 

We shall be at advantage there. 

And judge we it right speedful [prosperous] war 

To go on foot unto this fight, 

Clothed all as one in armour light ; 

We risk us if on horse we fight, 

Since all our foes are men of might. 

And better horsed are they than we, 

And we shall in great peril be. 

And if we fight on foot, perfay [in faith], 

Advantage we shall have, I say. 

For in the Park, among the trees, 

The horsemen cumbered be always. 

The ditches, too, that are there down 

Shall put them in confusion.' 

They all consented to that saw [saying]. 

And so within a little thraw [short time] 

Their four battalions ordered they." 

He forthwith proceeded to arrange his 
order of battle. Randolph was appointed 
commander of the van, Edward Bruce of the 
right wing, Sir James Douglas of the left. 
In the rear of the left was the King, ready 
to direct the whole, and to supply assistance 
where it should be needed. J Each man 
was clothed in a light armour, which a 
sword could not easily penetrate. Each had 
an axe at his side, and a lance in his hand. 
On their right flowed the Burn, and in front 
of them was a formidable marsh, most 
difficult for heavy-armed horsemen to tra- 
verse. There was one dry spot of firm 
ground in. the midst of it, and here Bruce 
had caused pits to be dug, covered over 
with branches of trees and grass. 

The minstrel's graphic touch shows us in 
a moment the character of these " pits." 

" In the plain field, then, by the way 
Where it behoved that pass must they 
The Englishmen, if that they would 
Through New Park to the castle hold. 
He caused that many pots be made, 
A man's knee deep, a foot round braid [broad], 
So close that they might likened be 
To honey-comb that's made by bee." 

These pits, or "pots,'' as the poet calls 
them, had sharp stakes inserted in them, and 

* This was the name which the site of this battle 
then bore. 

Along the lowest part of the carse or valley. 

J His position was displayed to the whole host by 
his "standard pole," z.e., a strong pole, sometimes 
fixed upon wheels, in the present case upon a great 
stone, and on the top of it was a framed banner. Thus, 
in case of difficulty, every one knew where he was. 
The stone, called the Bore Stone, is still in its place 
on the field. Tourists having begun to break it up, 
the owner of the land has protected it with a grating. 



236 



SCOTLAND'S GREAT VICTORY. 



were, of course, certain to throw down and 
damage horses that trod in them. 

Next, King Robert detached his nephew 
Randolph to watch the lower road, through 
the carse. The event proved afterwards 
how wise was this precaution. Then, finally, 
he disposed of his gillies, or camp-followers. 
He sent them with all the carriages, baggage, 
and provisions, over a hill in the rear, which 
to this day is called Gillies Hill. 



which Bruce had spoken, was all but im- 
passable, but that by artificial means they 
might make it otherwise. So they filled 
up the pools in the morass, and threw bridges 
across the streams. Eight hundred picked 
men, fully armed and mounted, " yearning to 
do chivalry," as Barbour expresses it, were 
put under the command of Lord Clifford, 
with instructions to avoid the New Park, 
and to pass under St. Ninian's church on the 




Combat of the Infantry. 



The morning of Sunday the 23rd was 
spent in fasting, in prayers, and confession. 
In the evening the van of the English came 
in sight, and two good auguries had been 
seen ere set of sun. 

The first was this : The " vaward," or ad- 
vanced guard of the English, under Clifford 
and Hereford, after an examination of the 
ground, formed a plan, which, if it had been 
successful, might have changed the whole 
fate of the kingdom. They saw that the 
ground through the carse, the " below " of 



east side. The attempt was so far successful 
that Clifford had reached the low ground 
beyond the church before he was observed, 
although Randolph had been told off to 
watch this side. " Nephew," said Bruce, 
when he saw it, " a rose of your chaplet has 
fallen." 

With 500 spearmen Randolph hurried to 
intercept Clifford and his party ; and the 
action that ensued was a rehearsal, on a 
small scale, of the event of the morrow. The 
compact infantry, with their axes and daggers, 



237 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



were set upon by the mail-clad horsemen. 
They threw themselves into a square, and 
received the furious onslaught, and were not 
broken. Again and again the fierce cavalry 
rushed on the devoted square to crush it, 
hurling missiles among them. The pro- 
truding spears of the footmen were a match 
for the lances, and ever as a horse fell, axe 
and dagger did the rest. 

Douglas saw Randolph thus beset, and 
besought leave to go to his assistance. " No," 
said King Robert, " you shall not stir one 
foot. I will not break my order for him." 
But as Douglas pressed, Bruce, evidently 
anxious for his nephew and favourite general, 
gave his assent. " Go," he said, " but speed 
thee soon back." ' As Douglas drew near, he 
saw that Randolph was gaining the advan- 
tage, and that the English were giving way. 
With true generosity towards one who was 
regarded as his rival, he reined in his men, 
that he might not diminish the praise which 
he saw that Randolph would win. His hopes 
were fulfilled, the enemy fled headlong, and 
found their way into the English encamp- 
ment. Barbour tells — wonderful if true — that 
on the side of the Scots there was but one 
man killed. 

The other event of that evening was this : 
By some misunderstanding, as it would seem, 
the English van pressed onwards without 
observing that the rest of the army was not 
following. Bruce, expecting a general at- 
tack, made ready. He was himself mounted 
on a "little palfrey," his weapon an axe ; on 
his helmet he had a purple bonnet, and on 
that a crown. Sir Henry de Bohun, a brave 
knight, Hereford's cousin, recognized the 
King by this crown, and rushed at him. 
Bruce, judging that flight back into his lines 
might discourage his men, and confident in 
his own strength, awaited his antagonist. 
As the two men spurred to the encounter, 
Bohun m.issed the King, who stood up in his 
stirrups as he passed, and dealt his antagonist 
such a blow with his axe that the knight's 
head was cleft in twain, and he dropped to 
the earth a dead man. The Scots, as they 
witnessed the deed, set up a shout of triumph, 
whilst the English fled back in dismay. 

The Battle. 

Sunday morning, June 24th, 1312, has 
dawned. The Scottish army, all on foot, 
except 500 men, of whom we shall hear pre- 
sently, began by hearing mass, and vowing 
that if they could not conquer they would 
die as martyrs to their country's freedom. 

Meanwhile the English army had come 
within reach. They had all caught sight of 
their enemy late on Midsummer eve. They 
knew nothing of the Scottish position, 
and for fear of an attack in the night, were 
obliged to remain sleepless under arms. 



This was hard work after the toilsome march 
from Berwick. Next day the English com- 
manders counselled a day's rest ;• it was a 
high festival, St. John the Baptist's Day, and 
the men would be the better for some re- 
freshment. The King, however, hearkened to 
the young and more favoured, and resolved 
on giving battle. 

As the two armies stood confronting one 
another in battle array, a bareheaded priest 
passed along the Scottish hues, holding aloft 
a crucifix, and on the moment every knee 
was bowed in adoration. King Edward 
beholding the sight afar off, cried out in 
exultation, " Yonder folk kneel to ask 
mercy." " They ask mercy, indeed, sire, 
but not of you. For their sins they cry to 
God ; but these men will win or die ; neither 
will they flee for fear of death." 

The catastrophe is soon told, for, indeed, 
the narrative is very simple and easy to 
follow. The English archers, who so often 
determined the victory on the side of their 
countrymen, advanced to the front and 
opened the battle. But Bruce, wary as well 
as bold, had prepared for this. The 500 
horsemen, under the Marshal, Sir Robert 
Keith, suddenly rushed at them in flank, and 
so slew or dispersed them that from that 
moment none of them attempted to draw a 
bow. They fell back among the squadron 
of horsemen, who in vain attempted, even 
with blows, to rally them. The treacherous 
pits were at the foot of the long slope down 
which the English rushed to reach the Scots, 
who were drawn up on the other side. The 
Earl of Gloucester, attacked by Douglas, 
and irritated to see his men wavering, rushed 
into the thickest of the fight, and was beaten 
down from his horse. He had 500 knights 
around him, whom WiUiam Malmesbury 
curses* for not rescuing him. "Twenty,," he 
says, " might have done it." No doubt ; 
but probably it was their great number 
which made them so helpless. Pellmell 
they went down at the "honey-combed" pits, 
horse over man in terrible rout, " banners 
and pennons torn and befouled," and all 
amidst a hideous noise, as an eye-witness 
declares, of "blows and snapping lances, 
and battle cries and groans, and the screams 
of wounded horses. "t 

To the right rear of the Scots, as we have 
already mentioned, the cainp-foUowers were 
drawn up behind a hill. As Bruce's eagle 
t-ye saw the English terror-stricken at their 
first failure, he caused these gillies to march 
in battle array along the crest of their hill, 
with bits of linen tied to poles to look like 
banners. The English soldiers opposite to 
them took them for reinforcements, and the 



238 



* " Confundat eos Dominus." 
•)• * Chronicle of Lanercost." 



SCOTLAND'S GREAT VICTORY. 



sight completed the demoralization of the 
Enghsh ranks. 

In this horrible moment of confusion and 
terror, the claymores of the Highlanders were 
seen flashing in the air as they rushed furiously, 
like the Greeks at Marathon, against the 
great, now unwieldy host. 

King Edward turned his horse and fled, 
and the sight of this was the signal for the 
universal rout and dissipation of the English 
host. Hundreds had never drawn a sword 
nor struck a blow. Numbers were drowned 
in the Bannockburn* and in the Forth ; num- 
bers, too, were slain and made prisoners ; and 
there would have been many more, but that 
the Scots, instead of pursuing, fell to plunder- 



King of Scots. Edward, therefore, accom- 
panied by a strong body of horse, turned 
his face towards Berwick. Douglas pursued 
after him, but with such a small body of men 
that he could only harass him and seize those 
who fell off from his company. The King, 
however, found himself hospitably received 
in the Castle of Dunbar, whose lord was still 
on the side of Edward, though in the year 
following he went over to the side of Bruce, 
and thereby forfeited his English fiefs, 
which were given to Percy, Earl of Northum- 
berland. The Earl of Dunbar sent the King 
to Bamlough Castle ; and on the third day 
after the battle he reached Berwick. Thence 
he issued a proclamation, setting forth that 




Dl'N'uar Castle. 



ing the baggage and stores of their enemies. 
Only two Scottish knights are said to have 
been slain, William Viport and Walter Ross. 
Of the English, 30,000 are said to have 
perished. 

Flight of King Edward. 

When Edward fled from the field he made 
his way first to Stirling Castle, the fortress 
which he had come to relieve. But the go- 
vernor refused to give him entrance. He had 
promised, he said, that if he were not relieved 
by a certain day he would surrender to the 

* Barbour says that the channel of the Bannock 
was so choked up with the bodies of men and horses 
that men could go over dryshod. 



he had lost his privy seal, and warning his 
subjects not to regard any order that should 
appear under it. Soon afterwards he retired 
to York, where he resided for several months, 
miserable enough. Lancaster and other 
haughty barons visited him here, not to con- 
sole him, but to exact advantage of his abject 
condition. The rest of his miserable reign 
shall trouble us no more. 

Bruce's Nokleness in Triumph. 

The Scottish king showed great moderation 
in his success. He treated his prisoners 
with humanity, and had the slain decently 
buried. King Edward's brother-in-law he 
released without ransom, and by him he sent 
back the lost privy seal. 



239 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



The war dragged on for years, but always 
with one result, namely, that the Scots retained 
the advantage they had won. 

Results of the Battle. 

It only remains for us to sum up the results 
in a few words. Bannockburn, let it be re- 
membered, is at the northern point of what 
had been the Roman dominion. It was also 
the boundary between the Celtic Highlands 
and the Lowlands, which, as we have already 
seen, were really as much inhabited by a 
Saxon population as England itself. Here, 
then, on this Midsummer day 1 314, the Saxons 
of the Lowlands fought beside the Celtic 
people whose name they had taken, and to 
whose kingdom they had elected to belong. 
They had thusunmistakably declared that they 
chose to share the poverty of the half-civilized 
Celts, with their independence to boot, rather 
than become members of the wealthy and 
prosperous southern kingdom from which 
they had come, and from which they had 
been severed. This was one result. 

Another was the proof of the great principle 
which Wallace had laid down, that footmen, 
well managed, were able to prevail over 
mounted men-at-arms, hitherto deemed in- 
vincible. A few years before the Flemings 
had won their inclependence at the battle of 
Courtrai, and the following year (November 
15th, 13 1 5) the Swiss overthrew their oppres- 
sors at Morgarten. A few men, bound together 
by the love of their native soil, were stronger 



than a great mass of feudal retainers fighting 
merely at the bidding of their lords. 

And in conclusion, there is this fact to be 
remembered, that Bruce was by descent a 
Norman peer. But he had thrown in his lot 
with the people whose home had become his 
own, and we therefore, without scruple, call 
him a Scot, He would desire no prouder 
name. He ruled his people justly, wisely, 
and bravely until his death, June 7th, 1329. 
His brave companion, Douglas, had his heart 
enclosed in a silver case, and started with it 
to Spain, where the Saracens were oppressing 
the Christian kingdom. Here he was slain, 
bravely fighting for the King of Castile. The 
heart was found under his corpse, showing 
that his last act was to defend it. It was 
brought back to Scotland, and buried under 
the high altar of Melrose Abbey. King 
Robert's body was buried in the church of 
Dunfermline, and a marble stone was laid 
upon it. Unhappily the church in the course 
of years became ruinous, and the stone was 
broken to pieces. But in the lifetime of Sir 
Walter Scott, when the church was being 
repaired, the fragments of the broken stone 
were discovered, and buried beneath it was 
the skeleton of the King. With the tears of 
hundreds who flocked thither, and with all 
imaginable respect and veneration, they once 
more laid to rest the restorer of the Scottish 
monarchy and nation. 

W. B. 




Stirling Castle. 



240 




Arrival of the Mail at the General Post Office. 



THE PENNY POST: 

THE STORY OF A GREAT REFORM. 



" Every morning, true as the clock, 
Somebody hears the postman's knock.' 



Modern Ballad. 



" Sir Rowland Hill will always be remembered with gratitude, not only in this country but throughout the world.' 
Poshnaster-GeneraV s Report, iSSo. 



The Old Posts and Posting — Ancient Carriers — Historical Sketch of the Penny Post of London — The Postboy considered — 
Dangers of " Riders "—The Cross-Post instituted— Ralph Allen— Mr. Palmer and Mail Coaches— The Old Mail to 
Bath— Rowland Hill: His Investigations; His Pamphlet upon Postal Reform — Up-hill Work — Suggestions for 
Reform -Reception of Mr. Hill's Scheme— Parliamentary Opposition — Efforts in Hill's favour — Evidence on behalf 
of the Scheme produced- -Results of the Committee's Enquiry— The Postal Reform Bill Passed — Guarded Proceedings 
— The Grand Result— Sir Rowland Hill— Post Office Work— Some Curious Facts— The Parcel Post— Conclusion. 



The Old Posting Days. 
N these days of rapid transmission of 
thought, by letter, telegraph, and 
telephone, it is difficult to conceive 
the state of postal communication five-and- 
forty years ago ; much less can we imagine 
the time when an important letter — even a 
State despatch — was moi-e than three days 
and three nights on the way up "from the 
Archbishop of Canterbury at Croydon to the 
Secretary of State at Waltham Cross"! We 
who write to the Twtes if the postman is late ; 
or if the service is not, when we expect it 
might be, arranged, can hardly bring our 
minds to grasp the fact that a coach and six 
horses, aided by the state, was obliged to 
relinquish the carriage of the mails between 



Edinburgh and Glasgow and back (about 
eighty miles) in the specified time of six days, 
because the contractors found the work too 
arduous !* One hundred years ago, or there- 
abouts, the first mail coach appeared in 
Edinburgh. 

Of the history of the Post, and of its more 
modern development, the Post Office, we 
need not say much ; but a few interesting 
facts concerning the progress of this mode of 
communication will be doubtless acceptable. 
In days of old, posts, or relays of men, were 
placed at certain intervals, and carried letters 
or despatches from one station to the other. 



* Household Words, Part I. 



241 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



In remote antiquity, birds and dogs were em- 
ployed to carry messages ; and it is related 
that Cyrus the Persian instituted communi- 
cations in his expedition to Scythia, 500 years 
B.C. Amongst the Romans, Augustus was 
the first to establish relays ; and at the con- 
quest of Peru by Pizarro in 1532, relays of 
men were established from Cusco to Quito. 

The "posts" of ancient times, however, 
■were never employed to forward private 
correspondence. The first real letter-post 
was established in the thirteenth century, 
between the Hanse towns. Camden mentions 
the " Mastir of the Postes " as being in ex- 
istence in England in 15 81 ; while previously 
and subsequently the "postes "were only the 
horse relays for carrying despatches. A post 
forthe carriageof lettersbetweenEngland and 
the Continent appears to have been arranged 
by certain merchants in the fifteenth century ; 
but in 1635, a certain Witherings "was au- 
thorized to run a post between London and 
Edinburgh, to go thither and back again in 
six days." Postal lines were laid down, and 
these horse-posts carried letters for the public, 
and the Government monopoly was esta- 
blished. Certain charges were made accord- 
ing to the distance the letter was carried, 
varying from twopence for less than eighty 
miles, to sixpence in England, and eight- 
pence to a town in Scotland. All the posts, 
except those for the Universities and for the 
Cinque Ports, were under the Government 
control in the time of Charles II. 

A " Penny Post " was not a new idea when 
Mr. Rowland Hill proposed its adoption in 
England. We read, that " in 1685 a penny 
post was set up for the conveyance of letters 
and parcels between London and its suburbs." 
This idea was a speculation by Robert 
Murray, and it succeeded so well that the 
Duke of York made a complaint that his 
rights as Receiver of Postal Revenues was 
being infringed by private speculation, and 
the scheme was swallowed up by the Crown. 
This was the germ of the " London District" 
Post, afterwards known as the " Twopenny " 
Post in our own days. A penny postal rate 
■was established in Edinburgh, nearly a 
hundred years afterwards, by Williamson ; 
but here again the all-absorbing Government 
came in and took his scheme under their 



Historical Resume of the London 
Penny Post. 

It appears from documentary evidence 
that the establishment of a letter post origi- 
nated in the brain of a private person about 
the end of Cromwell's protectorate. This 
gentleman was named William Dockwra; 
and in 1683 the Penny Post was taken 
possession of by the Government, in con- 
sequence of the supposed interference of the 



individual with the rights of the Postmaster- 
General. 

After the Revolution, however, a pension 
was granted to Mr. William Dockwra on 
account of his misfortunes, and for the in- 
vention of the Penny Post. He was after- 
wards nominated Comptroller of the Depart- 
ment. A doggerel rhyme was written by 
him, as was supposed ; see " Poems on 
State Affairs":— 

" Hail mighty Dockwra, son of Art, 
With Flavia, Middleton, or Swart ! 
In the foremost rank of fame 
Thou shalt fix thy lasting name ; 
Nor new invention Fa.te thee hurt 
To be damned and beggar'd for't." 

Subsequently to this, viz. in 1708, an attempt 
was made by Mr. Percy to institute a Half- 
penny Post, in direct opposition to the 
Government monopoly. But the Crown 
proved too strong for him, and he was very 
soon suppressed. Mr. Dockwra afterwards 
got into farther trouble, and in consequence 
of mismanagement he was removed from the 
Post Office. Parcels were conveyed as late 
as 1765, when it was enacted that no packet 
exceeding four ounces in weight should be 
carried by the Penny Post unless it had 
passed, or was intended to pass, through the 
General Post. 

Originally the postage was paid in advance, 
and was so till 1794. The delivery of these 
letters " was limited to the cities of London, 
Westminster, and the borough of Southwark, 
and the respective suburbs thereof." But 
this limited mail did not suit the inhabitants 
around the city. They agreed voluntarily to 
pay an extra penny on receipt of their letters ; 
and this penny was for the benefit of the 
letter-carriers, in consideration of the in- 
creased distance they had to travel. After a 
time, however, the exigencies of the Depart- 
ment compelled it to absorb the extra fee in 
the revenue, and this was legalized in 1727. 

Queen Anne, 9 cap. 10, authorized a penny 
rate on all letters ".passing or repassing by 
the carriage called the Penny Post, esta- 
blisliedand settledwithinthe cities of London 
and Westminster, and borough of South- 
wark, and parts adjacent, and to be received 
and delivered within ten English miles distant 
from the General Letter-office in London." 

In 1794 this limit was overstepped, and an 
additional penny was again imposed on 
letters coming from beyond the circle to 
London and Westminster ; pre-payment 
optional. But in 1801 a very important 
change was made, when an additional penny 
was put upon all letters delivered by the 
penny post. In 1805, the postage tax be- 
yond the boundary was increased to three- 
pence, and newspapers had to pay one penny. 
The limits of the twopenny post were ex- 



242 



THE PENNY POST. 



tended in 1831 to a distance of three miles 
from the General Post Office, and letters for 
the Foreign or General Posts were exempted 
from the twopenny rate if posted within the 
three mile radius. In 1833, the limits of the 
Threepenny Post were extended to a distance 
not exceeding twelve miles from the Post 
Office. Newspapers were permitted to go 
free in August 1836. The London District 
Post continued a separate establishment from 
what was termed the General Post till 1854. 

The various improvements in the postal 
affairs of the United Kingdomwent on slowly. 
The Post was regarded as a fair aim byhigh- 
vvaymeri, and in 1700 these robberies became 
so general on the Border, that the respective 
Parliaments of England and Scotland found 
it expedient to draw the line in a very de- 
termined manner, and they made Post Office 
robberies punishable with "death and confis- 
cation." The Irish Post Office did not enter 
upon its duties till after the Scotch had 
learnt the value of correspondence. But so 
far back as the reign of the " Martyr King," 
"packets" carried the letters between Milford 
and Waterford, and from Dublin to Chester. 

The sanctity of correspondence has long 
been recognized, and in Queen Anne's reign 
it was enacted that no official should open a 
letter without special warrant. There have 
been cases in which the Post Office in late 
years has found it necessary to open and 
detain correspondence for political reasons ; 
but it is evident such a privilege should be 
very sparingly and cautiously exercised. 
Riding Post was the usual means of com- 
munication, and the postboy was quite a 
feature in domestic history. 

The Postboy Considered, 

The postboy as an institution has passed 
away, and yet for more than a century these 
riding-boys had been familiar in literature to 
every one, and their tenacity of life, and the 
mysterious manner in which, presumably, 
they departed from it, were remarked by Mr. 
Samuel Weller, whose uncontradicted tes- 
timony to the similarity between the endu- 
rance of donkeys and postboys must be 
accepted as historical. That these remarks 
are by no means irrelevant to the subject in 
hand will be seen when we examine Mr. 
Palmer's scheme for the amelioration of the 
Posts, a reform leading up, like Ralph Akin's, 
slowly but surely to the crowning triumph of 
the Penny Post in the United Kingdom. 

The postboy of the period had been made 
the theme of poets and romances. He was 
the object of much attention, not only from 
the peaceful and industrious, but from the 
ill-disposed section of the community. Cow- 
per's lines give us a picture of the typical 
postboy, but we fear the original was not 



altogether the interesting individual he ap- 
pears in the following extract : — 

" He comes the herald of a noisy world, 
With spattered boots, strapped waist and frozen 

locks, 
News from all nations lumbering at his back, 
True to his charge the close packed load behind. 
Yet careless what he brings — his one concern 
Is to conduct it to the nearest inn, 
And having dropped th' expectant bag, pass on. 
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch ! 
Cold and yet cheerful ; messenger of grief 
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some, — 
To him indifferent whether grief or joy." 

These postboys rode as they pleased, and 
generally conducted themselves in a very 
independent manner. Their official rate of 
progression was fixed at irve miles an hour 
— not a very tremendous pace to keep up on 
horseback. Their own lazy habits were also 
at times encouraged by the gentry, for we 
read that certain gentlemen " do give much 
money to the riders, whereby they be very sub- 
ject to get in liquor, which stops the males" 
— whether the riders or their charge is not 
specified ; a pun was probably intended by 
the writer of the sentence. 

When the utter inefficiency of the service 
is taken into consideration, and the dangerous 
condition of the roads is regarded, the won- 
der is that more postboys were not " missed." 
Highway robbery was a profession, and many 
instances could be related of carriages being 
stopped, even in Hyde Park in broad day- 
light, and the occupants told to " deliver." 
To be upset in a mud-hole was no uncommon 
incident even for royalty in those " good old 
days"; and if any reader wishes to satisfy 
himself respecting the state of our British 
highways in the time of the second George, 
he may turn to the pages of Arthur Young's 
" Tour in the North of England," wherein he 
will gain much curious information respecting 
the " vile cut-up lanes " and " execrable " roads 
so forcibly denounced by the traveller. " I 
would most seriously caution all travellers 
who may propose to travel this terrible 
country to avoid it as they would the devil," 
is his scathing condemnation of the district 
between Wigan and Warrington. On such 
roads the postboys had to ride with the mails. 

These " postboys" had, no doubt, many 
dangers to encounter ; and if the number of 
letters carried were not large, — as will be seen 
by the following advertisement of the period 
they were not, — the thieves were more nume- 
ous than at present. This is the announce- 
ment issued exactly one hundred and three 
years ago (the italics are ours) : — 

" General Post Office, Feb. 22, 1779. 

" The Postboy carrying the mail which 
was despatched from this Office last Friday 
night, was robbed by two foot-pads, with 
crapes over their faces, on Saturday night, 



243 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY, 



at ten o'clock, at the bottom of Hack Lane, 
near Long Compton, between Eustone and 
Shipstone in Oxfordshire, of the whole Mail, 
containing the following bags." 

Here follows a list of thirty-four towns, 
some of large size, such as Liverpool, 
Worcester, Manchester, as well as the 
Irish Mail, all borne by a small boy, who 
was robbed by " two small-sized men," on 
a " dark, foggy night." A reward of ^200 
was offered for the apprehension of the 
men, over and above the usual reward paid 
for the capture of highwaymen. 

The above will give readers some idea of 
the amount of correspondence which was 
carried on in 1 799, when one boy was sufficient 
to carry the letters for so many places, in the 
transmission of which the locomotives and 
many carriages of many lines, with an army 
of sorters, are now engaged upon, attended 
by a crowd of mail-carts and postmen for 
delivery of the correspondence of Liverpool 
alone. 

The Cross Post Instituted. 

The system of Cross-posts in England was 
suggested to the Treasury by Ralph Allen in 
17 19. He had been engaged in the postal 
service at Bath ; and the delays, whereby the 
letters had to be carried first to the metropolis 
and again sent down to their country destina- 
tion, appeared to him ridiculous. He pro- 
posed to farm a certain portion of the country, 
and to pay six thousand pounds per annum 
for the privilege. His contract included the 
roads between Exeter and Chester, and 
Bristol and Oxford, and all the towns lying 
between those places, and to deliver letters 
three times a week ! This arrangement was 
shelved for a time, owing to Mr. Craggs 
having been so deeply implicated in the 
South Sea Bubble with his colleagues. But 
when a new Postmaster-General was ap- 
pointed, the contract was ratified. 

For seven years the scheme worked well, 
and the contracts were renewed and added 
to ; thus when Mr. Allen died, he left a good 
fortune to his family, and a legacy to Pitt, 
Earl Chatham, as well as the results of his 
good work and honest reputation. The 
character of Squire AUworthy of Fielding is 
drawn from Ralph Allen, who was celebrated 
by Pope— 

"Let humble Allen with an awkward shame, 
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame ! " 

The results of Allen's endeavours were very 
beneficial, and the Post Office prospered. 
Fifteen years later, in 1793, the great and 
important Mail Coach era was initiated by 
Mr. John Palmer, who ranks almost with 
Rowland Hill in the list of Post Office re- 
formers. 



Palmer's Mail Coaches.- 

Coaches were not absolutely new inventions 
in Palmer's time. Before he made his pro- 
posal, certain " flying machines on steel 
springs " had beaten the fast Manchester 
stage, and Palmer fancied that the Govern- 
ment and private letters might be carried 
at an equally rapid rate. The private pas- 
senger coaches, he perceived, were really 
preferred by the population for the trans- 
mission of letters, and people did not hesitate 
to pay a considerable fee for the carriage, as 
a parcel, of the letters they feared to entrust 
to the unpunctual "postboy." Even the 
highwayman then scorned the game of mail 
stealing as scarce worth the candle in his 
lanthorn ; and the coaches carried the 
business correspondence of the community, 
while the revenue suffered in proportion. 

Palmer proposed to carry all the mails by 
coach, and to supply every such coach with 
a " guard," who was really to be an armed 
man, capable of attack and defence. But 
Post Office opposition bore down upon the 
reformer. " Red tape " had already tied 
the hands of officials, and " let ill alone " was 
the motto of the Postmaster-General. One 
curious reason adduced against the improve- 
ment was that m.urder would be added to 
robbery ! The argument used was that 
whereas the postboys were only robbed, 
being quite defenceless, the "guards," who 
resisted the highwaymen, would be killed ! 
It did not, apparently, occur to the Govern- 
ment to try to put down the highwaymen ; 
perhapSjlike modern statesmen, theyregarded 
" force as no remedy," and acted on that 
ridiculous maxim. There was, however, a 
regular tariff for injuries, ranging from ;^4 
for the sight of one eye, to ^14 for the loss 
of both pupils ; so, perhaps, such recognition 
of claims was thought sufficient. Another 
objection made to Palmer was that the 
Department " did not see why the mail 
should be the swiftest conveyance " ! The 
clear-sighted lessee (for Palmer was the 
manager of Bath and Bristol theatres) sug- 
gested another improvement — viz., that when 
the mails were carried by coaches, ail of 
them should leave London, at a specified 
hour, together. His plans were pronounced 
"impossible.'' It was regarded as an "im- 
possibility " to bring letters from " London to 
Bath, or vice versa, in sixteen or eighteen 
hours." The run is now made in about two 
hours by the " Iron Horse." 

Pitt, however, did not agree with Mr. 
Hodgson, the objector, so the trial was 
made, and the essay was inaugurated in the 
London and Bristol coach in 1 784, less than 
one hundred years ago. On the 8th of 
August the coach left London, and accom- 
plished the distance to Bath in fourteen 



244 



THE PENNY POST. 



hours. The up journey was done in sixteen. 
Mr. Palmer was appointed Comptroller- 
General, with a salary and a commission on 
profits ; and notwithstanding the late increase 
in postage, the letters began to multiply ex- 
ceedingly. The official rate of speed rose 



His per centage claim was ignored for many 
years, but at last he was voted ^50,000 as 
compensation. The mail coach system ra- 
pidly developed, and in 1836 it was quite a 
popular sight to see the coaches start, — a 
sight familiar, no doubt, to many who read 




Rowland Hill. 



from six to ten miles an hour, and a mail- 
coach medal was struck and dedicated to 
Mr. Palmer. But although the success of 
the scheme was patent, the Post Office 
people endeavoured to impede it. Palmer 
lost temper, became indiscreet, and was sus- 
pended, and dismissed with ^3,000 a year. 



these lines. On the average, twenty-seven 
coaches left the Post Office, the passengers 
all in their places. The starting of the early 
coach is graphically described by Dickens in 
his "Sketches by Boz":— "The coach is 
out, the horses are in, and the guard and 
two or three porters are stowing the luggage 



245 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 

[ 



away, and running up the steps of the booking 
office and down the steps of the booking 
office with breathless rapidity. The inside 
passengers are ah-eady in their dens, and the 
outsides, with the exception of yourself, are 
pacing up and down the pavement to keep 
themselves warm .... every member of the 
party with a large stiff shawl over his chin, 
looking exactly as if he were playing a set of 
Pan's pipes. 'Take off the cloths. Bob,' 
says the coachman, who now appears for 
the first time, in a rough blue great-coat, of 
which the buttons behind are so far apart 
that you can't see both at the same time. 
' Now, gen'l'men,' says the guard, with the 
waybill in his hand ; ' five minutes behind 
time already.' Up jumps the passengers. 
. . . . ' All right ! ' sings out the guard at 
last, jumping up as the coach starts, and 
blowing his horn. ' Let 'em go, Harry ; give 
'em their heads,' cries the coachman, and off 
we start." 

In 1836 a new era of Post Office manage- 
ment was inaugurated ; the stamp duty on 
newspapers was reduced to one penny, and 
the work incrgased. At that time there were 
fifty-four four-horse mails in England, besides 
those in Scotland and Ireland, and nearly as 
many pair-horse coaches. Before this period 
Mr. Macadam had so greatly improved the 
roads that coaching was pleasant and rapid, 
and the position of coachman was one of 
great responsibility and importance — to the 
driver himself in no less degree than to his 
passengers. The guard, also clad in the 
royal livery, was by no means a vulgar 
fraction in the sum total, and waxed very 
punctillious and even overbearing at times, 
but honest and trustworthy to a very high 
degree, and the onerous duties imposed upon 
him he performed with a punctuality and 
accuracy beyond all praise, in all weathers, 
" over hill, over dale, through flood," amid 
storm and tempest bravely doing his duty. 
The records of the mail-carrying of those 
days are fascinating reading ; the adventures 
and escapes, and romantic incidents of the 
old coaching days and the mail service 
would fill volumes. The annual procession, 
on the King's birthday, of all the coaches 
was a fine sight, and one not likely to be 
forgotten by any young man who witnessed 
it. Horses, harness, coaches, were all turned 
out in admirable style. The year 1837 came 
in while the Post Office was under conside- 
ration, and the great practical reformer was 
at the door ! 

Mr. Rowland Hill. 

About twelve years after the institution of 
mail coaches there was born at Kidder- 
minster, on the 3rd of December, 1795, a 
boy, who was christened Rowland by his 
parents, the Hills. Mr. Hill was a school- 



master, and young Rowland — one of a family- 
of sons — appeared delicate, but was very 
studious. He displayed a decided taste for 
mechanics, natural philosophy, and drawing. 
He became a teacher in his father's school, 
and improved its arrangements very mate- 
rially. He became a member of a Society 
for the Diffusion of Knowledge, and patented 
a cylinder printing machine, the principle of 
which was afterwards adopted. 

In 1838 we find Mr. Rowland Hill much 
interested in the colonization of South Aus- 
tralia, and he was appointed Secretary to the 
Royal Commissioners for Emigration. In 
this capacity he no doubt had daily brought 
mider his notice the arrangements made 
for communication with the colony, and the- 
hopeless time spent in the transmission of 
letters, the high postal charges to emigrants 
and their poor relatives, who could ill afford 
to pay them. Pondering the question of the 
reform of the Post Office, Mr. Hill put himself 
in communication with a Mr. Wallace, a 
member of Parliament, who had frequently 
moved for returns and reports of the system 
employed by the Government. Hill obtained 
what information he could from Lord Lich- 
field, the Postmaster-General, who supplied 
all the assistance in his power, and Rowland 
Hill began to "make himself acquainted 
with the subject." It was quite time to stir 
in the matter, for the cost of a letter was very 
great, — much greater than in the days of 
Queen Anne, — and the result was that all 
kinds of conveyances were resorted to, and 
all kinds of subterfuges adopted to evade the 
tax. It was then quite a matter of conside- 
ration whether a letter could be sent and 
should be sent . Many most ingenious stra- 
tagems were employed to evade the pay- 
ment by the recipients on delivery. Some- 
times a mark upon the envelope told the 
receiver that all was well, and the letter was 
handed back to the postboy, with the 
remark that the addressee could not afford 
to pay. 

In the year 1837, Mr. Hill's pamphlet upon 
" Postal Reform " appeared. It developed a 
plan by which letters might be carried through 
the post from one end of the kingdom to the 
other at the uniform rate of one penny the 
half-ounce, without any ultimate loss to the 
revenue. Looking back with the experience 
of years and the knowledge of facts to direct 
us, we are apt to wonder why the Post Office 
authorities and the Government ever opposed 
such a measure. But in those days they did not, 
any more than at present, spontaneously use 
the best means for the public advantage. 
Monopolists never do. A cheap telegraphic 
rate is now as desirable as a penny postage 
was, and the adoption of the telephone would 
be a great public boon ; but the Post Office 
will not move without the great and most 



246 



THE PENNY POST. 



desirable pressure of public opinion now any 
more than they would in 1837. Companies 
or governments, whose existence depends 
upon the favour of the people whom they serve, 
and for whose benefit they are permitted to 
exist, should not forget that they do exist 
more or less on sufferance, and it is for their 
own benefit to suit public convenience, of 
which, as in the case of water, gas, and rail- 
way companies, they are apt to be very 
oblivious. 

Up-hill Work. 

But in his pamphlet the shortcomings, if 
any then existed in the Post Office, were 
not Mr. Hill's aim. In fact we believe the 
management of the Department had met Avith 
general approbation, and much of the success 
it enjoyed was attributed to the " fortunate 
provision of the law, which excluded all its 
efficient officers from the House of Commons, 
and even from voting at elections," thus 
keeping them independent of party influence. 
Notwithstanding the high rates of postage, 
the revenue of the Department had scarcely 
increased during twenty years, although the 
population, the means of knowledge, with 
trade and commerce, had immensely in- 
creased. Rowland Hill had foresight to 
perceive that a cheap rate would bring in 
more custom even if an immediate loss re- 
sulted while the system was developing. His 
anticipations he lived to see fully realized, 
and even far surpassed. 

Sir Francis Freeling was succeeded in the 
Post Office by Colonel Maberly, and he pro- 
posed to the Ministiy to obviate the incon- 
venient charges by distance on letters. These 
charges were so framed that, although the 
distance from a place where the letter was 
posted to the place where it was delivered 
might be only ten miles in a direct route, the 
recipient had to pay charges upon the dis- 
tance to London, and the distance from 
London to its destination ; so that if the 
first town were twenty miles from the metro- 
pohs, and the destination of the letter fifteen 
miles in another direction, the postage 
charged was twenty plies fifteen miles. But 
the Chancellor of the Exchequer declined to 
remit these charges, though he afterwards 
assented to Mr. Hill's suggestion. 

Mr. Hill's pamphlet made a great sensa- 
tion. Though only privately printed at first, 
it soon was issued to the public, and seized 
upon ever}-one much as the famous " Battle 
of Dorking " did in later years. The scheme 
was for " sweeping away the financial and 
account branches of the Post Office, and 
reducing its duties to the more mechanical 
functions of receiving, conveying, and de- 
livering letters ofwhich the postage should be 
collected by anticipation, at the stamp office, 
by means of a stamp to be affixed to the 



letter, and which, at the uniform rate of one 
penny, was to convey it free of any other 
charge to every part of the kingdom, and all 
this without any permanent loss, nay, with 
a probable future advantage, to the revenue." 
Mr. Hill's propositions were as follows : — 

(i) A large reduction in the rates of 
postage. 

(2) Increased speed in the delivery of 
letters. 

(3) More frequent opportunities for their 
despatch. 

(4) Simplification in the operations of the 
Post Office with the object of economy iii 
the management. 

Popular Evasions. 

These suggestions were at once approved 
by the masses, but the Government treated 
the reform with coldness. Mr. Hill brought 
forth batteries of argument, illustrating the 
losses incurred under the system by fraud 
and stratagem. One or two instances are 
worth quoting ; one in particular, in which 
Coleridge the poet was an actor, is a good 
illustration. 

When the poet was visiting the Lake 
District, he happened to be at the door of 
an inn when the postman appeared with a 
letter for the barmaid. She took it, and 
turned it round and round, and then inquired 
what there was to pay upon it. The man 
demanded a shilling for the letter, which 
sum the girl, apparently much disappointed, 
declined to pay, saying she could not afford 
it. Coleridge at once very kindly offered 
her the money ; and after considerable hesi- 
tation upon her side, she accepted it, and 
obtained the valuable missive. When the 
postman had disappeared, the young woman 
confessed to the poet that there was nothing 
written in the letter. She and her brother 
had made an arrangement, and composed a 
series of signs by which they could com- 
municate upon the envelopes without going 
to the expense of writing, or rather of paying 
for letters. "We are so poor," she said, 
" that we have invented this manner of cor- 
responding and 'franking' our letters." 

Franking letters was the privilege of the 
Government and members of the legislature, 
and by means of their signature the letter 
was carried free. A certain number of 
"franks" were allowed, and thousands were 
forged, while newspapers were carried free ; 
so the revenue did not benefit very largely 
at that time. Another instance of the prac- 
tices resorted to to evade the obnoxious post- 
age rate is related by Rowland Hill. He says, 
— " Some years ago, when it was the practice 
to write the name of a member of Parliament 
for the purpose of franking a newspaper, a 
friend of mine, previous to starting upon a 
tour in Scotland, arranged with his family 



247 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



a plan of informing them of his progress and 
state of health without putting them to the 
expense of postage. It was managed thus: 
he carried with him a number of old news- 
papers, one of which he put into the post 
daily. The postmark with the date showed 
his progress, and the state of his health was 
evinced by his selection of the name from a 
list previously agreed upon, with which the 
newspaper was ' franked.' ' Sir Francis Bur- 
dett,' I recollect, denoted vigorous health."* 
The scheme proposed by Rowland Hill, as 
we have said, met with approval on all sides. 
Even the Quarterly Review of the period 
condescends to allow that it was pleased. 
" We ourselves were dazzled by the brilliancy 
of a theory supported, as at first sight it 
appeared to be, by a sober and candid state- 
ment of financial and statistical details," 
writes the reviewer. We will now examine 
more minutely the propositions made, and 
the benefits that have resulted from Mr. 
Hill's scheme of Post Office Reform. 

Mr. Hill's Pamphlet. 

In his preface to the second edition of his 
work on "Post Office Reform," Mr. Hill 
acknowledged the cordial reception his plan 
had met with, and reverted to an objection 
which had been made to it by an anonymous 
writer, who said that if the Penny Post system 
ever became established, the letters would 
increase in number so enormously that their 
distribution would be rendered impossible. 
" The objector," writes the author, " so far 
outruns my expectations as to convert that 
which I consider a matter of gratulation into 
a subject for apprehension ;" and "the Post 
Office must necessarily be considered in a 
defective state unless it is capable of distri- 
buting all the letters which the people of this 
country can have any motive for writing, at 
least in ordinary seasons, and under ordinary 
circumstances." 

Mr. Hill's first argument was that the 
revenue of the Post Office was rather dimi- 
nishing, whereas if it had kept pace with the 
increase of the population, it ought to have 
increased by ;^5o7,7oo per annum, but in 
reality the loss was even greater. This was 
attributed to the heavy tax on letters, and 
to the excessive charges for managing the 
department, while the actual cost of carrying 
the letters was very small compared with the 
charge for such conveyance. Mr. Hill argued 
that the reduction of postage or other taxation 
did not imply necessarily any loss of revenue, 
rather the contrary. He estimated clearly 
enough —indeed, very accurately, considering 
the difficulties he had to contend against — 



* This tale seems very doubtful, but we accept 
it as related ; extensive forgery must have been 
practised. 



the number of letters in the year, and the 
cost of their transmission. By close calcu- 
lation he found that the sum paid per letter 
averaged 6\d. The expenses of the manage- 
ment of the department were then measured, 
and found to be about one-half of the revenue, 
the actual cost being ;^696, 569. He proved 
that if the revenue of the Post Office had 
increased in proportion as the Stage Coach 
Duties, that the actual gain would have been 
;i^2 ,000,000, instead of ^500,000. 

Accepting the cost of transit as inevitable, 
and taking the number of letters and news- 
papers to be 126,000,000, the average apparent 
cost of the primary distribution of newspapers, 
letters, etc., within the United Kingdom is 
for each Tinrth of a penny, of which the ex- 
pense of transit is one-third, or innrth of a 
penny ; and the cost of receipt, delivery, etc., 
two-thirds, or rinrth of a penny. Mr. Hill 
proved that the actual cost of transit incurred 
upon a letter sent from London to Edinburgh 
(400 miles), was not more than -^th part of 
a penny ; and therefore, if the proper charge 
(exclusive of tax) for a letter in London itself 
were twopence, then the proper charge (ex- 
clusive of tax) upon a letter received in 
London, but delivered in Edinburgh, would 
be twopence plus i^th. part of a penny. The 
additional charge of the ^\th of a penny would 
amply repay the cost of transit. " If, there- 
fore," said this practical reformer, "the charge 
for postage be made proportionate to the 
whole expense incurred in the receipt, transit, 
and delivery of the letter, and in the collection 
of its postage, it must be made uniformly the 
same from every post town to every other 
post town in the United Kingdom, unless it 
can be shown how we are to collect so small 
a sum as i^^th part of a penny." Mr. Hill 
contended that the charge ought to be the 
same for every packet of moderate weight, 
without reference to the number of its 
enclosures. 

This statement, and Mr. Hill's views gene- 
rally, were supported by Mr. Ashurst, who 
showed how the mail to Edinburgh cost for 
each journey, with its newspapers, letters, and 
" franks," ^5. The letters only paid, while 
the "franks" and papers, weighing y?/?^<?» 
ti7nes the weight of the paying letters, went 
free. The letters, therefore, paid not only 
for themselves, but for a weight in addition 
fifteen times heavier than themselves, and 
yet gave the Government ;^i, 500,000 revenue. 
The anomalous charges were further proved 
in the case of a light mail, which, nearer 
London, was charged less per letter, although 
it actually cost the department fifty times as 
much to deliver as the Edinburgh mails did. 

The reformer went on to show how the 
high postage rates prevented correspondence, 
what advantages were taken to elude the tax, 
as already related, the illicit distribution of 



THE PENNY POST. 



letters carried on openly ; and he then pro- 
ceeded to attack the complicated system of 
accounts, while the examination of each letter 
before a candle to see its contents exposed 
the officials to temptation and induced fraud. 
The loss of time entailed by compelling the 
postmen to collect the money on delivery, 
and the extensive system of checking the 
accounts could, Mr. Hill showed, be done 
away with, and a tremendous saving at once 
effected by a simple stamp to be obtained 
from the Stamp Office, and stuck upon every 
letter, which would be prepaid ; while by the 
adoption of slits and boxes in the doors, the 
letter-carriers would be enabled to carry out 
the various deliveries in a much shorter 
time. Thus all the complicated machinery of 
Tnoney collection and checks would be done 
away with at one stroke. He concluded his 
able pamphlet with a strong appeal : " I 
earnestly hope that a reform will take place 
at once, thorough and complete ; the more 
rigidly the subject is investigated, the more 
I feel assured will the practicability of the 
measures here proposed be made manifest." 
The following is the summary of the conclu- 
sions arrived at. 

Summary of the Proposed Reforms. 
(i) That the present cost of primary dis- 
tribution is for the most part the result of 
complex arrangements at the Post Office. 

(2) That these complex arrangements would 
be avoided if postage were charged without 
regard to distance, at a uniform rate (which 
is shown to be the only fair rate with reference 
to the expenses incurred), and were collected 
in advance. 

(3) That the postage might be collected in 
advance if reduced to the rate proposed — viz., 
one penny for each packet not exceeding half 
an ounce in weight, with an additional penny 
for each additional half ounce. 

(4) That owing to the great simplicity of 
the arrangements which might be adopted 
under these conditions, theprtsent establish- 
ment of the Post Office, with a slight addition, 
would suffice for a four-fold increase of 
business. 

(5) That the increase of business would 
lead to greatly increased facilities of com- 
munication, as for example, two departures 
and two arrivals of the London mail each day. 

(6) That these increased facilities, with 
these greatly reduced charges, would have 
the effect of increasing the number of charge- 
able letters in all probability five and a quarter 
fold, which increase, the number of " franks" 
and newspapers continuing as at present, 
would produce the four-fold increase of 
business, for which, as has been shown, the 
present establishment of the Post Office, with 
a slight addition, would suffice. 

(7) That the necessary cost of primary 



distribution is not the present actual cost, 
viz., -iVuth of a penny, but only ^Vh of a 
penny, the difference, viz., f-^ of a penny, 
arising from the employment of the Post 
Office in levying an excessive tax, and from 
the consequent expensiveness of arrangements 
and restriction of correspondence. 

(8) That in consequence of the great 
reduction in the necessary cost of primary 
distribution, which would be effected by the 
proposed arrangements, the proposed low 
rate of postage would yield a profit or tax of 
200 percent, on such necessary cost of primary 
distribution, which, after paying for the dis- 
tribution of franks and newspapers, would 
afford a probable net revenue of ;^i, 278,000 
per annum. 

(9) That the secondary distribution of 
letters ought to be untaxed, and the small 
unavoidable expense in each instance defrayed 
by the inhabitants of the district for whose 
benefit it is established ; also that it may be 
so managed so as not in any degree to inter- 
fere with the simplicity of the arrangement 
proposed for effectingthe primary distribution. 

Reception of Mr. Hill's Proposal. 

A Commission of Inquiry into the working 
of the Post Office was actually sitting when 
Mr. Hill's pamphlet appeared. This com- 
mission was charged with an " Inquiry into 
the management of the Post Office Depart- 
ment." The three commissioners — Lords 
Seymour and Duncannon, with Mr. Labou- 
chere — had concluded one portion of their 
investigations, and were about to enter upon 
the consideration of the London Twopenny 
Post, when the reforming suggestions of 
Rowland Hill were promulgated, and he was 
summoned to appear before the Commis- 
sioners, by whom his statements were com- 
pared with the officials examined, who were 
all unfavourable to the change. Mr. Wallace 
proposed a Select Committee upon the 
question in May, but was obliged to with- 
draw the motion. Many curious reasons 
were given before the Select Committee why 
the penny postage should not be adopted. 
One was because it would entail such an 
enormous amount of extra work upon the 
department, already at its wit's end to do its 
work within a reasonable time. The officers 
all declared it impossible that the rate could 
be adopted. A critical review of the evidence 
led a writer to inquire what the public would 
think, if when Messrs. Chaplin, Home, or 
Pickford found that the pubhc were anxious 
to pay them a reasonable rate, and increase 
their business, and consequently their profits, 
the carriers were to say, " No thank you, we 
do not want any more money, we would 
rather-let our business stagnate or diminish"? 
What would be thought of a firm who ex- 
pressed themselves in such terms .? and yet 



249 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the Post Office officials actually did oppose 
all extension of the system on such grounds. 
Furthermore, the penny stamp was objected 
to because it would encourage " duns "to send 
applications for their money at shorter inter- 
vals. The tradesmen, it was feared, would 
write more importunate letters for a penny 
than they would for twopence ; so a great 
and needed reform was to be quashed because 
a few dishonest or unwilling people ought not 
to be reminded of their debts and liabilities. 
As a writer remarked, " We suppose the Post 
Office has accurately gauged the present 
charge as the correct one for dunning cor- 
respondence," or words to that effect. It will 
scarcely be credited that sensible men — men 
who were doing the Government business as 
carriers, could be so utterly oblivious of the 
very reason for their existence, viz., the de- 
velopment of the trade and commerce of the 
country vis a vis with the public convenience 
and requirements. To this day the spirit of 
monopoly and obstruction keeps guard at the 
portals of St. Martin's le Grand, as instanced 
even now in the matter of the telephone 
companies, and it is no exaggeration to say 
that if the introduction of the telephone into 
London had depended upon the Post Office 
authorities, that useful and simple mode of 
communication would still be a stranger in 
the land.* 

Government Parliamentary Opposi- 
tion. 

Lord Lichfield, speaking in the House of 
Lords on the 15th of June, 1837, against the 
adoption of Mr. Hill's proposals, said, " It 
appeared from the official returns, that under 
the system adopted by the Post Office Depart- 
ment, the revenue had been considerably 
increased. That revenue was now produced 
by 170,000,000 of letters, that were annually 
circulated in England, and if the reduction 
for which some individuals called were 
acceded to, it would require the enormous 
number of 416,000,000 of letters annually to 
produce the same amount of revenue.t With 
respect to the plan set forth by Mr. Hill, of 
all the wild and visio7iary schemes lie had 
ever heard or read of, it teas the most extra- 
ordinary f and he concluded by trusting that 
the progress of the Government " Bills for 
the consolidation of the Post Office would not 
be opposed." Lord Ashburton was still of 
opinion that the rates of postage ought to be 
diminished, and said that the noble Earl, 
"like all Postmasters-General, seemed to 
look more to the increase of the revenue 
than to the general convenience of the public." 

* The Times, January, 1882. 

t The number now, besides post cards, is about 
1,130,000,000, or say, forty-six per head of population, 
per annum. 



The Duke of Richmond afterwards presented 
an important petition from the inhabitants of 
Elgin, and favoured the proposal, but the Earl 
of Lichfield, while declaring that no man re- 
gretted more than he that Mr. Hill's plan 
could not be followed without materially 
affecting the revenue, promised to have it 
examined to see whether any portion could 
be recommended, but he still adhered to his 
former opinion, and said that " it was all very 
well to talk of public accommodation, and 
to argue that in consequence of the low rate 
of postage an immense number of additional 
letters would be written, but it was madness 
to suppose that the correspondence of the 
country could possibly be increased to such 
an amount and extent as he had described." 
He did not think a uniform rate could be 
effected, because he thought people living 
at a short distance would object to pay 
the same as people farther off ! The Earl 
apparently forgot that travelling was daily 
becoming more general, and railways more 
universal, so that a Londoner any day might 
reap equal benefit with the dwellers in Edin- 
burgh, or Glasgow, or Dublin, when called to 
those towns by business or pleasure. 

Lord Brougham, on the contrary, strongly 
supported the new proposals, and declared 
" that nothing he had heard had in the least 
degree shaken his opinions as to the utility 
and feasibility of Mr. Hill's plan." 

Mr. Wallace, in the House of Commons, 
succeeded in obtaining a Select Committee 
to inquire into the present rates and mode of 
charging postage, with a view to such reduc- 
tion as may be made withozit injury to the 
revenue, particularly with reference to the 
pamphlet published by Mr. Rowland Hill. 
The Committee, nominated by the Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, sat for sixty-three days. 
The only complaint that the Quarterly Re- 
view had to make was that the Committee 
was " so very select," it being composed of 
Government supporters, with only two excep- 
tions. The members of this Committee 
examined the secretary and officers of the 
Post Office, as well as a number of inde- 
pendent witnesses. We read that the autho- 
rities, though objecting to the penny rate, 
"were very properly invited to send for 
examination whatever witnesses they chose 
to select, and several were examined who 
entertained more or less the same objection 
to the plan as their chiefs.* 

Those gentlemen who were employed in 
the Post Office gave some extraordinary 
reasons for the non-adoption of the reforms. 
We have already mentioned a few, and need 
not repeat them ; it will be seen how greatly 
opposed the officials were to all reform of 
the Post Office Department. 

* Edinburgh Review, vol. Ixx. 



250 



THE PENNY POST. 



Efforts in Favour of Postal Reform. 

In the February following the great Mer- 
cantile Committee was formed, with Mr. 
Bates, of Baring's, at the head, to obtain 
evidence to lay before the Parliamentary 
Committee. The members of this assem- 
blage of merchants included some of the 
greatest names, and embraced men of all 
shades of political opinion, — " men who had 
nothing in common, except that they stood 
at the head of their class for wealth, intelli- 
gence, and respectability." But the Quarterly 
Review, in its continued opposition, fancied 
that the evidence collected was not " wholly 
unbiassed." " When we are told," says the 
reviewer, "that some of the houses who were 
most active for this Post Office reform now 
pay such to us almost incredible sums as 
^6,000,^8,000, ^10,000, or even ^11,000 a 
year in postage, we cannot receive their 
testimony in favour of a uniform penny rate 
as altogether disinterested. In some busi- 
nesses the postage is specifically charged 
against the correspondent .... but there 
is another class, to which we are informed 
that the most zealous members of the agi- 
tating committee and many of the most de- 
cided witnesses belong, namely, those with 
whom it is not usual to make direct charges 
against their correspondents for postage, and 
for whom, of course, the reduction of the 
taxation would be nearly, if not altogether, 
clear gain .... so that if a firm pays ^ 1 1 ,000 
per annum in postage, and repays itself by 
its general profits, it is clear that the adoption 
of Mr. Hill's plan would put something like 
^10,000 per annum clear into their pockets, 
and to make up that amount the people 
of England must be taxed to exactly the 
amount that shall be conveyed by this reform 
into the private purses of Messrs. This or 
ThatP 

This reasoning was fallacious, for the peti- 
tions from so many societies and independent 
sources, from clergy and dissenters alike, con- 
clusively proved that the merchants of London 
had not moved for their own advantage. In 
the session of 1838, three hundred and twenty 
petitions were presented to the House of 
Commons in favour of penny postage, and 
in 1839, iT^o less than two thousand and seven 
were received. The suggestions of some 
witnesses are thus ridiculed by the writer in 
the Quarterly. He says : — 

" One person contemplates the sending of 
parcels of patent medicines, another a box 
of pills ; one ingenious witness exhibited to 
the Committee a parcel of two pills and two 
plasters, which under Mr. Hill's plan, may 
be transmitted through the Post Office. This 
clever person forgot that unless the penny 
envelope could be made large enough to 
transmit a doctor also, to judge whether the 



medicines were proper for the case, it would 
be more prudent in the patient to send for 
his own country apothecary." 

And again — 

" Another desires to send samples of agri- 
cultural seeds, and, for example, clover, which 
would greatly, he says, benefit agriculture ; 
but of course, if clover is so indulgently treated, 
wheat, beans, and the most valuable of all, 
potatoes, could not be rejected." 

One witness desired to send grafts of trees, 
and another suggested that samples of goods 
might be conveyed through the post. The 
public were beginning to wake up to the boon 
Mr. Hill wished to confer upon them, and 
these suggestions the reviewer treats thus : — 

"We know not what he may deal in ; we 
hope not in iron ware or woollen, for we 
presume the Comfnittee has not yet arrived 
to such a pitch of Post Office reform as to 
contemplate sending samples of nails or 
blankets by the post ; and why in strict and 
equal justice should the manufacturers of 
hardware or broadcloth, why even glass or 
china-makers, or the importers of wine or 
fruits, or Mr. Warburton himself, the timber- 
merchant, be excluded from an advantage — 
so great an advantage, we are told — as is to 
be given to other traders 1 If the principle 
be once admitted, where are we to draw the 
line. Weight alone will not do it, for at one 
penny per half-ounce the conveyance would 
be still so cheap for long distances, that many 
bulky articles might be intruded on the Post 
Office."_ 

If this writer lived for a few years after 
1840, he must have seen " many" and curious 
articles consigned through the post, and have 
wondered ! 

We need not go into greater detail con- 
cerning the examination of witnesses on 
these points. The great object of the Govern- 
ment was to avoid any loss of revenue, and 
Mr. Hill strove to show that an increase of 
thousands of letters would be immediately 
sent through the Post Office — millions had 
been habitually smuggled. It was quite 
possible to convey with the existing machinery 
of stage coaches twenty times the amount of 
correspondence. Merchants and manufac- 
turers came forward to prove that people had 
transmitted an enormous number of letters 
illegally. The extent to which letter smug- 
gling was carried on was quite out of all 
official experience. One person naively con- 
fessed that he was not caught till he had sent 
twenty thousand circulars, etc., otherwise than 
through the post. He constantly sent letters 
by carriers, and the existence of a regular 
private penny delivery of correspondence was 
mentioned in Birmingham and other places. 
The most extraordinary devices were habitu- 
ally adopted to evade the payment of the 
unpopular tax, some of which we have already 



251 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



mentioned. A newspaper opined that it was 
even fortunate that such practices had ob- 
tained, else the trade of the country would 
have suffered in consequence of the check 
put upon correspondence by the action of 
the Post Office. 

Even under these encumbrances, and con- 
fronted by such independent testimony, the 
objectors to the Reform brought forward a 
series of arguments. Nothing could stop 
smuggling, people would do so whatever the 
rate. The poor would never write, they 
were not disposed to do so. The revenue 
will not recover itself for forty or fifty years. 
However desirable the reform was, it was 
pronounced perfectly impracticable ; and as 
a convincing argument against the scheme, 
the authorities declared that the public would 
certainly object to pay the postage penny in 
advance ! 

In reply to these arguments, it was shown 
to the Committee what thousands, nay mil- 
lions, of letters were never written at all 
because of the prohibitory rates. The poor 
could not afford to set aside such a large 
portion — a relatively large portion — of their 
weekly wage to send a letter. And yet the 
necessity of hearing from relatives and friends 
was and is as great amongst the poor as the 
rich. Such a necessity cannot be denied, and 
yet how many cases of individual hardship 
are recorded ! We could give a number of 
examples. We will give one or two, to bring 
before our readers of the present generation 
a view of the hardships endured in these 
cases by the poor, — a hardship to which not 
even the poorest writer need now be subjected, 
and for which — and it is no small blessing — 
he is indebted to Rowland Hill and the Penny 
Post. 

Evidence in Committee. 

We learn from the evidence given before 
the Committee by Mr. Davidson, how a poor 
man was unaware of the death of a relative 
for six or eight months after he died, in con- 
sequence of neither family being able to 
afford postage to inquire or to write par- 
ticulars. Another sad case was related by 
a deputy-lieutenant for Somersetshire. A 
pauper in the district, receiving only half-a- 
crown a week, could not take up a letter, 
that is, pay the charges due upon it, for want 
of means. After a time, a lady hearing of 
the circumstances, gave her a shilling to 
obtain the letter ; but by that time it had 
been returned to London, and she never 
could obtain it. Who knows what may have 
been in that one letter, perhaps the only one 
she had been sent — to tell her news of the 
return of a loved relative — son or daughter, 
erring and repentant husband mayhap, from 
far over the sea. The letter was returned 



and destroyed, and the opportunity was lost. 
What news might not have been in that 
letter ! 

The postmaster of Banwell testified that 
he often had trusted people in consequence 
of the inability of their friends to raise a 
sufficient sum for the postage. One woman 
offered a spoon in pledge until the money 
was paid ; the spoon was not taken, but the 
woman was trusted, and the letter proved to 
be of much importance. Her husband had 
been imprisoned for debt ! " She was very 
badly off, and had six children." " I am 
quite sure," says the witness, "that if the 
postage of letters were lowered to a penny, 
ten times the number would be written by 
all classes of people." 

We can get at the daily rate of wages 
incidently from this evidence. " Sixpence," 
says Mr. Brewin, "is a third of a poor man's 
daily income. If a gentleman, whose fortune 
is ;^i,ooo, a year, or three pounds a day, had 
to pay one-third of his daily income, that is, 
a sovereign for a letter, how often would he 
write letters of friendship." "But," says a 
critic on the opposite side, " why confine this 
philanthropic principle to so slight and rare 
an instance in a labourer's life as a letter?" 
Why, indeed, but what made the incident 
rare ? The action of the Post Office, — the 
want of perception to see what Mr. Hill laid 
down before it, — that same short-sighted- 
ness was the cause. The arguments were 
continued, and in the same strain as the 
above objection, and by way of supporting his 
argument, the writer of the opposing scheme 
"brilliantly" goes on to remark that the 
man of ^i,ooo a year would grumble equally 
if you charged him in proportion for his beer, 
his yard of cloth, and his leather, and would 
cause the repeal of all taxes if it were to be 
equally applied. It ought to have been 
apparent to such an opinionated " wiseacre," 
that such taxation would either lead to a 
repeal of the high duties, or labourers would 
go barefoot and starve, and thus the heavy 
rates levied would soon be lowered. 

The perusal of the evidence taken before 
the Committee is amusing and interesting 
even now. The light of experience shows us 
the weak places in the arguments of those 
who would have had the Government retain 
such anomalous taxes, which were keeping 
back the national developments of industry 
and trade. The experience of history gene- 
rally goes to prove that the more communi- 
cation and correspondence is encouraged, the 
greater is the progress of civilization. Given 
a country in which the population is annually 
increasing rapidly, the means of correspond- 
ence amongst the people must also be 
increased it it is to improve. In nations, 
just as in the cases of individuals, there is no 
"standing still." 



252 



THE PENNY POST. 



Results of the Committee's Inquiry. 

The Committee, after long and careful 
deliberation, came to the conclusion that 
the following principles should be adopted : — 

(i) Uniformity of charge and reduction 
of the rate. 

(2) Prepayment by stamps. 

(3) The adoption of a penny rate would, 
after a time, involve no loss upon the 
revenue. 

But they would not take the responsibility 
of recommending any plan entailing a loss of 
revenue, even if only temporary, and they 
accordingly restricted themselves to a two- 
penny rate. 

In the meantime, the Committee we have 
ilready mentioned as sitting upon the ques- 



for uniform penny postage was surely per- 
meating the minds of all classes of society, 
and it only wanted the influence of Parlia- 
ment to complete the scheme recommended. 
The adoption of stamped covers was advo- 
cated by Mr. (afterwards Sir Charles) Pressly, 
and a peculiar paper was suggested to pre- 
vent forgery. We still have the stamped 
envelope, and its use was very general not 
many years ago. The covers were like 
wrappers, and coloured green and primrose- 
yellow for the twopenny and penny rates 
respectively. 

The New Scheme. 
The new scheme was submitted to Parlia- 
ment, and in the debates of 1839 will be 
found the propositions made by the Chan- 




General Post Office — New Buildings. 



tion of Post Office management, had termi- 
nated their labours and had sent in their 
report. They also decided for Mr. Hill's 
suggested plan, so far as the postal service 
had come under their consideration. Their 
decision was as follows : — " We propose that 
the distinction as to rates and districts, 
which now applies to letters delivered in the 
twopenny and threepenny post, shall not in 
any way aifect correspondence transmitted 
under stamped covers ; and that any letter 
not exceeding half an ounce, shall be con- 
veyed free within the metropolis, and the 
district to which town and country deliveries 
extend, if enclosed in an envelope bearing a 
penny stamp." 

This last sentence is of great significance, 
and shows distinctly that Mr. Hill's proposal 



cellor of the Exchequer. Referring to the 
Committee, which had recommended a two- 
penny rate, the Chancellor said : " From 
the best consideration I have been able to 
give to the subject, comparing one propo- 
sition with the other" (/.<?., the penny with 
the twopenny rate), " and, above all, con- 
sidering the evidence taken before the Com- 
mittee, I find the whole of the evidence, the 
whole of the authorities, conclusively bearing 
in favour of a penny postage in preference 
to a twopenn)' postage. ... I ask the Com- 
mittee simply to affirm the adoption of a 
uniform penny postage, and the taxation of 
that postage by weight." The speaker con- 
cluded by moving, " That it is expedient to 
reduce the postage on letters to one uniform 
rate of a penny postage, according to a 



253 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



certain amount of weight to be determined ; 
That the Parliamentary privilege of franking 
be abolished ; and That official franking be 
strictly limited, the House pledging itself to 
make good any deficiency that may occur 
in the revenue from such reduction of the 
postage." 

On the 29th of July the Bill was read a 
third time, and passed ; and by way of pre- 
paring the public for the great benefit for 
which they had been agitating in and out of 
Parliament for months, — in papers, in poli- 
tical " squibs," and by petitions,— the Lords 
of the Treasury, on the 12th of November, 
issued a Minute, reducing the postage to one 
universal fourpenny rate. It need scarcely 
be said that such an enactment met little 
approval. Asking for bread, the Government 
gave the public a stone, which it was inclined 
to fling back in the faces of " my Lords." An 
explanation was made that such a gentle 
letting-down was all for the public's sake, 
for fear they should be too ready to write 
letters and worry the office, or for some 
equally brilliant reason. At last, on the loth 
of January, 1840, the great reform was com- 
pleted. The following notice was issued : — 

" Post Office Regulations, 

" yaiiuary yth, 1840. 
"On and after the loth JaJiuary, a letter 
not exceeding Half an Ounce in Weight 
may be sent from any part of the United 
.Kingdom to any other part for One Penny, 
if paid when posted ; or for Twopence if 
paid when delivered." 

Then follow certain instructions and rates 
with limitations of weight. The Penny Post 
wag at length an accomplished fact ! 

The Result. 

Mr. Hill was given an appointment in the 
Post Office in order to assist in carrying out the 
penny postage scheme ; but when the Tories 
came into office ini84i, the reformer was given 
the " cold shoulder," and after three years' 
service Mr. Hill was politely "retired," as 
he could do nothing more for the department 
which he had reformed and reconstructed, 
and to whom the public will ever be indebted. 
But with the public he met with full appre- 
ciation. The jealousy of the Post Office 
found expression in a pamphlet, that was 
supposed to have been written by an official, 
and in it the views of the Department, we 
may suppose, were embodied. Mr. Hill is 
"pooh-poohed," his work decried, and the 
" Office" declared to be under no " obligation " 
to carry public correspondence, while the 
quackery of 'penny postage is declared to have 
had its day. Such was the spirit of the 
British Post officials in the year of grace 1844 
— not forty years ago ; and some say that 



"the trail of the serpent is over them all" 
to this day ! 

But in 1846, when a more liberal Govern- 
ment came in, the Whigs re-appointed Mr. 
Hill; and in i854he was nominated Secretary 
to the Post Office. In i860, Mr. Hill was 
knighted, and in March 1864, Sir Rowland 
Hill retired, and passed, " not into obscurity, 
but into deserved repose." He was permitted 
to retire on his full salary of £,if)Oo a year, 
and subsequently, at the Queen's suggestion, 
a grant of ^20,000 was made to him — one 
voice, that of a Mr. Williams, being alone 
raised against this tardy but well-deserved 
tribute to the benefactor of his country. Sir 
RowlandHill lived several years happily, and 
in 1880, greatly to the grief of all the civilized 
world, he died at the age of eighty-five, leaving 
behind him a deathless name as a legacy 
to posterity. 

It w,ould be beyond our province, and cer- 
tainly it would extend far beyond our allotted 
space, did we endeavour to follow the im- 
provements and the benefits that have so 
rapidly accrued since the introduction of 
the Penny Post. From every direction 
came testimony of the happy results of the 
system. Letters increased to fabulous 
amounts up to hundreds of millions, and 
Sir Rowland lived long enough to see the 
full measure of his hopes rewarded. The 
testimony of all peoples and languages united 
in praise of the great Post Office Reform, 
carried out in spite of the Post Office. The 
utilization ofthe railways for conveyance, and 
the gradual disappearance of the coaches, are 
matters which concern us not here. Many 
reforms were subsequently carried out by 
Mr. Hill, and many more advantages have 
annually been given to the public by his 
successors. The General Post Office now is 
a gigantic machine, with an enormous busi- 
ness, throwing out its arms in all directions, 
doing our postal, and banking, and funding 
business, investing our savings, we hope 
soon to carry our parcels, and give us cheap 
telegrams, sending our flying messages over 
the earth, and distributing our many hundred 
millions of papers and letters and post cards 
with an accuracy and despatch unparalleled. 

Post Office Work. 

The human machinery for sorting and 
stamping at the Post Office is of a very com- 
plete description. When one sees thousands 
of letters cast upon the floor to be " sorted," 
the task appears to the uniniated as hopeless 
as the cleansing of the Augean stable ; but 
willing hands quickly pick up and place the 
letters upon the sorting and stamping tables, 
with the addresses " right side up." Then 
the sorters and stampers set to work, and in 
a marvellously short space of time thousands 
of letters are stamped and sorted. The men 



254 



THE PENNY POST. 



can tell almost by instinct those which are 
over the regulation "penny" weight, and 
such letters (possibly love-letters) are cast 
aside for weighing, the sorter proceeding at 
the same time to pick up another billet-doux 
with as much nonchalance as if he had never 
Tcnown the tender passion, and was not 
anxious to meet his affianced when the day's 
■duty was done. 

Valentine's Day, as well as Easter and 
Christmastide, bring a tremendous accession 
of force to the Post Office. Last Christmas, 
one thousand extra sorters were put on at St. 
Martin's-le-Grand; and the excess of corre- 
spondence at that office alone amounted to 
many millions of letters. The actual number 
in excess at Christmas 1880 was nine 
millions, and the excess weight of registered 
letters three and a half tons ! When these 
facts are known, we may excuse occasional 
lapses on the part of the Post Office, which, 
under Mr. Fawcett, is rapidly developing its 
resources. 

We are all familiar with the travelling 
Post Office. The sorting van of the Royal 
Mail, which is a conspicuous carriage in the 
night and early morning trains, wliich travel- 
lers enter so neat and wakeful, and emerge 
from so sleepy-looking and dishevelled. As 
the train speeds along, the clerks are busy 
distributing the letters with marvellous pre- 
cision into their proper pigeon-holes, and the 
canvas bags are continually being made up 
for delivery as the train rushes by. Other 
bags are hanging from a lever near the station ; 
a net is extended from the van ; a spring is 
touched, the bags from the train are dropped 
out, and the bags from the town are dropped 
in simultaneously; the net is taken into the 
Post Office van, and the passengers are un- 
aware that the operation has been performed, 
for the speed was scarcely slackened. 

The stamp sheet-perforating machine, 
originally made by Mr. Archer, did away 
with the troublesome old method of cutting 
the sheets with a pair of scissors ; and the 
later regulation, by which penny stamps 
serve for Postal or Inland Revenue purposes, 
as a great boon. The latest development of 
the Post Office, viz., the institution of the 
Parcels Post, is likely to become a most 
useful arrangement, as far as the public is 
concerned. Whether the existing carriers 
will appreciate the action of the Postmaster- 
■General is another matter. 

Some Curious Facts. 

The want of care on the part of the public 
in posting letters forms a text for much re- 
monstrance every year from the Department. 
It is to ordinary minds surprising that 
valuables, such as gold watches and many 
articles of jewellery, should be found in open 



packets in the Post Office, and that annually 
thousands of letters containing bank-notes, 
coin, cheques, bills, etc., should be posted 
without any address. Why frogs, lizards, 
and " such small deer," with marline-spikes 
and other sharp instruments, are forwarded 
through the Post Office is a mystery, but a 
fact. Snakes have also been found posted. 
Let us quote the Report for 1881 : "Over 
5,300,000 letters were dealt with in the 
Return Letter Office, 475,000 of which it was 
found impossible to deliver or return. One 
contained a bank-note for £,100, still un- 
claimed, and attached to the seal of another 
was a sovereign, which was returned to the 
owner, who had forgotten to remove it. In 
addition to the letters, about 500,000 post- 
cards, 4,000,000 book packets, and 400,000 
newspapers found their way to the same 
office. More than 27,000 letters (an increase 
of 3,000 over last year) were posted without 
any address whatever, 5,000 furnished no 
clue to the name of the sender, and 1,340 
contained articles of value to the amount of 
nearly ^5,000. The use of too fragile covers 
occasioned the escape of some 30,000 articles, 
and no doubt entailed much disappointment. 
The habit of transmitting animal and perish- 
able matter, such as fish, sausages, birds to 
be stuffed, clotted cream, fruit, yeast, salads, 
jellies, live kittens, and dead rats still pre- 
vails ; and it is necessary to appeal to the 
public to discontinue a practice so injurious 
to the health of the officers in one branch of 
the Department, and to repeat the warning 
that such forbidden articles will be stopped. 
The number of letters delivered in the United 
Kingdom during the twelve months of 1881 
was 1,176,423,600, showing an inci'ease of 
4'3 per cent. ; the number of post-cards, 
122,884,000, an increase of 7*4 per cent. ; 
the number of book packets and circulars, 
248,881,600, an increase of i6"3 per cent. ; 
and the number of newspapers, 133,796,100, 
an increase of 2"5 per cent. There is again 
a marked increase in registered letters, the 
number recorded being 10,034,546, against 
8,739,191 of the previous year, or an increase 
of I4"8 per cent." 

We may have wondered, as we read the 
foregoing pages, at the tardy steps by which 
the greatly needed reform was arrived at. 
We have seen, that at one time it was 
deemed impossible to transmit mails from 
Bath to London in eighteen hours. What 
would our officials of that day have said to 
the " Flying Dutchman," the " Wild Irish- 
man," and the "Flying Scotchman"! 
Twenty years ago the mail was, on one 
momentous occasion, sent from Cork to 
Euston Sc^uare in thirteen hours, the rate of 
speed being 34^ miles per hour all through, 
including transfer stoppages and necessary 
delays. The speed on the North Western 



25s 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Railway being at the average rate of 52.3 
miles per hour ! 

There are many curious addresses to be 
noted as one passes through the Post Office, 
or reads the reports. Such an address as 
the following must have puzzled the "bUnd" 
men, who are supposed to decipher all 
mysterious and puzzling and " blind '' (ill- 
written) addresses. For instance — 

Ash Bedels in Such, 

for John Horsell Grinder, 
in the County of Lestysheer. 

Here is another pleasant address for the 
Post Office to decipher — 

W. Stratton, 

co7ninonly 

Ceald Teapot, 

Wielin. 

Why Mr. Stratton, of Welwyn, was called a 
" tea-pot," we can only conjecture ; perhaps 
he had prominent features, or was a total 
abstainer from more exciting beverages than 
tea. 

Mr. Dick, 

Bishop Cans, 

ner the Wises [DEVIZES]. 

is another instance of curious geographical 
complexity. But what can we expect when 
Her Most Gracious Majesty is addressed as 
— " Miss Oueene Victoria, of England," and 
as " Mrs. Prince Albert, Balmory Castle," 
or in more childish form — 

Keen Vic Tory at 

Winer Castle. 

With which unique specimen we conclude 
our extracts. 



The Parcel Post; Conclusion. 

We have not space available to do more 
than enumerate the various propositions 
lately set forth by the Postmaster-General, 
for the carriage of parcels ; but we must 
mention this, the latest development of the 
Department. The idea was broached forty 
years ago by Sir Rowland Hill ; but when the 
Lords of the Treasury disowned him, or 
"retired" him, as they officially termed it, he 
was unable to carry out his idea. His sub- 
sequent endeavours were put aside because 
his suggestion might interfere with the Rail- 
way Companies' business. It is this railway 
opposition which, in conjunction with exist- 
ing carrying interests, has already proved 
detrimental to at least one beneficial 
parcel-carrying scheme. Let us hope that 
Parliament will pass a measure to prevent 
the people being taxed for the benefit of a 
minority of their number. 

Under the suggested system it will be 
possible — we hope it will — "to forward a 
packet of from four to six pounds weight 
with the same ease and certainty as an 
ordinary letter." The reduction upon the 
carriage of goods will thus benefit sellers 
and buyers alike. The former will be able 
to dispense with many carts and horses, the 
latter will — it may be expected — reap the 
benefit of the cheaper conveyance. Why 
the railway " bogy " should alarm the Post 
Office, we do not know. There are mail 
trains now, why not parcel trains as well — 
for a consideration ? 

The Post Office is the admiration of many, 
but we wonder how far would the commerce 
and prosperity of England have developed, 
and how far the wondrous interchange of 
thought would have progressed during these 
later years, if they had depended upon the 
initiative of the omniverous department now 
in St. Martin's-le-Grand, and not upon the 
energy and foresight of Rowland Hill and 
his propositions for a uniform PENNY POST, 
which we have so briefly endeavoured to lay 
before our readers ! 

H. F. 




256 




Arrest of Puritans about to leave England. 



HAMPDEN ANDSHIPMONEY: 

THE STORY OF A STRUGGLE FOR ENGLISH LIBERTY. 

" A day, an hour of virtuous liberty 
Is worth a whole eternity in bondage." — Addison. 



A Momentous Question— English Liberty in the Olden Time— The Parliament and its Power— Henry IV. and Parliamen- 
tary Privileges— Tudors and Stuarts : Their Attitude towards the Parliament and People -HenryVI II. and the Contri- 
butions—Queen Elizabeth : Her Dependence on the People— James I.— A New State of Things— Charles I. working 
out his Father's Theory— John Hampden Member for Wendover— The Despotic Period— An Arbitrary Government— 
The "Thorough " and Ship Money— The Trial of the Question— The Collapse of "Thorough "—The Short Parliament 
— The Long Parliament — Breaking out of the Civil War — Death of Hampden — Conclusion. 




A Momentous Question. 

WO centuries and a half ago, in 

the year 1636, there was tried 

in the Court of Exchequer a most 

remarkable and momentous cause, 

cause in which the insignificance of 



the demand made against the defendant 
seemed strangely out of proportion to the 
elaborate nature of the proceedings, the 
imposing array of judges on the bench, and 
protracted arguments carried on through a 
series of days. For the sum in dispute was 



257 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



no more than twenty shillings, levied as a 
tax on part of the estate of a wealthy coun- 
try gentleman, to whom, as a mere matter 
of money, the petty sum could have been of 
no appreciable importance ; but behind the 
demand there stood the question of the 
liberties of England, and the destiny of the 
British people for ages to come : and there- 
fore the famous ship-money trial, whose 
causes, progress, and consequences we pro- 
pose briefly to put before our readers, may 
be fitly included among the Epochs of 
History. "A httle snow, tumbled about, 
anon becomes a mountain," says Pandulph 
the legate in Shakespeare's King John; 
an action at law brought for the recovery of 
twenty shillings may have, and this case 
did have, the effect of opening the eyes of a 
nation to its position, and to the nature of 
the demands made upon it by a government, 
to the peril of its freedom and of its very 
existence as a monarchy, in which others 
besides the King have a voice in the great 
questions of the state. 

It was emphatically what may be called a 
" test " case, on which hung great and vitally 
important issues. The precise question, as 
stated by Mr. Hallam in his " Constitutional 
History," was "whether the king had a right, 
on his own allegation of public danger, to 
require an inland county to furnish ships, 
or a prescribed sum of money by way of 
commutation, for the defence of the king- 
dom?" — This question involved the greater 
and wider one of the extent and nature of 
the King's authority generally. If he could 
levy ship-money, there was no doubt of his 
being an absolute monarch, with supreme 
and uncontrolled authority over the posses- 
sions of his subjects. 

British Liberty in the Days of Old. 

When men are bent upon increasing their 
own power, and in their endeavours in that 
direction seek to encroach upon, or even to 
overturn, the rights and privileges of others, 
they usually deprecate very loudly and 
earnestly anything like interference with or 
criticisms of their proceedings. " Meddle 
with no state matters," was one of " the 
twelve good rules the Royal Martyr drew." 
" Leave princes' affaires undescanted on, and 
tend to such matters as stand thee upon," 
wrote cunning old Tusser, in his "Points of 
Husbandry" — a circumlocutory form of the 
good old precept, "Mind your own business." 
During a long period of his reign, the senti- 
ment of Charles I. and of his leading 
advisers towards the people he governed 
was similar to that expressed b}' Caius 
Marcus in Shakespeare's play : " Hang 
'em ! They say ! They'll sit by the fire, and 
presume to know what's done in the Capitol 
. . . making parties strong, and feebling 



such as stand not in their liking, below their 
cobbled shoes ! " In the case of Strafford, 
the words would even apply, when the 
doughty Roman patrician goes on to 
declare, that but for the misplaced lenity of 
the nobility, he would " make a quarry of 
thousands of these quartered slaves ! " and 
this disposition was abundantly manifested 
in the notable scheme known as the 
" Thorough." But happily for themselves 
and their descendants, the English people 
were not disposed to yield up their liberties, 
while they could fight for them. Like the 
Swiss, who rose against the tyranny of 
Austria at the beginning of the fourteenth 
century, their maxim was, " Rather choose 
death, than life in slavery ; " and on this 
point there was but one feeling north and 
south of the Tweed. " Freedom is a nobyl 
thing, freedom makes man to have lykyng," 
the old Scottish poet had sung, and the 
hearts of his countrymen echoed the senti- 
ment. 

The idea of freedom was no new thing 
with the British nation. It had grown with 
the growth of the people, and strengthened 
with their strength throughout many cen- 
turies. Sir John Fortescue, an English 
judge who lived as early as the time of 
Henry IV., already wrote learnedly and 
eloquently of the English Constitution, and 
of the privileges enjoyed by the people in 
comparison with continental nations. Old 
Froissart, the chronicler, accustomed to con- 
tinental ideas of government, gives it as his 
opinion that the English are the proudest and 
most seli-asserting people he had ever met 
with ; and Philip de Comines, the chronicler 
of the courts of Charles the Bold of Bur- 
gundy and of the astute and unscrupulous 
tyrant, Louis XI. of France, frankly expresses 
his admiration of the tranquillity and peace 
assured to the English by their form of 
government; adding an emphatic denunci- 
ation of those who ad(vocate war. The 
English people had been admitted to a 
greater share in their own affairs than their 
continental neighbours, simply because the 
government needed them more. Feudalism 
was introduced much later, as the form of 
rule, in England than on the Continent; and 
being forced upon an altogether reluctant 
people, was altered and modified much 
earlier. Henry I., the son of the Conqueror, 
anxious to strengthen his usurped power by 
a hold upon the Saxon population, gave 
charters to various towns ; and the worth- 
less John, his great-grandson, was compelled 
to sign that Great Charter which secured the 
English nation from the excesses of arbitrary 
government by solemnly confirming to every 
man the right of enjoying his possessions, 
by declaring the monarch had no right 
arbitrarily to tax his subjects, and by main- 

58 



HAMPDEN AND SHIPMONEY. 



taining the right of every accused person to 
a fair trial by a jury of his peers. The 
repeated confirmation of this charter during 
the reign of the weak son and successor of 
John, is a sufficient proof of the value 
attached to the Magna Charter by the 
English nation ; and the nation was right ; 
for within the stipulations of that great "palla- 
dium" of English liberty the chief conditions 
that constitute a free people are to be found. 

The Parliament and its Power. 

Already under the son and successor of 
the king who had granted the Magna Charta, 
the English parliament, with burgesses and 
knights of the shire, took the place of the old 
council of nobles and prelates. And from 
the time of its establishment the power and 
importance of parliament began rapidly to 
grow. The warlike character of the reigns 
of the Edwards made those kings anxious to 
obtain supplies of money for the carrying on 
of the long contests they waged ; and the par- 
liament won the exceedingly valuable right of 
voting the supplies, and thus obtained the 
control of the national purse. From the 
time when that great assembly could regulate 
or check the action of the king by granting 
or withholding the money, without which 
war was impossible, the chief means for 
maintaining a popular government had been 
ensured. Through the troublous times that 
ensued, parliamentary power continued to 
maintain itself and to increase. The inse- 
cure tenure on which the representatives of 
the rival houses held the throne during the 
period when " long years of havoc urged their 
destined course, and through the kindred 
squadrons mowed their way," in the struggle 
between York and Lancaster, rendered the 
help of the people important to the ruler. 

Long before this struggle began, indeed, 
Henry IV., the first king of the House of 
Lancaster, had considered it necessary to 
procure the solemn sanction of parliament 
to the transfer of the crown from the unhappy 
Richard to himself In his reign also, that 
most important measure was passed which 
secured the personal safety of the people's 
representatives, by pronouncing that no mem- 
ber of either House should be put in peril, 
prosecuted, or imprisoned for words spoken 
within the walls of parliament in his capacity 
of legislator. This right of free debar e and 
expression of opinion was thoroughly in the 
spirit of the English people ; who have always 
valued outspoken frankness, even where the 
bounds of decoruin were passed, and whose 
favourite ballads celebrate the bluntness of 
speech of handicraftsmen and churls in their 
intercourse with kings. It was the infringe- 
ment of this ancient right on the part of 
Charles I. that called forth those indignant 
cries of " Privilege, privilege ! " amid which 



that ill-advised king retired baffled from the 
House on that fatal 5th of January, on which 
he committed the greatest political blunder 
of his reign. 

The institution of regular journals of the 
House of Commons, in which the proceedings 
of the assembly were entered, to form a record 
of its work from day to day and froin year to 
year, forms another important landmark in 
the history of parliament and its progress, by 
giving to the proceedings of the assembly all 
the weight and importance derived from pre- 
cedent. 

Under the Tudors, a high-spirited race of 
kings, sufficiently inclined to tyrannise over 
their subjects, exceedingly tenacious of their 
own authority, and jealous of that of the 
nobles, the English parliament had some- 
times a hard struggle to maintain its position. 
Now and then the sovereign's hand of iron 
made itself felt, without the velvet glove. 
Thus, on one occasion, when rough King 
Henry VIII. found the Commons hesitating 
to pass a measure on which he had set his 
heart, he at once summoned to his presence 
the legislator who was said to be foremost in 
the opposition. " Ho, man," cried the King, 
" they will not pass my bill ? " — and as the 
honourable member knelt humbly before 
him, he laid his royal hand upon the bowed 
head — " See that my bill be passed to- 
morrow, or I will have this head of thine ; " 
and the measure was carried without loss of 
time. 

Tudors and Stuarts, with Respect 
TO Parliament. 

But although the Tudor monarchs seemed 
to rule despotically in England, and to 
dominate all classes alike by their imperi- 
ous will, the reality, here as elsewhere, 
differed greatly from the appearance. Every 
sign of outward homage and subserviency 
was paid to them, and the language of 
exaggerated worship was used in addressing 
these haughty rulers by " many a baron 
bold, and gorgeous dames, and statesmen 
old, in bearded majesty," who surrounded 
their thrones. It has been observed by 
Macaulay, that Louis XIV. would have 
blushed to receive from Boileau or Moli^re 
such adulation as Elizabeth not only 
accepted, but looked for ; and that " a 
modern Englishman can hardly understand 
how the people can have had any real 
security for good government under kings 
who levied benevolences, and chid the 
House of Commons as they would have 
chid a pack of dogs." It does not follow, 
however, that because a nation allows its 
rulers the forms of despotism, it must needs 
surrender its real and essential liberties and 
privileges. A man may, in epistolary corre- 
spondence, sign himself the " obedient ser- 



259 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



vant" of another against whom he is 
maintaining an action at law ; and similarly 
the English people, while paying every 
possible outward homage to their rulers, 
insisted on the maintenance of a popular 
government. 

When Henry VIII. attempted to exact "a 
trembling contribution," in the shape of a 
forced loan, he at once received an unplea- 
sant reminder of the tenure on which the 
Kings of England held their authority ; for 
there was an insurrection in Suffolk. If the 
King could compel his subjects at will to 
contribute to his necessities, they declared 
there would be an end of English liberty, — 
"Then were it worse than the taxes of 
France, and England should be bond and 
not free." The King, to do him justice, 
seems to have appreciated the situation 
with the sagacity that formed a prominent 
characteristic of the Tudors. He did not 
wait until the local insurrection widened into 
general rebellion, but made concessions at 
once, while there was time to retrace his 
steps. On this occasion, as on others, he 
acted up to the spirit of the words aptly put 
into his mouth in Shakespeare's great 
historical play : " We must not wrest our 
subjects from the law, and stick them in our 
will." The arbitrary power of a monarch 
was not, in England, to supersede the 
regulations laid down, and solemnly ratified, 
during the course of centuries, for the well- 
being of the whole nation ; and thus it has 
been remarked by the same historian, that 
the Tudors, while in many instances they 
were tyrants at Whitehall, were obliged to 
rule justly, as regarded the country at large. 
The nobles, whose order had never recovered 
the crushing blows inflicted on it by the 
Wars of the Roses, were powerless in the 
hands of the King, — who could work his 
will on any titled subject sufficiently unfortu- 
nate to awaken his jealousy and suspicion, — 
but the King, in his turn, having no standing 
army with which to enforce his will upon the 
people, in case of a general opposition, was 
dependent upon the affection and loyalty of 
the faithful commons for the maintenance 
of his throne and dignity, being entirely 
without the means of putting down any 
formidable rising, in which popular opinion 
sided with the insurgents. " They were 
under the same restraints with regard to 
their people under which a military despot 
is placed with regard to his army. They 
would have found it as dangerous to grind 
their subjects with cruel taxation, as Nero 
would have found it to leave his Praetorians 
unpaid. Those who immediately surrounded 
the regal person, and engaged in the hazard- 
ous game of ambition, were exposed to the 
most fearful dangers. Buckingharn, Crom- 
well, Surrey, Seymour of Sudely, Somerset, 



Northumberland, Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex, 
perished on the scaffold ; but in general 
the country gentleman hunted, and the 
merchant traded in peace. Even Henry, as 
cruel as Domitian, but far more politic, 
contrived, while reeking with the blood of 
the Lamise, to be a favourite with the 
cobblers." 

This dependence of the sovereigns of Eng- 
land upon the good-will of the people was 
especially understood by the last and incom- 
parably the greatest of the Tudor sovereigns, 
the haughty, energetic, great-souled Queen 
Elizabeth. When the great peril came that 
threatened to deprive her of the crown she 
wore so nobly, she rode forth to place herself 
at the head of her people and encounter it. 
" Let tyrants fear ! " said the undaunted 
Queen. And to the army assembled at Til- 
bury she went on to declare that though 
some who were anxious for her safety had 
warned her of the danger of trusting herself 
among a great body of men, yet she never 
wished to see the day when she should dis- 
trust her faithful subjects. Therefore had 
she come forth, thinking foul scorn that 
Spain, or Parma, or any other prince, should 
invade the borders of her realm ; for though 
she had the body of a weak woman, she had 
the heart of a king — and of a king of England, 
too — and, therefore, full of confidence in the 
loyalty and affection of her people, she ap- 
pealed to them for safety, and had come to 
live, and, if need were, to die among them. 

This was the way to touch the hearts of a 
nation like the English, and the response 
was a splendid one. The great towns, with 
London at their head, showed themselves 
ready to provide more than the proportion 
demanded of them for the general defence ; 
and the story of the Spanish Armada and its 
discomfiture forms one of the grandest pages 
in the annals of our history. Again it is told, 
that towards the end of Elizabeth's reign, 
the increase of monopolies had become a 
serious grievance. It formed the subject of 
the deliberations of parliament, and at length 
a remonstrance was presented to the Queen 
on the subject. Elizabeth not only granted 
the relief prayed by her faithful Commons, 
but granted it with a queenly readiness and 
grace that moved them to enthusiastic grati- 
tude — thanking them for calling her attention 
to the abuse, and thoroughly showing that 
she considered her interests as identical with 
those of the people she governed. 

James I.; A New State of Things. 

Very different were the principles and the 
practice of the Stuart who succeeded her as 
King of England. James I. has been aptly 
described as presenting to the world the exact 
model of what a king ought not to be. 
Obstinate without true resolution, timid and 



260 



HAMPDEN AND SHIPMONEY. 



cowardly without the caution that should 
have prevented him from allowing himself to 
be over-reached alike by France and Spain, 
the pedantic, self-sufficient professor of the 
science of kingcraft seemed to toil for many 
years to bring himself and the country he 
had been called to govern into contempt ; 
and certainly gave the nation abundant rea- 
son to regret the disappearance of that bright 
occidental star, Queen Elizabeth, for whom 
the adulation of the courtly translators of the 



happy grandson fled from the capital of the 
country that would endure him no longer — 
seem by their method of proceeding to have 
totally misconceived the spirit of the nation 
they governed, and the spirit of the times in 
which they lived. They perverted the laws 
their people held in honour ; they treated dis- 
tinguished men with contumely and harsh- 
ness. " What man but my father would keep 
such a bird in a cage?" was Prince Henry's 
indignant comment on James's conduct to- 




QuEEN Elizabeth at Tilbury Fort. 



Bible represented him as so brilliant and 
efficient a substitute. The Tudors, from 
the first of them, the cold-hearted, politic 
Henry VII., down to the fiery Queen Bess, 
had thoroughly understood the temper of the 
people they ruled. The Stuarts, on the other 
hand — from the day when James VI., on his 
progress southward in 1603, astonished and 
disgusted the nation by hanging the cut-purse 
without trial at Newark, until the miserable 
hour, eighty-five years later, when his un- 



wards Raleigh. James especially was always 
blundering. He lavished caresses, honours, 
and rewards upon unworthy favourites ; he put 
up for sale the peerages and titles of honour 
that had been the reward of distinguished 
statesmanship and valour ; and while he 
did all this, and much more, to exasperate 
the nation, he arrogated to himself an amount 
of power the strongest and wisest of his 
Tudor predecessors would never have ven- 
t'.ired to claim. He bullied his parliaments. 



261 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Thus one of his speeches in particular is 
noted as having given especial offence by its 
absurdly arrogant tone. "He made another 
speech to both the Houses," says a corre- 
spondent of Sir Ralph Winwood, "but so 
little to their satisfaction that I hear it bred 
generally much discomfort to see our mon- 
archical power and royal prerogative strained 
so high, and made so transcendent every way, 
that if the practice should follow the profes- 
sions, we are not likely to leave to our suc- 
cessors that freedom we received from our 
forefathers, nor make account of anything 
we have longer than they list who govern." 
Again, we find the King concluding a letter 
to one of his ministers with the words : " And 
so farewell from my wilderness, which I had 
rather live in (as God shall judge me), like 
a hermit in this forest, than be a king over 
such a people as this pack of Puritans are 
that overrules the Lower House." 

Fortunately, however, the fear indicated 
in the letter of Sir Ralph Winwood's corre- 
pondent was not realised. The practice did not 
follow the professions. James could threaten 
and bluster, and declare that the wrath of a 
king was as the roaring of a lion ; but he could 
not face the opposition excited by his pre- 
tensions ; and his practice was invariably 
to make concessions after sufficient delay to 
deprive them of all grace and dignity, and 
to show that they were simply the result of 
fear. 

On their part, the Commons, at the very 
beginning of James's reign, respectfully but 
firmly gave the King to understand that the 
kingly authority in England was co-existent 
with the rights of the nobility and the people, 
as represented in the Lords and Commons 
Houses of Parliament. The words used by 
the Commons admit of no misinterpretation. 
"Your Majesty would be misinformed if any 
man should deliver that theKings of England 
have any absolute power in themselves, either 
to alter religion, which God defend should be 
in the power of any mortal man whatsoever, 
or to make any laws concerning the same, 
otherwise than as in temporal causes, by 
consent of Parliament. We have, and shall 
at all times by our oaths acknowledge, that 
Your Majesty is sovereign lord and supreme 
governor in both." " Such," says Hallam, 
"was the voice of the English Commons in 
1604, at the commencement of that great 
conflict for their liberties which is measured 
by the line of the house of Stuart." In a 
word, James declared that he was an absolute 
monarch, holding his office by "right divine," 
and answerable to heaven alone for the man- 
ner in which he ruled. The popular party, 
in and out of parliament, declared that the 
King's authority was limited and defined, and 
that he was bound to maintain the consti-' 
tution of the kingdom he governed, and to 



respect the rights and privileges of the people 
as by law established. 

Charles L as the Worker-out of his 
Father's Theory. 

Thus the whole system of James was based 
on the idea that the people must unhesita- 
tingly submit to the ruling power, as repre- 
sented in the sole authority of the king. As 
a natural consequence, his utmost wrath was 
excited by any deviation from the " passive 
obedience " and " non-resistance," which he 
held to be the only justifiable attitude of 
the nation towards the government. The 
bishops upheld this view, and preached this 
" passive obedience and non-resistance; " and 
the King favoured them accordingly, while 
he abhorred and detested the Nonconformists, 
whose consciences would not allow them to 
accept the King any more than the Pope as 
the head of the Church. The notorious pro- 
fligacy of the court, the bribery and venality, 
the drunkenness that extended even to the 
ladies, and the despicable personal character 
of the King himself, served to render his 
pretensions ridiculous as well as odious. 
The absurd extent to which these pretensions 
were carried is illustrated in a speech made 
in the Star Chamber in 16 16, and recorded 
in the King's " Works." The impiety of the 
assumption is as glaring as its absurdity. 
" It is atheism and blasphemy," says the 
contemptible pedant, " to dispute what God 
can do ; good Christians content themselves 
with His will revealed in His word ; so it is 
presumption and high contempt in a subject 
to dispute what a king can do, or say that a 
king cannot do this or that." 

With discontent at home, and maladminis- 
tration abroad, with utter collapse of the 
boasted kingcraft, and woeful sacrifice of 
the nation's honour, the reign of James L 
ran its ignoble course. In 1625 the King 
died ; and from the day when the sceptre 
passed from his hand to that of his son 
Charles, the long-delayed strife between 
royal prerogative and the liberties of Eng- 
land may be said to have definitely com- 
menced. For now, instead of the ungainly, 
slobbering, shuffling creature who had so 
long disgraced the royal throne of England, 
there sat on that dignified seat one who was 
at once a scholar and a gentleman — blame- 
less in all the relations of private life, and 
excellent in artistic refinement and taste. 
And this rendered the position of the country 
far more critical with regard to the great 
question of its liberties and their preservation. 
James I. would never have had the resolution 
to push the quarrel against his parliament to 
extremity, and against such men as Pym and 
Sir John Eliot; James I. would never have had 
the persuasive powerto bring over Sir Thomas 
Wentworth to his side. 



262 



HAMPDEN AND SHIPMONEY. 



The first period of Charles's reign, from 
1625 to 1629, is taken up with his quarrel 
with the three parliaments he successively 
called, and successively dismissed. Briefly 
stated, the cause of quarrel amounted to 
this: That the Commons endeavoured to 
use their power of granting or withholding 
supplies in order to compel the King to 
grant redress of abuses, to restrain him 
from continuing an unpopular and unpro- 
fitable war, and to induce him to dismiss 
his worthless favourite, the Duke of Buck- 
ingham. To emancipate himself from par- 
liamentary interference was the King's great 
wish; and he at once entered on a course 
of menace and defiance. 

The first parliament endeavoured to obtain 
a redress of grievances by granting money 
very sparingly to the King ; Charles dis- 
missed it, and convoked another. The 
second parliament was less inclined than 
the first to be tractable in the sense desired 
by the King. It impeached Buckingham ; 
whereupon the King made a threatening 
speech, bidding the Commons remember 
" that parliaments were altogether in his 
power for their calling, sitting, and disso- 
lution ; therefore, as he found the fruits of 
them good or evil, they were to continue to 
be or not to be." This amounted to nothing 
less than a threat of entirely abolishing 
parliamentary government in England. 

In the embarrassment caused by the re- 
luctance of the first parliaments to supply 
his needs (the two subsidies they had voted 
him having amounted to only ^^140,000), 
the King had resorted to various ways of 
raising money, not warranted by law. He 
had sent commissions into the counties to 
raise money by means of loans to which 
all the proprietors of estates were expected, 
according to his means, to contribute, each 
being assessed at a certain sum. Many 
who refused to subscribe to this forced loan 
were committed to prison ; and in the 
houses of others, soldiers were billeted to 
enforce obedience. The King raised money 
by customs duties on goods, known as 
tonnage and poundage ; and further coercion 
was exercised by the substitution of martial 
law, in the trial of various accusations, for 
the ordinary courts of England. But all 
this did not sufficiently supply the King's 
necessities ; for Charles was now engaged 
in a war with France. Accordingly, a third 
parliament was summoned, which met early 
in the year 1628 ; and answered to the 
designation of a contemporary writer, who 
calls it "a great ruffling parliament," meaning 
one likely to oppose, to menace, and to 
insult, a bold and inflexible determination, 
and not to be hectored into submission. 

This third parliament it was, that in 1628, 
a year made memorable by its doings, 



laid before the King the celebrated " Peti- 
tion of Right," in which the illegality of His 
Majesty's arbitrary proceedings was set 
forth, and the rights and privileges of Eng- 
lishmen were declared in no half-hearted 
terms. At the same time there was a 
disposition to effect a compromise with the 
King, who could point to precedents in the 
government of former monarchs in support 
of some of the proceedings denounced as 
illegal ; though on the other side it was 
contended that these instances were excep- 
tional, and only proved the existence of 
tyranny in former times, forming no justi- 
fication for its renewal. The King, however 
assented to the Petition of Right, and bound 
himself to abstain from the raising money 
by tonnage and poundage, from allowing 
courts martial to supersede the law courts, 
from billeting soldiers in private houses, — 
and made other concessions, as the price 
of which concessions large sums of money 
were voted to him. Another cause of strife 
between Charles and his subjects was 
removed by the death of the arrogant and 
worthless Buckingham, who fell, struck by 
the knife of the gloomy fanatic Felton, 
while preparing, at Portsmouth, to lead a 
second army, as he had led a first, probably 
to dire and ignominious discomfiture. 

Scarcely had the Parliament been pro- 
rogued, in the summer of 1628, before the 
illegal practices denounced in the Petition 
of Right were resumed, — the billeting of 
soldiers on the nation, the exaction of 
tonnage and poundage, etc. When the 
Parliament met, in 1629, after the proro- 
gation, the Commons proceeded to adju- 
dicate on the question of tonnage and 
poundage, denouncing the illegality of that 
impost in the strongest terms. A resolution 
was proposed to the effect that those who 
paid that iniquitous tax were traitors to their 
country ; and when the Speaker, dismayed 
at the audacity of the Commons, declared 
that he had received His Majesty's orders 
to put no such resolution to the vote, a 
scene of violent indignation and uproar 
ensued. The Speaker, attempting to put 
an end to the sitting by leaving the chair, 
was forcibly held down in his place while 
the resolution was put, and triumphantly 
carried. The next day Charles angrily 
dissolved this, his third parliament, and, 
as on former occasions, marked his sense 
of its proceedings by committing the most 
prominent members to prison. The chief 
of them. Sir John Eliot, after various un- 
successful applications to the throne for 
release, or, at least, for a mitigation of the 
rigours of his captivity, died a prisoner in 
the Tower of London ; and a petition by 
his sons for the body of their father, that it 
might be buried on his own estate, was 

63 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



refused by Charles; who, carrying his enmity 
beyond the Hfe of his victim, ordered that 
the remains of Sir John EHot should be 
interred in the place where he had died. 

John Hampden, Esquire, of Hampden, 
IN Buckinghamshire. 

In each of the three parliaments that had 
been summoned and dissolved within the 
space of four years, there had sat as member 
for the borough of Wendover, a Buckingham- 
shire esquire, then little known, but destined 
to leave one of the most illustrious names in 
the annals of English history. From Lord 
Nugent's valuable " Memorials of Hampden," 
we learn some particulars of the family. 
The Hampdens 
had been settled, 
from before the 
Norman conquest, 
on an estate of the 
same name, be- 
stowed by Edward 
the Confessor on 
Baldwin de 
Hampden, whom 
Lord Macaulay 
conjectures to 
have been one of 
the Norman 
favourites brought 
to England by the 
last of our Saxon 
kings. The family 
had maintained it- 
self in opulence 
and honour ; and 
one of its repre- 
sentatives, Griffith 
Hampden, high 
sheriff of Bucking- 
hamshire, had 
royallyentertained 
Queen Elizabeth 
in his ancestral 
home. 

The John Hampden of Charles's time was 
the grandson of Griffith. He enjoyed a good 
education, first at Thame Grammar School, 
afterwards at Magdalen College, Oxford, 
and, finally, at the Temple in London, where 
he studied law. He was born in 1594 ; and 
already, in 1619, in James's time, we find him 
sitting in the House of Commons as represen- 
tative of the Cornish borough of Grampound. 

It is recorded that the mother of Hamp- 
den (his father had died in 1597) was 
desirous that her son, as the head of so old 
and distinguished a family, should have a 
higher rank than that of a country esquire. 
But in James the First's reign, peerages and 
baronetcies were shamelessly bought and 
sold. " It was only to ask, to pay, and 
to have ; '' and Hampden best consulted 




Charles I. 



his own dignity and self-respect by remain- 
ing as he was. 

He had won the distinction of attracting 
the notice and enmity of Charles I. When 
required to pay his share towards a forced 
loan to the King he refused ; declaring that 
he would be as willing to contribute as 
another man, but that he feared to infringe 
Magna Charta, which document, he declared, 
ought to be read twice a year in every market 
town in England, that Englishmen might 
be reminded of the rights and privileges it 
behoved them to guard. The exact words 
recorded are, '' He feared to draw upon him- 
self that curse in Magna Charta, which he 
wished were read twice a year against those 

who infringe it." 

This procured 
him the distinction 
of being singled 
out as a warning 
example of the 
King's displea- 
sure. He was 
committed to pri- 
son on the disso- 
lution of the second 
parliament o f 
Charles I. to the 
Gateh ou seat 
Westminster, and 
afterwards to a 
Hampshire gaol, 
but was released, 
and again chosen 
for Wendover, 
when the King's 
necessities made 
him call his third 
parliament. 

Sir John Eliot, 
who was sent by 
the King to die 
in the Tower, 
was a valu ed 
friend of Hamp- 
den, the modesty of whose character ap- 
pears in a very pleasing light, in the corre- 
spondence he kept up with the illustrious 
prisoner, who consulted him on a treatise on 
government he was writing to beguile his 
imprisonment. Hampden was a Puritan in 
belief and in morals ; but there was about 
him nothing of that "sourness" and self-asser- 
tion generally attributed to those of his creed 
by their opponents, and which furnished such 
copious matter to the satirical pens, of which 
the sharpest was wielded by Samuel Butler. 

Clarendon has borne emphatic testimony to 
his refinement and grace of manner. "He was 
of that rare affability and temper in debate," 
says the author of the " History of the Great 
Rebellion," and of that seeming humility and 
submission of judgment, as if he brought no 



264 



HAMPDEN AND SHIP MONEY. 



opinion of his own with him, but a desire of 
information and instruction. Yet he had so 
subtle a way of interrogating, and, under 
cover of doubts, insinuating his objections, 
that he infused his own opinions into those 
from whom he pretended to learn and receive 
them." The letter in which he imparts to his 
imprisoned friend the criticism on the manu- 
script Sir John had submitted to his revision, 
is full of this graceful modesty. 

Despotic Period ; An Arbitrary Go- 
vernment. 

Hampden was not one of the men singled 
out for punishment on the abrupt dissolution 
of King Charles's 
third parliament. 
He retired to his 
paternal estate in 
B uckingham- 
shire, and for 
some years occu- 
pied himself with 
the duties that 
devolved on him 
as a landed pro- 
prietor. Of pub- 
lic duties there 
were none left for 
him to fulfil. Par- 
liamentary go- 
vernment was at 
an end for the 
time in England; 
and had been suc- 
ceeded by the 
unhappy and 
shameful period 
of despotic and 
irresponsible rule. 
The jurisdiction 
of the ordinary 
tribunals was su- 
perseded, and 
their judgments 
overridden by the 
Star Chamber, 
the Courtof High Commission, and the North- 
ern Council. The bigoted and narrow-minded 
Archbishop Laud, whom Lord Macaulay 
designates as a lower kind of St. Dominic or 
Torquemada, raged against the Puritans, on 
whom were plentifully inflicted those pillory- 
ings, ear croppings, scourgings, long imprison- 
ments, numerous fines, and the host of 
iniquities which, under the name of " cruel 
and unusual punishments," were emphatically 
condemned by a later generation in the Bill 
of Rights. The tuning of the pulpits, as 
Laud called the issuing of injunctions to the 
clergy to preach passive obedience and non- 
resistance to their flocks, proceeded most 
energetically ; and a man of consummate 
ability and equal unscrupulousness was found 




John Hampden. 



265 



to initiate a system by which the voice of the 
English people should be silenced, and the 
liberties of the nation definitely and irretrieva- 
bly ruined. 

This man was Sir Thomas Wentworth, 
formerly a prominent member of the parlia- 
mentary opposition, and the trusted friend of 
Pym, HoUis, Hampden, and the rest of the 
patriotic leaders. But he had been detached 
from his party, and won over by the blandish- 
ments and persuasions of the King during the 
interval of the prorogation, and hated his 
former associates with all the rancour of a 
renegade. No two men could have been 
more unlike than Wentworth, who was 
created Earl ot 
S traff ord and 
afterwards Vice- 
roy of Ireland for 
his partisanship 
of the King, and 
Laud, who was 
made Archbishop 
of Canterbury for 
a similar reason. 
Strafford was a 
manof command- 
ing intellect, of 
inflexible resolu- 
tion, and ever- 
ready resource, 
" with Atlantean 
shoulders, fit to 
bear the weight of 
empires " ; and 
of him it might 
further be said, 
as of the great 
fallen angel, " On 
his brow delibe- 
ration sat, and 
princely care, — 
majestic though 
in ruin." Laud, 
zealous and busy, 
fussily anxious 
for power and 
supremacy, had the puniest of intellects, 
and was saturated with a drivelling super- 
stition. But the two men understood each 
other completely. 

The "Thorough," and Ship-Money. 

The scheme by which the two chief ad- 
visers of the King proposed governing Eng- 
land has become extensively known under 
the name of " Thorough " ; a name taken 
from an expression frequently used in their 
correspondence. It well expresses the 
length to which Laud and Strafford were 
prepared to go, and the complete change 
they proposed to introduce into the system 
of government in England. "For the State," 
the Archbishop writes to his colleague, " in- 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



deed, my Lord, I am for Thorough ; but I 
see that both thick and thin stays somebody 
where I conceive it should not ; and it is 
impossible to go Thorough alone." And in 
another letter he says, "As for my marginal 
note, I see you deciphered it well ; and I see 
you make use of it, too ; do so still, thorough 
and thorough. Oh that I were where I might 
go so to ! But I am shackled between delays 
and uncertainties." 

The notable scheme of the two conspirators 
against their country's liberties was indeed 
most thoroughly subversive of the rights of 
the English people. It may be briefly sum- 
med up as follows : Perfect and uncontrolled 
authority for the ruler in all matters pertaining 
to Church and to State, with compulsory uni- 
formity of worship for all the King's subjects ; 
taxation at the King's sole will and pleasure 
for the maintenance of despotic rule ; and a 
standing army wherewith to enforce obedience 
and to quell any sign of ill-humour or tendency 
to resistance on the part of the governed. 

Money was indeed necessary, nay, indis- 
pensable, for carrying out such a scheme. 
The former devices, tonnage and poundage, 
etc., were put into requisition ; and at length 
a new source of supply was suggested by the 
ingenuity of Noy, Charles's Attorney-General, 
and Finch, the Lord Chief Justice. Writs were 
issued in the King's name for levying a tax 
for equipping ships for the King's service ; 
and these writs were addressed not, as in 
former days, to the maritime towns in time 
of war, but scattered through the length and 
breadth of the land in time of peace, — a start- 
ling innovation. 

Whitelock, in his " Memorials," thus de- 
scribes this transaction, in his record for the 
year 1635 : "The Privy Council wrote letters 
to every high sheriff of England, directing 
them for the taxing and levying of the ship 
money ; and yet, with great care and equality, 
much beyond what was observed in following 
taxes. But the^ guilding {sic) of this illegal 
pill would not cause it to be swallowed down; 
but many people, especially the knowing 
gentry, expressed great discontent at this 
new assessment and burthen as an imposition 
against law and the rights of the subject." 

Then it was that Hampden came forth 
from his retirement, and stood up as the 
champion of his country's rights against 
venal judges, unscrupulous ministers, and 
a tyrant king. 

The account of the famous ship-money 
controversy, as given byWhitelock, sufficiently 
shows the pressure put upon the judges, and 
the means by which the court could, in cases 
of importance, procure a judgment in accord- 
ance with its wishes, however contrary to 
the dictates of liberty and justice. The 
events are thus briefly chronicled in the 
" Memorials." 



Mr. John Hampden, a gentleman of an 
ancient family in Buckinghamshire, and of 
a great estate and parts, denied the payment 
of ship-money as an illegal tax. He often 
advised in this great business with Holborn, 
Saint John, Whitelock, and others of his 
friends and counsel. Several other gentle- 
men refused the payment of this tax of ship- 
money; whereupon the King was advised 
by the Lord Chief Justice Finch and others 
to require the opinion of his judges, which 
he did, stating the case in a letter to them. 
After much solicitation by the Chief Justice 
Finch, promising preferment to some, and 
highly threatening others whom he found 
doubting, he got from them, in answer to 
the King's letter and case, their opinions 
in these words : — 

"We are of opinion that when the good 
and safety of the kingdom in general is con- 
cerned, and the whole kingdom in danger, 
Your Majesty may, by writ under the great 
seal of England, command all your subjects 
of this your kingdom, at their charges, to 
provide and furnish such number of ships, 
with men, victual, and ammunition, and for 
such time as Your Majesty shall think fit, for 
the defence and safeguard of the kingdom, 
from such peril and danger. And that by 
law Your Majesty may compel the doing 
thereof in case of refusal or refractoriness. 
And we are also of opinion that in such case 
Your Majesty is the sole judge, both of the 
dangers and when and how the same is to 
be prevented and avoided." 

This opinion, signed by Davenport, Den- 
ham, Hutton, Jones, Croke, Trever, Bram- 
ston, Finch, Vernon, Berkley, Crawley, and 
Weston, was, we are told, "enrolled in all 
the Courts of Westminster, and much 
distasted many gentlemen of the country, 
and of their own profession, as a thing 
extra-judicial, ufmsual, and of very ill con- 
sequence in this great business, or in any 
other." 

How THE Great Ship-money Trial 

WAS CONDUCTED. 
The trial in which Hampden stood up as 
the champion of the rights of Englishmen 
against the encroachments of the king, 
shows abundant proofs, among other points, 
of the servility of the judges in those days, 
and of their subservience to the King. 
It is difficult, at the present day, to conceive 
the amount of cringing meanness displayed 
by several of the men whose high office it 
was to expound the law of England, and who 
should be ready, as described in Dryden's 
magnificent sketch of Shaftesbury, to show 
themselves prompt on every occasion, 

" Unbribed, unbought, the wretched to redress, 
Swift of despatch, and easy of access." 



266 



HAMPDEN AND SHIPMONEY. 



In this case, as Hallam pertinently 
observes, the Ministers had been anxious 
to gain over to their side the interpreters of 
the law, and had insisted that the judges 
should, during their circuits, declare it to be 
the duty of every loyal subject to show his 
zeal for his King's service by immediate 
compliance with the ship-money writs. An 
" opinion " of the judges, given by royal 
command, and unanimously subscribed to 
by all the twelve, declared that, " when the 
good and safety of the kingdom in general is 
concerned, and the whole kingdom in dan- 
ger, His Majesty might, by writ under the 
great seal, command all his subjects, at their 
charge, to provide and furnish such number 
of ships, with men, munition, and victuals, 
and for such time as he should think fit, for 
the defence and safeguard of the kingdom ; 
and thiit by law he might compel the doing 
thereof, in case of refusal or refractoriness ; 
and that he was the sole judge, both of the 
danger, and when and how the same was to 
be prevented and avoided." An opinion of 
this kind, given by the judges of the land, 
and publicly made known to the nation, 
might have been supposed a sufficient 
deterrent to any man from raising the 
question before a tribunal whose views had 
been thus unequivocally expressed ; and 
thus we are the more inclined to admire the 
resolution of the man who, under such cir- 
cumstances, was content to incur expense, 
anxiety, and personal peril, by solemnly 
bringing up the great national question for 
adjudication. 

The law was with overwhelming force on 
the side of Hampden. The whole spirit and 
practice of English legislation for centuries 
had been in the direction of confirming the 
power of Parliament to control the taxation 
of the kingdom ; and no one could fail to see 
that, by extending the writs for ship-money 
to the inland counties, the King was over- 
stepping all the bounds observed even by the 
most imperious of his ancestors, and was 
turning what his own party acknowledged 
to have been only an exceptional and urgent 
expedient into a regular source of supply. 
In the grave, saturnine Oliver St. John, who 
conducted his case, Hampden had a man 
of undoubted talent, whose heart was 
thoroughly in the cause, and who, therefore, 
did not fail to give full force to every point 
in favour of his client's cause, and that of 
English liberty. 

The arguments for and against the levy- 
ing of ship-money, are briefly and clearly 
summed up in Dr. Lingard's History. 
The Attorney- General and Solicitor-General 
alleged in behalf of the Crown, that already 
under the Anglo-Saxon Kings, the tax called 
" Danegelt " had been annually levied, for 
the maintenance of a naval force ; that 



requisitions had been issued over and over 
again by various English kings, pressing 
ships into the service, and calling upon the 
maritime counties to furnish and equip them ; 
that the claim was reasonable, and in fur- 
therance of the public service ; and that 
occasions would arise when prompt action 
was necessary ; and that if the King could 
not, on such occasions, call upon his subjects 
for immediate aid, the country, while waiting 
for the assembling of a Parliament, would 
suffer incalculable injury from delay. Thus 
the general good and the public service were 
ingeniously placed by Mr. Attorney and Mr. 
Solicitor in the forefront of the battle ; and 
these, it was declared, would be promoted 
by acknowledging the royal prerogative in 
its utmost extent. 

In opposition to these arguments it was 
contended by Hampden's counsel, " That no 
argument could be founded on the imperfect 
hints in our ancient writers respecting the 
Danegelt, or the naval armament of the 
Anglo-Saxon Kings ; that out of the multi- 
tude of precedents adduced, not one bore 
any resemblance to the present writs, which 
first ordered the inhabitants of the inland 
counties to fit out ships, and then to pay 
money in lieu of those ships ; that no urgent 
necessity could be pleaded, for the writs had 
been issued six months before the ships were 
wanted, and consequently there was suffi- 
cient time to assemble and consult the 
Parliament ; that these writs (and this, the 
concluding argument, was the strongest) 
were in opposition to the Statutes and 
Petition of Right, which provided that no 
tax should be levied on the subject without 
the consent of Parliament ; nor was it a 
valid objection that the King could still 
levy an aid on the knighthood of his son, 
and the marriage of his eldest daughter, for 
these cases were expressly excepted in 
Magna Charta, and virtually in the preced- 
ing statutes." The illegality of unparlia- 
mentary taxation was indeed so notorious 
that no forensic eloquence could suffice 
to make even an apparently good case for 
it. 

Divine Right and Royal Prerogative. 

Accordingly, Banks, the Attorney- General, 
thought it advisable to rest his case on a 
basis of " divine right of kings," and " royal 
prerogative.'' He laid down an astonishing 
proposition, which, if conceded, would simply 
place the property of every Englishman at 
the uncontrolled disposal of the king. He 
boldly contended that royal authority was 
unlimited, except by the will of the monarch 
himself Kingly authority with him meant 
absolute authority. " This power is innate in 
the person of an absolute king, and in the 
267 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



person of the kings of England. All magis- 
tracy, it is of nature ; and obedience and 
subjection, it is of nature. This power is not 
any ways derived from the people, but 
reserved unto the king when positive laws 
first began. For the King of England, he is 
an absolute monarch ; nothing can be given 
to an absolute prince but what is inherent 
in his person. He can do no wrong. He is 
the sole judge, and we ought not to question 
him. Where the law trusts, we ought not to 
distrust. The Acts of Parliament contain no 
express words to take away so high a prero- 
gative, and the king's prerogative, even in 
lesser matters, is always saved wherever 
express words do not restrain it." 

This argument at least acknowledged 
some kind of power in parliament "by 
express words " to interfere with the king's 
will ; but some of the judges even went 
further, and considered that the king was not 
bound by any law. Berkley, one of them, 
declared that the law was an old and trusty 
servant of the king's, and that he had never 
heard that lex was rex, " but it is most 
common and most true that 7'ex is /ex." 
Vernon, another judge, unhesitatingly gave 
his opinion that the king might dispense 
with any law in cases of necessity ; and 
Finch, with whom much of the responsibility 
of the ship-money measures rested, declared, 
" They are void Acts of Parliament to bind 
the king not to command the subjects, their 
person, and goods, and I say their money, 
too ; for no Acts of Parliament make any diffe- 
rence." Absolute government could go no 
farther than this. 

In spite of all the pressure that could be 
brought to bear on behalf of the Government, — 
and it was very considerable, for at that time 
the judges held their appointments not for 
life or " during good behaviour," but at the 
pleasure of the king, who could at once 
remove from their offices those who offended 
him, — the Court gained only the smallest 
possible majority, seven of the judges giving 
their opinions in favour of the King, and five 
for Hampden. One of the latter, Croke, is 
said to have wavered, and to have been 
admonished of his duty by his wife, who 
exhorted him not to let personal considera- 
tions for her welfare or that of his children 
stand in the way of his honest and impartial 
judgment in this great matter. 

The cause was no less than six months 
before the court ; and this, as has been 
remarked by various writers, was doubtless of 
great service to Hampden, and proportionately 
injurious to his opponents ; for it gave every 
man full time to make himself acquainted 
with the merits and the paramount importance 
of the case. It was well understood that this 
was no temporary impost, intended to meet 
a necessity of the moment, but, as Clarendon 



himself, writing on the King's side, declares, 
" for a spring and magazine that should have 
no bottom, and for an everlasting supply of 
all occasions." 

That Hampden would be beaten was, 
considering the nature of the tribunal before 
which his action was tried, a foregone 
conclusion. That his opponents should have 
only the narrowest possible majority could not 
be reckoned otherwise than as a triumph of 
the popular cause. The irritation occasioned 
in the mind of the nation by these proceedings 
did not pass away ; and among the party of 
whom Hampden was now looked upon as 
the acknowledged chief, the trial with its issue 
was kept, as Whitelock expresses it, " a/ia 
inente repostum" even as the well-remember- 
ing Juno kept in her heart that " Jtidicium 
Paridis,'^ for which she was determined to 
exact so heavy an expiation. 

Hampden's Popularity; A Scheme of 
Emigration ; Its Defeat. 

Concerning the popularity gained by the 
great Buckinghamshire esquire by the ship- 
money trial, we have the emphatic testimony 
of Clarendon, whom Lord Macaulay quotes in 
his Essay on Lord Nugent's " Memorials." 
The eloquent historian of the civil war, in 
general no favourable witness for the opposi- 
tion leaders, says : " Till this time he was 
rather of reputation in his own county than 
of public discourse or fame in the kingdom ; 
but then he grew the argument of all tongues, 
every man inquiring who and what he was 
that durst, at his own charge, support the 
liberty and prosperity of the kingdom." Nor 
can Clarendon withhold a word of praise for 
the admirable temper and moderation dis- 
played by Hampden throughout this trying 
time. He seems, indeed, to have been 
singularly happy in freedom from the angry 
passions that defaced the character even of 
good and earnest men, in those times of 
iniquity and wrong. Clarendon tells us " his 
carriage throughout that agitation was with 
that rare temper and modesty, that they who 
watched him narrowly, to find some advantage 
against his person, to make him less resolute 
in his cause, were compelled to give him a 
just testimony." 

Laud and Strafford were exceedingly 
angry at the popularity of Hampden, and 
the open way in which the people's appre- 
ciation of him was exhibited. Laud's narrow 
mind revolted against the free expression 
of opinion, in speech or in writing. Hence 
his acrimony against those whpm he 
called libellers, and his cruel rancour against 
Prynne, Bastwick, Barton, and others, who 
at this time were suffering mutilation and 
imprisonment. He considers that the men 
whose ears have been cut off by the hang- 
man, and who have been sent to languish in 



268 



HAMPDEN AND SHIPMONEY. 



distant dungeons, have been too leniently 
treated ; that the Government has not been 
nearly sharp and determined enough. 
Writing to Strafford, he says : " A little 
more quickness in the Government would 
cure this itch of libelling. But what can 
you think of Thorough, when there shall 
be such slips in business of consequence? 
What say you to it, that Prynne and his 
fellows should be suffered to talk what 
they pleased while they stood in the pillor}'-, 
and win acclamations from the people?" 
What can we think of Thorough, indeed ? — 
simply, that Thorough was in a bad way, 
when the spirit of the nation began to be 
alive to its nature and its probable con- 
sequences. 

Strafford was equally indignant and 
alarmed ; and in his correspondence with 
Laud on the occasion, his malignant 
hatred against the Puritans breaks forth : 
" Mr. Hampden is a great brother," he 
writes (the name brother was generally 
given to the Puritans), " and the very genius 
of that people leads them always to oppose, 
as well civilly as ecclesiastically, all that 
ever authority ordained for them ; but in 
good faith, were they right served, they 
should be whipt home into their right wits ; 
and much beholden should they be to any 
one that would thoroughly take pains with 
them in that kind." Again he wishes 
that " Mr. H., and others to his likeness, 
were well whipt into their right senses ; and,'' 
he adds, " if the rod be so used that it smart 
not, I am the more sorry." 

The legal triumph of the Court party, such 
as it was, inflamed the Government of 
Charles to greater acts of tyranny. "Those 
whom the gods wish to ruin they first 
deprive of reason," said the philosopher 
of old ; and certainly the recklessness of 
misrule in 1637 seems compatible only 
with moral insanity on the part of those 
who governed the country. The Star 
Chamber was more arbitrary than ever, 
ably seconded by that of High Commission 
and the Northern Court ; and the persecu- 
tion against the Puritans was more and 
more unrelenting. Under these circum- 
stances Hampden, whose liberty was no 
longer safe in England, resolved to emigrate 
to America, where many of the brethren had 
found a freedom denied them in their own 
land ; and he was to be accompanied by his 
kinsman Oliver Cromwell. But the ships 
which were to convey the cousins, with a 
number of other Puritans, to America, were 
prevented from sailing ; and Hampden was 
compelled to remain in England. He re- 
mained, to do greater service to his country 
than even in the matter of the ship-money. 

The order that stopped the departure of 
Hampden was procured by Laud, who com- 



plained of men " running to New England.'' 
He little knew what he was preparing for 
himself by keeping in Old England such men 
as Hampden and Cromwell. 

How " Thorough " came to an End 
IN England. 

After the enforced abandonment of his 
emigration scheme, Hampden withdrew 
again, for a time, into the background ; 
for never was there a man less likely to 
put himself forward, except where duty 
demanded it. But the years 1638 and 1639 
were full of events fraught with tremendous 
consequences to the Government of Charles 
and his Ministers, and to the future destiny 
of England. The disaffection of the Puritans 
in England was increased by the publi- 
cation of the " Book of Sports ; " which, 
by officially permitting, or rather enjoining, 
amusements on Sundays, deeply offended 
the feelings and opinions of that influential 
sect. Then came the ill-advised attempt 
to enforce the use of the Liturgy in Scotland ; 
and Clarendon tells how, " on the Sunday 
morning appointed for the work," when the 
Dean began to read the service in the 
church of St. Giles, Edinburgh, "a shower 
of stones and sticks and cudgels" came 
flying at that functionary's head ; and how 
the rioters, on being turned out of the 
church, the doors of which were shut, 
"continued their barbarous noise" in the 
churchyard, breaking the windows, and 
endeavouring to force the doors, " so that 
it was not possible for any to follow their 
devotions." The signing of the Covenant, 
the rebellion in Scotland, and the esta- 
blishment there of a Provisional Govern- 
ment, were the next steps ; and the army 
of Charles proved utterly unable to quell the 
formidable rising. 

A hasty and ill-arranged pacification, as 
ill kept as it had been ill made, was followed 
by a second campaign, in which the failure 
of the royal troops was most ignominious ; 
and Laud, and even the resolute Strafford, 
stood aghast at the ruin that threatened 
their master. The financial condition of 
the Government, too, was deplorable. The 
revenues of the year had been anticipated, 
and spent, and there was no method 
available for rising a new and a prompt 
supply. It was impossible to carry out 
" Thorough" to its logical conclusion without 
a strong standing army to put down rebel- 
lion ; and this task the standing army had 
failed to accomplish. Thus the "Thorough" 
system, or rather the attempt to establish it, 
had proved a failure ; and the King was 
obliged to have recourse to the expedient 
he would gladly have avoided — the calling 
of a parliament ; and, accordingly, after an 
interval of more than ten years, the writs for 



269 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the assembling of the Lords and Commons 
were issued, at the beginning of 1640. 

The "Short Parliament" and its 
Fate. 

From the day when parhamentay govern- 
ment was once more re-established in Eng- 
land, until the sad hour that saw the country 
deprived of his services when she needed 
them most, the life of Hampden forms part 
of the history of England. He was chosen 
to represent his native county, Buckingham- 
shire, and at once came to London to enter 
upon his duties. He was now in close inti- 
macy and companionship with Pym, who 
divided with him the care and labour of 
leading the popular party in the House of 
Commons. 

The Parliament met in April 1640 ; and 
the first question to be brought under its con- 
sideration was that of ship-money. The 
King, whose necessities were pressing, offered 
to give up the prerogative of levying this tax, 
in consideration of twelve subsidies ; and here 
at once arose an occasion of diflerence. For 
the King had already surrendered the right 
(if he ever possessed it) on a former occasion, 
receiving five subsidies as the price of the 
concession ; and had afterwards resumed the 
alleged right so soon as it suited him to take 
back his words. The Commons were willing 
to grant supplies, but not exactly in the form 
demanded by His Majesty. As Macaulay 
observes, they could hardly be expected to 
purchase over again what they had already 
bought and paid for. 

They were not allowed time for deliberating, 
nor for discussing the question. So soon as 
he found there was to be a debate, Charles 
angrily dissolved the parliament, to the sorrow 
and indignation of the country, and to the 
surprise and bewilderment of the King's own 
friends, who, like Clarendon, could not 
imagine in what way the Commons had 
offended him. Clarendon himself describes 
the House as very loyal and anxious to serve 
His Majesty. " It could never be hoped," 
he says, " that more sober and dispassionate 
men would ever meet together in that place, 
or fewer who brought ill purposes with them." 
But the fact of their questioning the legality 
of ship-money, his favourite impost, seems to 
have been enough to set the King against 
the Commons. 

And so this emphatically short parliament 
separated after a session of only a few days. 

The Long Parliament and its Doings ; 
A Great Opportunity. 

Again the system of despotism was tried 
in England. Ship-money was exacted more 
rigorously than ever, and the assessments 
were to a larger amount. Forced loans and 
other similar expedients were also brought 



into action ; and it seemed as though the 
government were ready to brave any amount 
of unpopularity in the frantic endeavour to 
obtain "the sinews of war" for combating 
the Scots. All was in vain. The army 
raised by the King would not face the enemy. 
The flight of the troops has been attributed 
to disaffection rather than to cowardice. Be 
that as it may, they ran away ; and the Scot- 
tish army advanced into England. There 
was no resource but to call a parliament; 
and accordingly that celebrated assembly, 
known as the Long Parliament, met in the 
beginning of November 1640, under circum- 
stances that gave to it a power no previous 
House of Commons had possessed. 

And the members v/ere conscious of their 
power, and determined to use it without stint. 
Clarendon tells us how " the same men who, 
six months before, were observed to be of 
very moderate tempers, and to wish that 
gentle remedies might be applied, talked 
now in another dialect, both of kings and 
other persons ; and said that they must now 
be of another temper than they were the last 
parliament." Hampden again sat for Buck- 
inghamshire. He had been elected both for 
the county and for his old borough of Wen- 
dover. 

And now, more than ever, were all eyes 
turned on John Hampden, the patriot. 
Clarendon describes him as being generally 
considered, at this period, as pater patrics, 
the pilot who was to guide the ship of the 
state through the perils and quicksands that 
surrounded it, and to whose unswerving in- 
tegrity, unerring sagacity, and tried rectitude 
of conduct, followers and opponents alike 
paid ungrudging testimony. His rare talent 
for parliamentary debate, his power of sway- 
ing to his will a large and turbulent assem- 
blage, the convincing strength of his logic, 
are seen everywhere during that eventful 
session, in which the parliament, alike deter- 
mined and indignant, pulled down so much 
that had long formed part of the government 
of the country, the Star Chamber, the High 
Commission, the Northern Court ; besides 
executing vengeance on Strafford and Laud, 
and calling to account the timid and venal 
judges who, by their judgments in the great 
ship-money case, had virtually surrendered 
the property of eveiy man in England into 
the hands of the sovereign. Everywhere the 
presence of the great statesman is felt, every- 
where his voice is heard, advising, admon- 
ishing, pleading for justice, and advocating 
moderation in the hour of triumph. Claren- 
don's opinion of his talents and character is 
pronounced in no doubtful terms. " Of an 
industry and vigilance not to be tired out or 
wearied by the most laborious, and of parts 
not to be imposed upon by the most subtle and 
sharp." " His reputation of honesty was uni- 



270 



HAMPDEN AND SHIPMONEY. 




Hampden mortally wounded at Chalgrove Field. 



271 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



versal, and his affections seemed so publicly- 
guided that no corrupt or private ends could 
bind them." Such, with a high appreciation 
of his statesmanship, is Clarendon's opinion 
of the character of Hampden. 

It was a great opportunity that which now- 
presented itself to the Long Parliament ; and 
to Hampden is greatly due the credit of the 
fact that on the whole the opportunity was 
well used for the honour and advantage of 
the country. 

How THE Country drifted into the 
Civil War ; Conclusion. 

During the first session of the Long Par- 
liament, there was general unanimity among 
the members in the Commons as to the 
necessity of sweeping away abuses, and taking 
vengeance on evil doers. But when the 
Houses met again, after the recess, there was 
.considerable difference of opinion ; a reaction 
had set in in favour of the King, with whom 
many sympathized in his humiliation and 
helplessness ; and stormy debates took place 
in the House, in which the wisdom and 
moderation of the great popular leader were 
more than ever called into request. This 
was especially the case in the debate whether 
the Grand Remonstrance — a document in 
which all the misrule of his reign was set 
forth— should be presented to the King or 
not. One of the members emphatically de- 
clares that but for the restraining influence 
of Hampden they would have been sheath- 
ing their swords in each other's bosoms. 

At one time it was in contemplation to 
form a Ministry from among the chief mem- 
bers of the House, and the office of tutor to 
the Prince of Wales was to have been en- 
trusted to Hampden ; but on the death of 
the Earl of Bedford, the negotiation fell 
through. 

The last chance of the re-establishment of 
confidence between the King and his Parlia- 
ment was lost when, on the 5th of January, 
1642, Charles came down to the House of 
Parliament with an armed force, to arrest 
the great patriot and four of his colleagues 
in the Commons, on a charge of high treason. 
This flagrant violation of law and justice 
filled up the measure of the unhappy monarch's 
errors. It astounded and bewildered his 
friends, and lost him many waverers who 



were ready to turn to him, but now felt con- 
vinced that no, compact worthy of the name 
could be made with the ruler who could take 
such a step. And so Charles quitted London ; 
and in a few months the royal standard was 
raised at Nottingham, and the Civil War 
began. Of that great struggle Hampden 
only saw the commencement. ]^o greater 
calamity could have befallen the Parlia- 
mentary party than the loss of the one man 
in whose patriotism there was not the smallest 
leaven of self-seeking ; whose thoughts and 
hopes and aspirations from the commence- 
ment were for his country. From the be- 
ginning of the war, Hampden seemed to 
have recognised it as one in which it was 
necessary not only to draw the sword, but to 
throw away the scabbard. He deprecated 
the negligence which left the marauding 
cavalry of the Royalists to range through the 
country at will ; and it was in an attempt to 
remedy errors of this kind, committed by the 
languid Essex, that a life, invaluable to his 
country and her cause, was sacrificed. In a 
skirmish on Chalgrove field, against the 
cavalry of Rupert, he was severely and, as it 
proved, mortally wounded ; and rode slowly 
out of the field to die. His last words and 
his last thoughts were for the country he had 
loved so well, and served so faithfully. " He 
was buried," says Lord Macaulay, "in the 
parish church of Hampden. His soldiers, 
bare-headed, with reversed arms and muffled 
drums and colours, escorted his body to the 
grave, singing, as they marched, that lofty 
and melancholy psalm, in which the fragility 
of human life is contrasted with the immuta- 
bility of Him to whom a thousand years are 
as yesterday when it is passed, and as a watch 
in the night." And long afterwards, when he 
was Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell 
spoke to those around him of the days when 
the great struggle began. " I had a very 
worthy friend then," said the Protector, — we 
may imagine with a touch of pathos in his 
voice, — " and he was a very noble person, 
and I know his memory is very grateful to 
all, — Mr. John Hampden." And so, after a 
lapse of two centuries and a half, the name 
of John Hampden is still grateful, and re- 
presents all that is good and noble, in the 
affectionate remembrance of the nation, 
in whose name he dared to stand up alone 
and undaunted for liberty. 

H. W. D. 



272 




Calcutta. 



FROM THE BLACK HOLE TO 
PLASSEY. 

THE STORY OF ENGLAND'S SUPREMACY IN BENGAL. 



A Memorial of a Great Event — India under Aurungzebe and his Successors — The East India Companies and their Rivalries 
— The Dutch in India ; their Arrogance — England and France in the Carnatic — Dupleix and his Schemes of Dominion 
— Robert Clive — The Defence of Arcot — Supremacy of the British in Hindostan — Suraj-ud-Dowlah and the English 
in Calcutta — Capture of Calcutta — The Massacre of the Black Hole — Mr. Holwell's Account of the Transaction — The 
Expedition from Madras ; Victory and Revenge — The Conspiracy to dethrone the Suba ; Omichund and his 
Treachery — " Diamond cut Diamond" : Clive's Device — Opinions of Mill and Macaulay on his Conduct — The War 
against the Nabob; Clive in Command — Question of risking a General Engagement — The Battle of Plassey and its 
Consequences — Meer Jafifier Ruler of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar — Pecuniary Transactions of Clive with Meer Jaffier — 
Further Victories — Rewards and Honours ; Return of Clive to England — The Company's Rule in India ; Grievances 
and Calamities — ' ' Ringing the Changes on Soubahs "— Meer Cossim and his Successors — Further Proceedings of the 
Company — Clive's Third Visit to India — How he applied the Remedy — The Result — Conclusion. 



A Memorial of a Great Event. 
MONO the monuments that attract 
the attention of the stranger in 
Calcutta, there is one especially to 
which a dark and mournful, and at 
the same time a proud interest is attached ; 
for while, on the one hand, it bears record of 
a great and terrible calamity and outrage, it 




marks, on the other, the vengeance exacted 
for wrongs perpetrated against British sub- 
jects, long before the days of Lord Palmer- 
ston and his famous doctrine of " Civis 
Romanus sum." The monument in ques- 
tion, which makes no claim to architectural 
or decorative beauty, marks the site of the 
prison chamber where, in 1756, was com- 
273 T 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



mitted " that great crime memorable for its 
singular atrocity, memorable for the tre- 
mendous retribution by which it was 
followed," — generally known as the Mas- 
sacre of the Black Hole. Here it was, 
the spectator reads, that in one burning 
night of a Bengal summer a hundred and 
twenty-three out of a hundred and forty-six 
English people were done to death by the 
cruelty of their guards ; and from the atrocity 
then accomplished arose the train of events 
which ended in making the Enghsh masters 
ofHindostan. 

For with the massacre of the Black Hole 
of Calcutta is intimately associated the 
great victory of Plassey, with all its momen- 
tous consequences. Seldom in history has a 
great and important series of events, involv- 
ing consequences of no less magnitude than 
the transfer of a vast empire, been accom- 
plished within so short a space of time as in 
that memorable epoch in the annals of India. 
In 1756 was the massacre of the Black 
Hole, In the next year the English were 
virtually masters of Bengal, Orissa, and 
Bahar, and had the undoubted supremacy 
over the various European powers located in 
India. 

India under Aurungzebe and his 
Successors. 

Early in the sixteenth century a great 
conqueror, a descendant of Timur Beg or 
Timur the Lame, came marching through 
the mountain passes which separate the 
Afghan territories from Hindostan ; and suc- 
ceeded, after a series of sanguinary combats, 
in establishing himself, by the decisive battle 
of Panipat, near Delhi, in 1526, as the ruler 
of India. This conqueror was Baber, the 
first of the Great Moguls ; and at Delhi 
he established his throne, from which his 
descendants continued for centuries to sway 
the destinies of the mighty realm that ex- 
tended from the Himalaya to Cape Comorin. 
The empire of the Moguls was remarkable 
for its splendour and magnificence. Roe, 
Bernier, and various travellers tell of the 
glories of Delhi ; of Agra, the second city 
in the empire, and of the various rich and 
fertile provinces whose wealth was poured 
into the treasury of the great Moguls. 
About a hundred and thirty years after the 
commencement of the Mogul rule, Aurang 
Zib, the " ornament of the throne," generally 
known as Aurungzebe, began his long reign 
of half a century. He was the craftiest and 
most astute ruler of his race ; and when he 
at length died, at the age of eighty-nine, the 
empire he governed appeared outwardly 
vigorous, and retained the semblance of 
prosperity ; he had considerably widened 
the borders of the country that obeyed his 
mandates. In reality, however, the seeds of 



decay were already in the empire, though 
hidden by Aurungzebe's energy and ability. 
He was no sooner dead than the disorgani- 
zation of the state began to show itself in 
the most lamentable form ; and throughout 
the first half of the eighteenth century the 
once proud supremacy of the Moguls existed 
only in name. 

As in various countries, in mediaeval and 
earlier times, the weakness of the chief 
government led to the establishment of 
separate authorities, only nominally sub- 
servient to the central power. The rulers of 
the various parts of India, still calling them- 
selves vassals to the Great Mogul, became 
virtually independent ; the various Nizams, 
Nabobs, Rajahs, and others, doing what 
seemed right in their own eyes, without 
reference to the sluggish ruler at Delhi. The 
land was full of violence and bloodshed, 
various foreign invaders, Persians, Afghans, 
and numerous fierce tribes, contending with 
the natives for the mastery ; and in certain 
districts irregular governments were set up 
by freebooting chiefs, who held their ill- 
gotten power in spite of all efforts to over- 
throw them. Among these, the most noted 
for courage and ferocity were the Mahrattas, 
who not only levied contributions, or as 
Lord Macaulay designates it, "black-mail," 
upon the sovereign himself at Delhi, but 
extended their depredations to Calcutta 
itself, so that it became necessary to erect 
fortifications, and to dig the celebrated 
Mahratta ditch, in the hope of ensuring 
safety against them. 

The East India Companies, and their 
Rivalries. 

Since the period when the discovery of the 
maritime route to India opened a new way 
for commerce between the western nations 
and the opulent East, various nations had 
endeavoured to engross to themselves, as far 
as possible, the great advantages accruing 
from the trade with India. At the end of 
Elizabeth's reign the East India Company 
had been formed; and during the seventeenth 
century it had continued to grow in import- 
ance and wealth. In the reign of William III., 
great dissentions had occurred, in conse- 
quence of the formation of a new company, 
which was alleged to have infringed the 
rights of the older institution ; but the two 
rivals very sensibly effected an amalgama- 
tion, and after 1708 appeared as one, under 
the name of the United East India Company. 
This corporation possessed a very valuable 
monopoly of the trade to India; and one of 
the chief duties of its agents and servants 
consisted in keeping a vigilant eye upon all 
private traders who attempted to infringe 
the right granted to the Company by its 



274 



FROM THE BLACK HOLE TO PLASSEY. 



charter, which was three times renewed 
during the course of the eighteenth cen- 
tury. 

The second East India Company, and one 
that prospered greatly during the latter part 
of the seventeenth century, when it more than 
competed with the English corporation, was 
that of Holland. 

That the Dutch were at one time very 
formidable rivals to the English East India 
Company, and took every opportunity to 
increase their power, is abundantly mani- 
fest. In Pepys's Diary, under date of the 
15th of February, 1663-64, we find the 
following entry : "This afternoon Sir Thomas 
Chamberlin come to the office to me, and 
shewed me several letters from the East 
Indys, shewing the height that the Dutch 
are come to there, shewing scorn to aU the 
English, even in our only factory there of 
Surat, beating several men, and hanging 
the English standard St. George under the 
Dutch flag in scorn \ saying that whatever 
their masters do or say at home, they will 
do what they list, and be masters of all the 
world there ; and have so proclaimed them- 
selves Sovereigns of all the South Seas ; 
which certainly our King cannot endure if 
the Parliament will give him money." 

Things had been very different under 
grim old Oliver, who would have demanded 
most signal reparation for such an insult to 
the British flag. The " Standard Saint 
George," and the interests of the country it 
represented, were not likely to suffer in his 
hands. Under the same month, Mr. Pepys 
relates how he and his acquaintance Mr. 
Cutler, being on the Exchange, in London : 
"by-and-by joyned with us Sir John Bankes, 
who told us several passages of the East 
India Company ; and how, in every case, 
where there was due to him and alderman 
Mico ^64,000 for injury done to them in the 
East Indys, Oliver, presently after the peace, 
they delaying to pay them the money, sent 
them word, that if they did not pay them by 
such a day, he would grant letters of mark 
to those merchants against them ; by which 
they were so fearful of him, they did pre- 
sently pay the money every farthing." This 
was completely in the Protector's style of 
dealing with those who inflicted injury on 
the country he governed and made respected 
throughout the world. 

England and France in the Carnatic. 

But the power of Holland was greatly 
diminished, and her influence became com- 
paratively insignificant, in the eighteenth 
century ; while in India the power of France 
rose rapidly, and for a time threatened to 
exceed, if not to extinguish, all other foreign 
influences in that country. The astute and 



energetic Dupleix, governor of Pondicherry, 
the chief French settlement in that rich pro- 
vince of the Deccan known as the Carnatic, 
took advantage of the rivalry of two com- 
petitors for the throne of the Deccan, and for 
the governorship of the Carnatic, to make the 
influence of France predominant in India. 
The opportunity for interference occurred on 
the death of the Nizam al Mulk, ruler of the 
Deccan, in 1748. The scheme of Dupleix 
was " to make a nabob of the Carnatic, to 
make a viceroy of the Deccan, to rule under 
their names the whole of southern India." 
The English, as was their wont, took the 
opposite side, and supported the claims of 
the candidates against whom the French 
were fighting; but Dupleix succeeded in 
seating his protege, Mirzapha Jung, on the 
throne of the Deccan, and was rewarded by 
the grateful puppet king with such exu- 
berance of honour, that for a time he became 
the greatest man in southern India — a kind 
of Mayor of the Palace to this Eastern slug- 
gard king — and his scheme seemed to have 
completely succeeded. 

But there had been shipped to India, a 
io-w years previously, as a writer in the 
Company's service, "to make a fortune, or 
to die of a fever at Madras," a very hot- 
headed, obstinate, and apparently imprac- 
ticable youth, named Robert Clive. Beyond 
personal courage and audacity of the most 
reckless kind, he had given no token of any 
unusual quahfications, until circumstances 
gave him the opportunity of appearing in a 
military character, when he at once astonished 
the whole community by the judgment and 
skill he displayed. " Born a soldier," was 
the verdict pronounced on him by Major 
Lawrence, who was considered the most 
efficient officer in India. It was Robert 
CUve who, by the wonderful defence of 
Arcot, the capital, of the Carnatic, against 
the great army of Rajah Sahib, the opponent 
of the English, turned the tide which had 
till then flowed persistently in favour of the 
French. He had shown, on this occasion, 
the best qualities of a leader — ^judgment, 
perseverance, vigilance, and that rare faculty 
of inspiring his followers with attachment 
and confidence, which is one of the truest 
signs of the military genius. No materials 
were so hopeless, but Robert Clive would 
convert them into a fighting force ; no pro- 
ject so desperate, but he would undertake it, 
and carry it to a successful issue. 

Dupleix made great and persistent efforts 
to regain the ground he and his nation were 
rapidly losing ; but under Clive " his genius 
was rebuked, as it is said Mark Antony's was 
by Caesar." He had caused a city to be built, 
and named it Dupleix Fatihabad, " the city 
of the victory of Dupleix" ; but Clive caused 
it to be destroyed. He urgently represented 



27s 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



to the Government at home the necessity of 
supporting him in the great struggle he was 
waging ; but his appeals were disregarded ; 
and worst of all, he was himself no soldier, 
and was opposed to a military genius whom 
Frederick of Prussia would not have been 
ashamed to own as a brother. He retired at 
length to France, having spent time, energy, 
and fortune in vain ; and the supremacy of 
the French in India was at an end. Clive, 
on the other hand, after consolidating the 
advantages he had gained, went back to 
England with flying colours, to be received 
with welcome and honour by the East India 
Company's directors in Leadenhall Street, 
and by the public ; especially by the holders 
of East India 
stock, who nick- 
named him "Gene- 
ral Clive," and pro- 
phesied that he 
would do still 
greater things in 
the future. 

Until this time 
the English had 
been looked upon 
in the Carnatic 
as no more than a 
trading company, 
possessing certain 
factories, with forts 
for the protection 
of their warehouses 
and settlements — 
such as Fort St. 
George at Madras, 
Fort William at 
Calcutta, Fort St. 
David, subordi- 
nate to Fort St. 
George,and others. 
But now they had 
assumed another 
character. Having 
been compelled by 
the force of events 
to make good 
their position against the French and against 
native opponents, they were obliged to 
retain the military position they had taken 
up; and thus began the dominion of the Eng- 
lish in Hindostan. When Clive, after a stay 
of less than two years in England, during 
which time he endeavoured unsuccessfully 
to get into Parliament, but succeeded in 
spending the fortune he had brought home, 
applied again to the Company for employ- 
ment, he was sent out in the honourable 
position of Governor of Fort St. David ; 
and a colonel's commission was bestowed 
upon him by the Government at home. 
He had thoroughly established his reputa- 
tion. 




Lord Clive. 



suraj-ud-dowlah, and the english in 
Calcutta. 

Thus Clive, after he had, in conjunction 
with a brave English naval officer, Admiral 
Watson, utterly defeated a renowned pirate 
chief, Angria, and destroyed Gheriah, his 
stronghold, proceeded to take possession of 
his government of Fort St. David. Very 
important events were happening in north- 
eastern India. The richest part of that great 
country comprised those regions through 
which flowed the fertilising stream of the 
Ganges, the holy river that turned the wilder- 
ness into a garden, and called forth the most 
exuberant growth of vegetation beneath the 
burning Indian 
sun. Lord Ma- 
caulay quotes the 
Spanish proverb, 
that in Andalusia 
the earth is water, 
and the men wo- 
men, and applies 
the saying to the 
valley of the lower 
Ganges, where the 
heavy, humid at- 
mosphere, the 
" constant vapour- 
bath," in which 
the Bengalee lives, 
engenders languid 
and sedentary ha- 
bits, very different 
from those of the 
inhabitants of the 
hilly countries, 
such as Rohilcund, 
for instance. The 
Bengalee is keen- 
witted, intriguing, 
and pertinacious, 
but is described 
as ordinarily of 
sedentary habits, 
and rather crafty 
than physically 
brave, excepting with that passive courage 
that displays itself in stoical endurance of the 
inevitable. 

Like the other great divisions of India, 
Bengal, with the provinces of Orissa and 
Bahar, was governed by a ruler, nominally a 
vassal of the Mogul Emperor at Delhi, but 
in reality independent. He was generally 
spoken of by the Company's servants by his 
title of the Suba. 

In 1756, after the death of the Suba Ali- 
verdy Khan, Suraj-ud-Dowlah, the grandson 
of that powerful ruler, succeeded to his 
dominions. He was only nineteen years of 
age, ignorant, faithless, and debauched ; of 
violent temper, and weak understanding ; one 



276 



FROM THE BLACK HOLE TO PLASSEY. 



of those wretched Cahgulas or Charles the 
Ninths to whom the irony of fate seems 
occasionally to entrust power, as if to show 
how completely it may be abused. The fame 
of the English and of their progress in 
Madras can hardly have failed to reach 
Moorshedabad, the ancient capital of Bengal, 
where the Suba held his state ; for within a 
very few years the Company, from being 
merely traders, paying rent for the very 
ground on which they had built forts to 
protect their depots of goods, had developed 
into soldiers and diplomatists, and had shown 
themselves strong enough to take up a 
commanding position. Nor is it to be sup- 
posed that the French, who had seen their 
supremacy overthrown in the Carnatic, would 
fail to use what influence they possessed in 
Bengal in stimulating the distrust and jea- 
lousy of the Suba, whose envy and rapacity 
had been aroused by the report of the wealth 
in the warehouses of the East India Company 
at Calcutta. The desire of plunder seems to 
have been the crowning motive that induced 
him suddenly to commence a war against the 
foreign merchant community. 

Capture of Calcutta ; the Massacre 
OF THE Black Hole. 

When it became known in the English 
settlement that the Suba was marching with 
a great army against Calcutta, the consterna- 
tion was great. Fort William was not in a 
state to sustain a long siege by a considerable 
force ; the number of the English was small, 
and there was no Clive or Lawrence among 
them to direct their movements. Deserted 
by the governor and by the military com- 
mandant, who provided with indecent haste 
for their own safety, the defenders of Calcutta 
were soon obliged to yield to the great force 
brought against them, and surrender them- 
selves prisoners of war. As the Suba pro- 
mised them their lives, they were in no appre- 
hension of anything worse than imprisonment 
for a limited period, until the terms for their 
liberation should be arranged. 

Then it was that the cruel piece of villainy 
was perpetrated that ultimately cost Suraj- 
ud-Dowlah his throne and his life. Lord 
Macaulay, in his eloquent and vivid account 
of the transaction, describes the prison of the 
garrison, in which the captives were confined, 
as " known by \\\& fearful name of the Black 
Hole;" though to the mind of a soldier the 
name merely implies the '' lock-up," or prison 
room, to which Private Thomas Atkins is 
marched if the picket should find him brawl- 
ing in the streets, or absent from barracks 
without leave. That the atrocity was deli- 
berately planned for the murder of the pri- 
soners cannot be doubted. They were driven, 
a hundred and forty-six in number, into a 



prison room, twenty feet square, on one of the 
hottest nights of a Bengal summer, and the 
door was locked and barred behind them. 
They quickly began to suffocate for want of 
air, and the scene became horrible in the 
extreme. " They cried for mercy," writes 
Lord Macaulay, recounting the sufferings of 
the unhappy captives. " They strove to burst 
the door, and Holwell" (the highest in rank of 
the Company's servants among the prisoners), 
" who, even in that extremity, retained some 
presence of mind, offered large bribes to the 
gaolers. But the answer was that nothing 
could be done without the Nabob's orders ; 
that the Nabob was asleep, and that he would 
be angry if any one woke him. Then the 
prisoners went mad with despair. They 
trampled each other down, fought for the 
places at the windows, fought for the pittance 
of water with which the cruel mercy of the 
gaolers mocked their agonies, raved, prayed , 
blasphemed, implored the guards to firj 
among them. The gaolers meanwhile held 
lights to the bars, and shouted with laughter 
at the frantic struggles of their victims. At 
length the tumult died away in low gasp- 
ings and meanings." When the door was 
opened in the morning, only twenty-three 
survivors of that fearful night came forth 
from the cell which a hundred and forty- 
six had entered only a few hours before. 
The rest had been stifled, or crushed to 
death in the frantic struggle to get at the 
windows, or airholes, where alone was a 
chance for life. 

The responsibility for the massacre is cast 
by Lord Macaulay, indirectly at least, upon 
Suraj-ud-Dowlah — who, he says, showed no 
mercy to the survivors, and inflicted no punish- 
ment upon the perpetrators. But it is a 
question whether the Nabob knew anything 
of the atrocious affair until the crime had 
been completed ; nor would it probably have 
been safe to punish his savage soldiers for 
cruelties perpetrated upon the enemy in time 
of war. Even in our own times, during the 
Indian mutiny of 1857-8, we read, in the 
diary of Dr. Russell, of tortures, such as 
roasting over a slow fire, inflicted by some 
native troops in our service upon rebel Sepoys 
they captured, without notice being taken of 
it ; and the Nabob was in a great measure 
dependent upon his army for the maintenance 
of his authority. 

Mr. Holwell himself has left a plain, 
straightforward record of his sufferings on 
that night of horror, during which he managed 
to secure a position at a grated window, which 
enabled him to breathe. He attributes the 
massacre to a feeling of revenge among the 
janissaries of the Suba,who were angry because 
some of their number had been killed in the 
defence of the fort. He describes how at his 
entreaty an old janissary went twice to try 



^n 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and procure the removal of half the prisoners 
to another prison ; and on the second occa- 
sion "he told us," says Mr. Holweil, with 
what appeared to be real compassion in his 
looks, "that it was impossible; theSubawas 
asleep, and nobody dared to wake him." The 
water, also, seems to have been given in 
something like a tardy access of pity, rather 
than from a desire to mock the agonies of 
the captives. 

The Expedition from Madras ; Victory 
AND Revenge. 

In due course, the news of the capture of 
Calcutta, and of the massacre of the Black 
Hole, reached Madras, and was received with 
mingled horror and indignation. It was 
readily understood that vengeance must be 
exacted at all risks ; for the influence of 
the English in India was gone for ever if 
such acts remained unpunished. An expe- 
dition was at once despatched to the Hoog- 
ley ; Clive being placed in command of the 
troops, among whom were nine hundred 
Englishmen, while Admiral Watson con- 
ducted the naval operations. 

In a very short time Calcutta was retaken, 
and Budgebudge and Hoogley had also fallen 
into the power of the victors. Suraj-ud-Dowlah, 
who until then had no idea of the power of 
the English, was astounded and bewildered 
at the rapid success of his enemies. He 
hastened to offer terms of peace, promising 
compensation to those who had suffered by 
his seizure of Calcutta, and generally showing 
a pacific disposition — which however, did 
not last long. 

The fact seems to have been that the Suba's 
hatred of the English was undiminished ; or 
rather, it was increased by the necessity of 
conciliating them, and by the startling and 
unpleasant evidences he received of their 
power. Naturally under such circumstances 
the idea occurred to him to set up the influence 
of the French to counteract that of the Eng- 
lish ; not altogether an unstatesmanlike idea, 
if he had had the judgment and persistence 
to carry it out. But he could never pursue a 
line of policy; for every new danger appalled 
him, and he lost the confidence of his own 
subjects, while his opponents became con- 
vinced that no treaty would bind him, and 
that while he sat on the throne of Bengal 
there was no prospect of permanent peace. 
Accordingly, when Suraj-ud-Dovvlah opened 
negociations with the French at Chanderna- 
gore, and with Bussy — the most efficient 
French official in India — an expedition was 
at once organized against Chandernagore by 
Clive and Watson, and its brilliant success 
put an end to the Nabob's hopes in that direc- 
tion. He is described by Lord Macaulay as 
behaving on this occasion "with all the faith- 
lessness of an Indian statesman, and all the 



levity of a boy whose mind had been en- 
feebled by power and self-indulgence." But 
he was destined to meet with cunning and 
duplicity far beyond his own. 

The Conspiracy to dethrone the Suba; 
Omichund and his Treachery. 

It was now that theEnghsh began to work 
out in Bengal a system, the example forwhich 
had been set in the Deccan, some years 
before, by Dupleix, in his dealings with 
Mirzapha Jung and that potentate's succes- 
sor, — the system, namely, of consolidating 
their rule and authority by governing through 
some puppet prince whom they should set 
up. Now began the practice of placing on the 
throne nabobs who should be compelled to 
defer in all things to the power to which they 
owed their elevation— a policy which in one 
notable instance led to a greater atrocity even 
than that of the Black Hole — the massacre of 
Patna. Writing some years later on this 
system, in his " Seasonable Hint and Per- 
swasive to the Court of Directors of the East 
India Company," Mr. Holweil strongly de- 
precates this system, and advocates its being 
superseded by a direct authority to be ob- 
tained by the English from the Great Mogul 
himself. " Let us have done with this ringing J 
changes upon Soubahs," he says: "there's -S 
no end to it ; let us boldly dare to be Soubah 
ourselves. Our own terms have been more 
than once off"ered to us by the Emperor : why 
should we longer hesitate to accept them 1 
We have not scrupled to seize and possess 
part of his territory with violence ; surely it 
would be more conscientious, and more con- 
sistent with the laws of nature and nations, 
to hold the whole of these provinces under 
him by his own appointment ; " and Mr. 
Holweil has also a just appreciation of the 
real position of the phantom who still bore 
the title of a great potentate, and was called 
the Great Mogul, while the attributes which 
once accompanied that title had long passed 
away. " That this would readily be assented 
to on his part." he adds, " if a proper overture 
came from us, is not to be doubted ; the con- 
sideration of his own great and obvious ad- 
vantages, and the necessities of his situation, 
would leave him no room for choice." This 
was good advice, and to some extent it was 
ultimately followed ; but not until the system 
of "ringing the changes on Soubahs" had 
been pursued for some time, and occasionally 
with tragic consequences. 

Among his own subjects, no less than 
among the English, the baseness, cmelty, 
and dissoluteness ef Suraj-ud-Dowlah had 
excited enmity and contempt. A plot was 
accordingly formed among some of the lead- 
ing natives to deprive him of his throne ; and 
in this plot the English heartily joined. Mr. 



>78 



FROM THE BLACK HOLE TO PLASSEY. 



Watts, a leading servant of the East India 
Company, on whom had devolved the dan- 
gerous and unpleasant task of negociating 
with the despot, and who therefore knew the 
Nabob's character thoroughly, was the chief 
agent in the matter on behalf of the English; 
and the co-operation of Clive and Admiral 
Watson was likewise heartily given. It was 
proposed to set up Meer Jaffier, the com- 
mander-in-chief of Suraj-ud-Dowlah's army, 
as the successor of that worthless ruler ; and 
the negociations and arrangements were 
carried on with great energy and with equal 
secrecy; for if Suraj-ud-Dowlah had sus- 
pected what was going on, the lives of the 
native conspirators and of their English allies, 
which were at his mercy, would probably 
have been sacrificed in the first outburst of 
his fury and alarm. 



"Diamond cut Diamond "- 
Device. 



-Clive's 



This danger was appreciated, and cun- 
ningly turned to his own advantage, by a man 
whose name has been ominously linked with 
that of Clive by the transactions which ensued 
— the rich Bengalee, Omichund. This cun- 
ning and unscrupulous man had been em- 
ployed in the secret negociations carried on 
between the English and the leading natives, 
— ^Roy Dullub, the minister of finance, the 
great banker Jugget Seyt, and others, — for 
the deposition of Suraj-ud-Dowlah ; and when 
everything was progressing favourably, he 
suddenly astounded the conspirators by 
making a demand for three hundred thousand 
pounds, in addition to the sum he was to 
receive as compensation for the losses he had 
incurred by the taking of Calcutta, as the 
price of his silence ; threatening in case of 
refusal to reveal the whole plot to the Nabob. 
In the perplexity occasioned in the council 
by this astonishing demand, which the wily 
Bengalee well knew he could enforce by the 
advantages he derived from his power to ruin 
the conspiracy and its promoters, Clive came 
forward with a piece of advice equally astound- 
ing. It was simply to fight Omichund with 
his own weapons of fraud ; to promise him 
whatever he required, and thus to secure his 
silence ; and when the danger should have 
passed, to repudiate his claim altogether, and 
give him neither compensation for his losses 
nor the reward for his silence. As Omichund 
had insisted that his claims should be em- 
bodied in the treaty to be drawn up and 
signed by the chiefs of the council, and by 
which their proceedings would be regulated, 
Clive thereupon caused two treaties to be 
drawn up, one on red paper, the other on 
white, and only on the former of these was 
the clause inserted concerning the sum to be 
paid to Omichund. The device resembled 
the nefarious expedient by which, in 1634, 



the chiefs of Wallenstein's army were cheated 
by a substituted document into giving their 
written promise of support to that daring 
adventurer. But Clive's device was even 
more unscrupulous than that of Terzky and 
lUo. Admiral Watson, who seems to have 
disapproved of this method of meeting fraud 
by fraud, declined to put his name to the red 
treaty; whereupon Clive forged the Admiral's 
signature. 

Mr. Mill, the historian of India, who looks 
upon Clive as a great, but a bad man, " to 
whom deception, when it suited his purpose, 
never cost a pang," naturally condemns this 
transaction in unqualified terms ; and with 
right, for it was not only a crime in itself, but 
proved a precedent for the deplorable system 
of admitting fraud and treachery as accredited 
weapons in dealing with the natives of India. 
" The name of Cassius honours this corruption, 
and chastisement does therefore hide his 
head." The great name of Clive, the con- 
queror of India, could subsequently be 
cited in defence of the deception by which 
the chiefs orf the Company— "predestinated 
criminals," as Burke indignantly calls them — 
drew down upon the Carnatic the terrible 
vengeance of Hyder Ali, the tiger of Mysore. 
Sir John Malcolm, whose life of Lord Clive 
is written throughout in an undeviating style 
of panegyric, considers that the treachery of 
Omichund fully justified reprisals in kind 
on the part of the English ; while Lord 
Macaulay, who differs from both the writers 
before mentioned in his estimate of Clive — to 
whom, however, on various occasions, he is 
more than lenient — condemns the transaction; 
though in a later part of his valuable essay 
on Clive, he lays down the somewhat singular 
proposition, that if on weighing the good and 
the bad deeds of a great public man, the good 
are found on the whole to preponderate, the 
verdict of history should be one, not only of 
acquittal, but of approval: a standard of judg- 
ment which would give a very wide range to 
an unscrupulous statesman or ruler. 

He accounts for Chve's proceedings on 
this occasion on the conventional principle 
which makes people measure their conduct to 
different sets of people by various standards ; 
just as it has been cited, in defenceof Charles I., 
that he never broke his word to a gentleman. 
"The truth seems to have been," says Ma- 
caulay, " that he considered oriental politics 
as a game at which nothing was unfair. 
Accordingly this man, in the other parts of 
his life an honourable English gentleman 
and a soldier, was no sooner matched against 
an Indian intriguer, than he became himself 
an Indian intriguer, and descended without 
scruple to falsehood, to hypocritical caresses, 
to the substitution of documents, and to the 
counterfeiting of hands." 



179 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



The War against the Nabob ; Clive 
IN Command. 

The danger that arose from Omichund's 
treachery once averted, it was comparatively 
easy to persuade Suraj-ud-Dowlah that the 
English desired to keep on good terms with 
him. Clive speaks of a " soothing letter " he 
wrote to the Nabob, while at the same time 
he was exhorting Meer Jaffier to be prepared 
to declare against his master, and to join the 
English with his troops. When all was pre- 
pared, he suddenly astonished the Nabob by 
a peremptory letter, setting forth the griev- 
ances of which the English had to complain ; 
and its whole tone was that of a declaration 



Audacity had always been, and continued 
to the last day of his life to be, a leading 
feature in Clive's character. His was the 
courage that " mounteth with occasion," and 
he set the example, gloriously followed by his 
successors in after days, of ceasing to count 
the number of the foe, where a great advant- 
age was to be won or a great peril to be 
averted. On this occasion even his fearless 
strength of mind was taxed to the utmost. 
The forces the Nabob could bring against 
him amounted to sixty thousand men ; his 
own army, if Meer Jaffier failed to join him, 
would not exceed three thousand, though a 
third part of them were English — including 
the men of the 39th regiment, the first regular 




The Captives in the "Black Hole." 



or at least a menace of war. As such Suraj- 
udDowlah regarded it, and accordingly 
replie by preparing for immediate strife. 
From Moorshedabad, the capital, he marched 
with his forces to Plassey, while Clive 
advanced to Cossimbuzar, a commercial 
settlement of the English. Until now all had 
gone well with the conspirators ; but a new 
and formidable danger appeared, and one 
that it required all Clive's firmness to en- 
counter. Meer Jaffier's heart failed him ; 
and when he was to have led over his division 
of the army to the English, he remained 
inactive, and could not be induced, either 
by persuasion or remonstrance, to take the 
decisive step. His indecision threatened to 
ruin everything. 



corps employed in fighting the battles of their 
country in India. 

A council of war— the only one, Clive used 
afterwards to declare, he ever summoned in 
his life — was called to decide the question 
whether they should give battle to the Nabob. 
For a time Clive acquiesced in the general 
opinion that the risk would be too great ; but 
afterwards, on thinking over the question 
alone when the council had broken up, he 
resolved to venture everything on a battle, 
and gave orders to advance ; for he had 
determined to encounter the Nabob next 
day. Lord Macaulay, indeed, considers that 
success or ruin was the only possible issue of 
his enterprise. " Before him lay a river," he 
says, " over which it was easy to advance, but 



280 



FROM THE BLACK HOLE TO PLASSEY. 



over which, if things went ill, not one of his 
little band woald ever return." This river 
was the Bhaghrutti, a branch of the Ganges. 
That defeat would have been most disastrous 
there is no doubt — but that Clive, one of the 
ablest of soldiers, fertile in resource, and 
noted for presence of mind in the hour of 
danger, would not have been able to save 
a man of his army, is difficult to believe. 
Certain it is, however, that the great leader 
never more fully justified the title the natives 
had bestowed on him, of Sabat Jung, " the 
daring in war," than when he made up his 
mind to risk the struggle from which dates the 
supremacy of the British nation in Bengal. 

The Battle 
OF Plassey, 
AND ITS Con- 
sequences. 
It was on the 
23rd of June, 
1757, that the 
famous battle of 
Plassey was 
fought. The vic- 
tory was com- 
plete, and the 
results of the 
highest import- 
ance ; but so far 
as the struggle 
itself is con- 
cerned, it cannot 
rank with such 
fields as Assaye 
orArgaum. The 
disproportion of 
forces was in- 
deed great ; but 
much of the Na- 
bob's army was 
a rabble, — his 
artillery was of 
the clumsiest 
kind, huge guns, 
tugged by long 
teams of oxen, 
with an elephant pushing behind each piece, — 
and worse than all there was disaffection and 
discouragement throughout the host. Meer 
Jaffier did not indeed lead his division 
against his master ; but he remained inactive, 
and drew off his men so soon as the fortune 
of the day was decided. 

This it did not take long to do. The 
Nabob was seized v/ith terror from an early 
period of the battle, when he found that 
the artillery of the English was doing exe- 
cution among his troops, being excellently 
served, while his own was effecting nothing. 
Confusion, arising as much from disaffection 
as from fear, quickly spread through the 
ranks of his wavering army ; and Clive was 




Monument on the Site of the Black Hole. 



not slow to see and to profit by the half- 
heartedness of his foes. Urged by some of 
his followers, whose counsel was doubtless 
dictated by treachery, to consult his personal 
safety, Suraj-ud-Dowlah himself set the ex- 
ample of retreat ; and his flight from the 
field was followed by the complete rout of 
his army. The English had the advantage 
from the first ; the fact that of the victors 
only twenty-two were killed and about fifty 
w^ounded, while only five hundred of the 
Nabob's army were slain, sufficiently proves 
that Plassey was rather a well planned than 
a hotly contested battle ; but the forces of 
Suraj-ud-Dowlah were as completely routed 
as the French 
army at Water- 
loo. 

If it was the 
purpose of the 
English to put 
a roi faineant 
on the throne of 
Bengal, they 
had certainly 
found what they 
wanted in Meer 
Jaffier. Never 
was a man more 
given to let " I 
dare not " wait 
upon " I would," 
— and his con- 
sciousness of 
having deserved 
ill at the hands 
of his allies was 
betrayed in the 
evident fear he 
evinced when 
he came to offer 
his apologies 
and congratula- 
tions to Clive 
on the following 
morning. But 
Clive affected to 
believe his ex- 
cuses, and reHeved his mind by showing 
that the programme was to be cbrried 
out, and that Meer Jaffier was to haVe his 
reward, though he had certainly not borne 
the burden and heat of the day. Meer 
Jaffier, in pursuance of Clive's advice, at 
once marched to Moorshedabad, to be there 
installed as Nabob of Bengal, Orissa, and 
Bahar ; and the victor of Plassey, with a 
retinue of five hundred soldiers, arrived in 
the capital shortly afterwards. Thereupon 
Meer Jaffier was solemnly inducted into his 
new office, Clive taking the chief share in 
the ceremony, himself leading the new ruler 
to the throne prepared for him, and present- 
ing him with the offering of gold usually 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



brought forward on such occasions in the 
East. 

A few days later a less magnificent but not 
less important meeting of the actors in the 
late revolution was held ; for the terms of 
the treaty entered into between Meer Jaffier 
and his fellow-conspirators were now to be 
fulfilled. When the white treaty had 
been read, Clive — in whose behaviour to 
Omichund there had till now been nothing 
to make the treacherous Bengalee think he 
was out of favour — caused Omichund to be 
suddenly informed that a deception had been 
played upon him, that " the red treaty was a 
trick." The effect of the sudden overthrow 
of his confident expectations was such as to 
utterly unhinge the mmd of the man whose 
hopes were thus shattered at a blow. Omi- 
chund sank into a state of iinbecility, and 
died in a few months. 

Clive's Transactions with Meer 
Jaffier. 

And now we come to proceedings oa the 
part of the victor of Plassey which were 
made the theme first of public comment and 
afterwards of parliamentary investigation 
years later, and which, no less than his du- 
plicity and dissimulation towards Omichund 
and others, have left a dark spot on Clive's 
memory. After vengeance had been executed 
on Suraj-ud-Dowlah — that wretched man 
having fallen into the hands of Meer Jaffier 
was, in spite of his frantic tears and entrea- 
ties, put to death by the order of the savage 
Meeran, the son of the new Nabob — Meer 
Jaffier made it his next care to reward the 
man to whom he owed his elevation. The 
treasury of Moorshedabad, with all its gor- 
geous store of gold and jewels, was at his 
disposal, and he might take what he chose. 
" There were piled up," says Lord Macaulay, 
" after the usage of Indian princes, immense 
masses of coin, among which might not sel- 
dom be detected the florins and byzants with 
which, before any European ship had turned 
the Cape of Good Hope, the Venetians pur- 
chased the stuffs and spices of the East. Clive 
walked between heaps of gold and silver, 
crowned with rubies and diamonds." He 
certainly availed himself of the opportunity 
thus afforded him of acquiring sudden 
wealth. Between two and three hundred 
thousand pounds were given to him at 
once by Meer Jaffier, who at a later 
period likewise bestowed on him for life 
the rent the Company paid for the ground 
on which their factories at Calcutta stood ; 
and his fortune, measured by the standard of 
those times, may be considered as colossal, 
" His whole annual income," says Lord Mac- 
aulay, " in the opinion of Sir John Malcolm, 
who is desirous of stating it as low as pos- 
sible, exceeded forty thousand pounds ; and 



incomes of forty thousand pounds at the 
time of the accession of George III. were 
at least as rare as incomes of a hundred 
thousand pounds now." This remark was 
made by Lord Macaulay forty years ago; the 
disproportion between the average of incomes 
in 1 760 as compared with that of the present 
day would appear still greater. There is no 
doubt that Sir John Malcolm considerably 
understated the income of Clive, which must 
have been nearer fifty than forty thousand a 
year. 

The standard of public morality in those 
times was low, and many things were con- 
tinually done which would excite horror at 
the present day. What would be thought, 
for instance, of a minister who took a com- 
mission upon sums voted as subsidies to foreign 
powers 1 And yet William Pitt, the great com- 
moner, was looked upon as quixotic in his 
purity because he refused to accept " these 
ignominious vails." The Duke of Newcastle 
is described as receiving at his levee in his 
great house in Lincoln's Inn Fields direct 
applications for money on various pretences 
from his supporters in Parliament ; and, 
nearly thirty years later, royalty itself did not 
disdain to accept some valuable diamonds 
and " a richly-carved ivory bed" from Warren 
Hastings, while that great satrap had the 
gravest of accusations hanging over him ; 
and a satirical poet "described, with gay 
malevolence, the gorgeous appearance of 
Mrs. Hastings at St. James's, the galaxy of 
jewels, torn from Indian begums, which 
adorned her headdress, her necklace gleam- 
ing with future votes, and the depending 
questions that shone upon her ears." Pitt, 
indeed, kept proudly aloof from the work of 
bribery, corruption, and rapacity ; but, in 
general, opportunities of making money in 
every way short of direct embezzlement were 
seized without much scruple ; and this should 
be remembered in excuse of Clive's doings, 
though it cannot form a justification for 
them. "By God, Mr. Chairman!" was his 
exclamation when, many years afterwards, 
these transactions were investigated by a Par- 
liamentary committee — "at this moment T 
stand astonished at my own moderation ; " 
and certainly, had he so chosen, he might 
have taken twice or three times as much as 
he did from the treasury at Moorshedabad, 
and no man would have ventured to say him 
nay. 

Nevertheless, the conduct of Clive in this 
matter had an evil influence ; for every rapa- 
cious adventurer could point to his example 
as a kind of warrant for his own wrong-doing. 
By accepting a splendid fortune from Meer 
Jafifier, he was virtually acting as though he 
had been himself a potentate — and not a ser- 
vant of the State, simply using a force with 
whose command he was entrusted for the 



282 



FROM THE BLACK HOLE TO PLASSEY. 



benefit of that State, and not for himself 
The principle laid down, some years after- 
wards, by the Parliamentary committee above 
mentioned, that condemned the appropriation 
by a private person of the results of conquests 
made by the arms of the State, was a per- 
fectly sound one. 

Further Victories ; Rewards and 

Honours ; Return of Clive to 

England. 

"Some are born great," says the ambi- 
tious steward in Shakespeare's play ; " some 
achieve greatness, and some have greatness 
thrust upon them." Meer Jaffier appears to 
have belonged to the last of these classes. 
He had been put forward when the great 
revolution was planned, that snatched the 
rule of Bengal from the worthless hands of 
Suraj-ud-Dowlah ; but, as has been seen, he 
looked back alter putting his hand to the 
plough, and in his half-hearted way despaired 
of the success of the enterprise while every- 
thing was going well ; and now that he had 
been as it were pushed up into a great posi- 
tion, he showed himself destitute of the 
qualities necessary to maintain it. 

His constancy was soon put to the test by 
a threatening danger, and at once gave way 
under the trial. A son of the Great Mogul 
conceived the project of taking from Meer 
Jaffier by force of arms the great principalities 
of Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar; declaring him 
to be a mere usurper, sustained in a wrongful 
possession by the arms of strangers. Shah 
Alum, the prince in question, accordingly got 
together a large army, consisting of Afghans, 
Mahrattas, and other warlike adventurers, 
and invaded Meer Jaffier's territories with 
the intention of conquering them for himself; 
and other neighbouring princes were watch- 
ing the enterprise with a view of claiming a 
share of the spoil. Meer Jaffier was for 
treating the invaders as Ethelred the Un- 
ready treated the Danes, when he bribed them 
to leave him in peace ; but Clive, with excel- 
lent judgment, foresaw the effect of such 
a measure, and strenuously counselled the 
Nabob against it. His words, as quoted by 
Loi'd Macaulay, are full of strong good sense. 
" If you do this," he wrote to Meer Jaffier, 
" you will have the Nabob of Oude, the 
Mahrattas, and many more, come from all 
parts of the confines of your country, who 
will bully you out of money till you have 
none left in your treasury. I beg your Ex- 
cellency will rely on the fidelity of the English 
and of those troops who are attached to you." 
Here he had struck the right note. The 
scrupulous carrying out of engagements once 
undertaken, the exact fulfilment of every 
pledge and promise given, was the surest 
foundation upon which to erect the fabric of 
British power in India. Had he always 



remembered this, such a stain as that left by 
the "red treaty" would never have darkened 
his fame. 

With regard to Meer Jaffier, he thoroughly 
redeemed his pledge, taking the field with 
such vigour against the troops of Shah Alum 
that the formidable invasion melted away in 
a short time ; to the delight of the weak 
Nabob, whose satisfaction at the discomfiture 
of his enemies seems, however, to have been 
lessened by the sense of his own entire de- 
pendence upon the English for maintenance 
in his authority. The French also began to 
stir in the Carnatic, and made an attempt 
to regain something of their old ascendency 
there. Clive despatched an expedition against 
them under Forde, an officer who justified 
his choice by such brilliant and rapid suc- 
cesses as entirely annulled any hope of a 
revival of the French influence of the days 
of Dupleix. 

Another and a more formidable attempt 
was made by the Dutch, whose colonial 
policy during the last century, though they 
were a minor power, was much more practi- 
cal than that of the French, who combined 
neglect of their interests abroad with mis- 
government at home. Roused to action by 
the growing power of the English, and un- 
easy for their own interests in Bengal, where 
they held Chinsurah, the colonial government 
at Java despatched a formidable armament 
of seven large vessels to the Hoogley as an 
expedition against the English ; and in this 
proceeding they were secretly encouraged by 
the countenance of Meer Jaffier himself, 
who was not disinclined to play off the 
Dutch power as a counterpoise to the para- 
mount influence of the mighty nation who 
had set him up, and might one day, as with 
sufficiently correct judgment he foresaw, pull 
him down. True to his usual policy, Clive 
at once took the Dutch bull by the horns. 
He promptly attacked the armament, before 
it could get to Chinsurah, completely routed 
it, and then besieged Chinsurah itself Dis- 
mayed at the utter failure of their enterprise, 
the Dutch thought it best to capitulate ; 
and obtained peace only on such terms as 
entirely put an end to their existence as 
anything more than a trading corporation in 
Bengal. 

Clive's name was now known and honoured 
throughout the British empire ; and his great 
victories were looked on as having added one 
of the brightest pages to the glories that 
rendered illustrious the administration of 
William Pitt, and the closing years of the 
reign of George II. The Great Commoner 
himself had the highest opinion of the mili- 
tary genius of Clive, who was looked upon as 
the natural successor of the hero of Quebec 
in tlie respect and regard of the nation. 
Accordingly, when Clive returned to England 



283 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



he was raised to the peerage of Ireland, by 
the title of Baron of Plassey, and was received 
with the highest distinction. He entered 
Parliament ; and his enormous wealth, in 
those days of the purchase of pocket boroughs, 
as well as his position with regard to the 
East India Company, gave him great in- 
fluence, and rendered the rival parties, then 
tolerably equally balanced, anxious to cul- 
tivate his goodwill. He was in the very 
zenith of his prosperity. 

The Company's Rule in India ; Griev- 
ances AND Calamities. 

"A trading and a fighting company is a 
two-headed monster in nature that cannot 
exist long ; as the expence and experience 
of the latter must exceed, confound, and 



which we might have held fast, if bounds 
had been set to our progress, which upon the 
' present system ' we now see is utterly 
impossible, therefore a total change in our 
politics becomes indispensably necessary." 

Holwell's strictures were fully warranted 
by the abuses that prevailed in India in the 
period after Clive's second return to Europe. 
The enormous wealth of the conqueror of 
Plassey, and of several others, such as Pigot, 
who had become suddenly enriched by their 
connection with that country, produced an 
unhealthy excitement, which has been justly 
compared to that which prevailed during the 
time of the South Sea Bubble. The one 
great idea of the servants and agents of the 
Company was to make speedy fortunes. 
The court of the Company itself, in which 




The Taj Mahal, Agra. 



destroy every profit or advantage gained by 
the former." Thus writes the judicious 
Holwell, at the period immediately after 
Clive's great victories and return to England ; 
and the occasion of his remarks was the 
mismanagement of which the Company was 
guilty, when it undertook the government 
of the territories it had conquered ; which 
territories, moreover, it sought to enlarge as 
opportunity offered. " New temporary vic- 
tories," continues Holwell, " stimulate and 
push us on to grasp at new acquisitions of 
territory ; these call for a large increase of 
mihtary force to defend them ; and thus we 
shall go on, grasping and expending, until 
we cram our hands too full, and they become 
cramped and numbed ; and we shall be 
obliged to quit and relinquish even that part 



every proprietor of stock to the amount of 
^500 had a vote at the general meetings, 
was ill-informed and inefficient as a govern- 
ment. Very exaggerated ideas prevailed as 
to the wealth and resources of India ; and 
thus was developed the nefarious system of 
extortion and wrong which attained its cul- 
minating point at a later period, in the high 
crimes and misdemeanours of Hastings, 
the first governor-general, that aroused the 
generous indignation of Edmund Burke. In 
a military point of view the English com- 
pletely held their own, even extending their 
dominions, under captains like Sir Eyre 
Coote, the victor of Pollilore, worthy suc- 
cessors of Clive. Resistance to the authority 
of the English seemed hopeless, and the 
warlike prowess of the nation was more 



FROM THE BLACK HOLE TO PLASSEY. 



widely acknowledged in India, and more 
thoroughly dreaded than ever ; but the 
administration of affairs was deplorable, 
and the peoples of India groaned under 
the harsh rule of tyrants whose yoke, un- 
like that of their native oppressors, it was 
impossible to shake off. 

One of the great sources of wrong was 
attributable to the short-sighted policy by 
which the servants of the Company, from the 
high officials and functionaries to the junior 
and subordinate members, were systemati- 
cally underpaid, and allowed to recoup them- 
selves by irregular gains and extortions, at 
which the Company connived, but by which 
it was in the end the loser. The counsel of 
Sir Thomas Roe, quoted by Macaulay, shows 
that so early as the reign of James I. this 
abuse had already excited attention. " Ab- 
solutely prohibit the private trade," wrote 
Sir Thomas, " for your business will be better 
done. I know this is harsh : men profess 
they come not for bare wages. But you will 
take away this plea if you give great wages 
to their content ; and then you know what 
you part from." The private trade, however, 
not only continued, but increased until it 
became a nuisance and a scandal ; for abuses 
of various kinds were introduced into it. 

According to the Company's treaties with 
Meer Jaffier and others, goods under the 
Company's Hag were exempted from paying 
duties ; but it was expressly stipulated that 
this privilege should not apply to merchan- 
dise in which the Company's servants dealt 
on their own account, which was not to be 
considered as protected by the Company's 
flag. But the latter, who increased greatly 
in number when India became known as the 
country where fortunes were to be accumu- 
lated with unexampled rapidity, were not 
scrupulous in regarding the articles of the 
treaty ; and as the factories increased in 
number, they employed a number of agents, 
natives and foreigners, who were even less 
scrupulous than themselves, and acted in 
direct defiance of the local custom-houses 
and of the laws of the country they pillaged. 
" They forced the natives to buy dear and 
to sell cheap," and plundered in every 
direction, to get together in the shortest 
possible time the means of returning to 
England, purchasing estates and setting up 
as private gentlemen in rivalry to the old 
county families, who looked upon them with 
covert or open dislike and contempt. Gold- 
smith, in his " Deserted Village,'' speaks of 
" The wealth of climes where savage nations 
roam, pillaged from slaves to purchase slaves 
at home ; '' and the proceedings of these 
newly enriched Indian officials, who were 
nicknamed nabobs, and who are described 
as " raising the price of everything in their 
neighbourhoods — from fresh eggs to rotten 



boroughs," made them unpopular in propor- 
tion as they were envied. It was not 
likely men would do much to benefit a 
country regarding which their chief aim was 
to get as much out of it as quickly as they 
could, and then to quit it for ever. 

"Ringing the Changes on Soubahs." 
When the arrangement was first made, by 
which Meer Jaffier was to become ruler of 
Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar, large promises 
had been exacted from him, with regard to 
the sums he would pay in return for his 
elevation. These promises he had en- 
deavoured to redeem; and, as has been seen, 
he behaved to Clive especially, whom he 
looked upon as the chief and main cause of 
his success, with princely liberality ; while 
the merchants and agents of the Company 
were compensated largely for the losses 
they had sustained through the proceedings 
of the late nabob, and the services of the 
ministers of the council who had managed 
the late insurrection, and of all who had 
furthered its completion, were considered in 
the most liberal manner. But the new ruler 
had been unable to fulfil all his engage- 
ments ; the treasury at Moorshedabad was 
not rich enough to answer all the demands 
made upon it, and Meer Jaffier had been 
obliged to pay partly in cash and partly in 
promises. 

The wars, too, in which he had been en- 
gaged since his accession, against Shah 
Alum and others who disputed his authority, 
had greatly increased his embarrassments ; 
for in these wars he had been compelled to 
invoke, and to pay heavily for the assistance 
of the English. His affairs had thus become 
seriously embarrassed ; and in proportion as 
his ability to pay grew less, the dissatisfac- 
tion of those increased who had set him up 
with the expectation that he would prove to 
them a perennial fountain of wealth. So 
long as the controlling hand of Clive re- 
mained present, to regulate, restrain, and 
punish, some sort of moderation and justice 
was preserved ; but when that valiant and 
astute commander had departed for England, 
with the enormous fortune he had so rapidly 
acquired, all semblance of scruple was cast 
aside, and the rapacity of those who were 
in reality the masters of the Nabob knew no 
bounds. As with ancient Pistol, " the word 
was pitch and pay." 

Meer Jaffier was extremely discomposed 
and uneasy at his situation ; and his creditors 
showed him little consideration. Not an 
ounce of their pound of flesh would they ^ 
abate ; and when it became evident that 
Meer Jaffier's ability to meet their demands 
was exhausted, they determined to depose 
him as they had deposed his predecessor ; 
and they set about the work without delay. 



285 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Their method of proceeding was similar 
to that employed on the former occasion. 
When Clive dropped the mask he had so 
long worn with regard to Suraj-ud-Dowlah, 
and had determined to pull down that 
hard and wretched prince, he had pro- 
posed to the Nabob to refer the disputes 
between him and the Company to the arbitra- 
tion of Meer Jaffier, whom he had secretly 
arranged to set up in the Nabob's place. In 
like manner Mr. Vansittart, to whom the 
chief authority descended on Clive's depar- 
ture, arranged with his colleagues to find a 
successor for Meer Jaffier. They fixed upon 
Meer Cossim, the son-in-law of the Nabob, 
with whom they entered into negociations ; 
and who, dazzled with the prospect of the 
great title and position held out to him, was 
as liberal as could be desired in promises of 
reward for their assistance. Thereupon, 
after filling Meer Jaffier's palace with their 
troops, they declared to him that it would be 
necessary to put his affairs into the hands 
of Meer Cossim, with a view to the liquida- 
tion of his debts ; but Meer Jaffier refused 
the insidious demand, with more spirit than 
was to be expected from him. If the Com- 
pany chose to take from him all his authority, 
he declared they might take away the title of 
king with it, and he would live as a private 
man in Calcutta. They took him at his 
word ; they chose to look upon the out- 
spoken declaration as a resignation of his 
power, which they hastily accepted. Meer 
Jaffier, the roi faineant, ceased for a time to 
bear even nominal sway ; and his son-in-law, 
Meer Cossim, reigned in his stead. 

In the case of Suraj-ud-Dowlah there had 
been valid reasons (or the deposition of the 
Nabob, in the well-known hatred and malice 
he bore towards the English, in his fre- 
quently expressed intention to drive them 
out of India, and evident hollowness of the 
treaty hastily patched up with them after 
their signal revenge for the massacre of the 
Black Hole. They might with justice allege 
that with such a man there was no possi- 
bility of permanent peace, and that the 
removal of Suraj-ud-Dowlah was necessary 
for the safety of the Company, though 
nothing can excuse the treachery of Clive 
and his confederates on that occasion. But 
with regard to Meer Jaffier no such defence 
could be made, for he was their creature, 
utterly dependent upon them ; and from 
him they had no danger to fear. " The 
dethronement of Meer Jaffier," says a writer 
who has briefly recorded these events, " was 
effected with only one view — namely, that 
the parties bringing it about might pocket 
the sums which Meer Cossim promised as 
the reward of their interference." Thus the 
" ringing of changes on Soubahs " was con- 
tinued. 



Meer Cossim and his Successors; the 
Company's Further Proceedings, 

In Meer Cossim the Company had to deal 
with a man very different in character from 
his weak predecessor. He was by no means 
content to be a m.ere puppet in the hands of 
the men who had set him up. He was highly 
indignant when he found that while the Com- 
pany exacted large sums and great immunities 
from him, in return for his elevation to the 
throne of Bengal, its agents, claiming freedom 
from transit and other duties for their private 
ventures under the Company's flag, entered 
into a trade competition against his heavily- 
taxed subjects; in which the latter had no 
chance, and were being ruined to enrich 
strangers, while he himself was the greatest 
sufferer, in his revenue, by this system of 
plunder. 

Accordingly he protested and remonstrated 
in the strongest terms with the authorities at 
Calcutta, who turned a deaf ear to his com- 
plaints ; for the Company's servants were all 
interested, from the greatest to the least, in 
the maintenance of the system he denounced, 
upon which their profits and their fortunes 
depended. They were confirmed in their 
contemptuous indifference to remonstrance 
by the fact that they were undoubtedly the 
stronger party. The British soldiers and the 
Sepoys in the Company's service everywhere 
maintained their supremacy against any force 
a native ruler could bring against them ; and 
no European nation could now hold its own 
as their rivals in India. As Dupleix had 
failed in his efforts to maintain himself, so 
did Lally Tollendal fail, even more igno- 
miniously ; and Bussy, the last hope of the 
French nation, was at length captured. They 
maintained by the sword, with undaunted 
valour and resolution, what they had gained 
by the sword — confident that the Court of 
Directors in Leadenhall Street, a-nd still more 
the Court of Proprietors, which could have 
its way where it chose, as every share of;^5oo 
conferred a vote, would judge them by success 
alone — a success to be measured by the 
amount of the dividends paid. And the 
military nature of their supremacy served to 
increase the confusion and disorder ; for the 
army, fully conscious of its paramount im- 
portance, insisted on sharing to an unex- 
ampled degree in the spoils of war, and fre- 
quent mutinies occurred where the donatives 
were considered insufficient. The state of 
things was well described by Holwell in his 
"Seasonable Hint and Perswasive to the 
Court of Directors," in which he insists on 
the necessity of change. 

Fortunately for the maintenance of the 
British power and the re-establishment of 
British credit in India, this change was at 
a later period effected; but not until the 



FROM THE BLACK HOLE TO PLASSEY. 



country had experienced some of the worst 
effects of misrule. 

Finding his remonstrances utterly un- 
heeded, Meer Cossim took the extreme mea- 
sure of repealing the transit duties altogether, 
to put his subjects on an equal footing with 
the strangers ; thus drawing upon himself 
the enmity of the authorities in Bengal, and 
armed resistance from Mr. Ellis, the Com- 
pany's agent at Patna. A war was quickly 
Idndled, in which the English had their usual 
success. No native army could stand against 
them, and Meer Cossim quickly found his 
empire melting away. He was driven from 
one position to another. The Nabob Vizier 



shaking the dust off his feet and betaking 
himself to the dominions of his ally, the 
Nabob of Oude, for refuge ; and the Com- 
pany once more ruled supreme in the name 
of Meer Jaffier, the nominee. 

That feeble prince did not long survive his 
second elevation ; he died soon afterwards. 
His savage and cruel son Meeran was already 
dead ; but an illegitimate son, utterly weak 
and imbecile, of the deceased Nabob, was 
set upon the vacant throne; and the extortion 
and oppression of the foreign rulers went on 
with a- wider range than ever, and more en- 
tirely without let orhindrance. The directors 
at home became seriously alarmed; for while 




Festival at Benares ; Washing in the Holy River Ganges. 



of Oude took his part ; whereupon the Com- 
pany declared war against that potentate also, 
and even against the Mogul himself 

Meer Jaffier was now living, according to 
his declared intention, as a private person. 
The Company made proposals to him as 
difficult, or rather as impossible of fulfilment, 
as the former conditions. He acquiesced in 
everything, promised to do all his patrons 
demanded, and was once more set up on the 
throne of Bengal. Meer Cossim had in his 
power about one hundred and thirty prisoners 
at Patna, including Mr. Ellis, who was greatly 
responsible for the commencement of the 
war. After fighting till all was lost, the fierce 
native perpetrated the terrible massacre of 
Patna, putting to death all his captives before 



their agents were enriching themselves by this 
irresponsible tyranny, the interests of the 
Company were suffering seriously, and the 
dividends fell off Pressing injunctions and 
commands sent out from England were dis- 
regarded ; and in those days, long before the 
time of the telegraph, or even of the overland 
route — when the time for sending a despatch 
to India and receiving an answer sometimes 
extended to a year and a half — it was impos- 
sible to govern the East Indian possessions 
by orders received from home. At length 
general attention in England was called to 
the state of affairs in India; and the Company 
saw that if a remedy were not applied by their 
own council, the British Government would 
take that duty upon itself, — and consequently 



287 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



determined to send out Lord Clive, with full 
powers to put an end to the abuses that 
threatened the very existence of the British 
rule in India. 

How Clive applied the Remedy ; The 
Result. 

It was on the 23rd of May, 1765, that Lord 
Clive landed in Calcutta on his third and last 
journey to India. He came with the fixed 
determination, as he himself expressed it in 
a letter to a friend, to restore the lost honour 
and credit of the British name in India, to 
put a stop to the great and increasing evils 
existing there, or to perish in the attempt ; 
and he carried out his intentions to the fullest 
extent during the eighteen eventful months 
of his residence in Calcutta. 

His difficulties began immediately on his 
arrival. In the council he appeared " like an 
eagle in a dovecote, fluttering the Volscians." 
When he explained the scope and extent 
of the thorough reforms he contemplated, — 
reforms that would arrest, in their very source, 
the irregular and excessive gains of the 
Company's servants and agents, — the mem- 
bers at the board sat aghast ; and " all the 
faces grew long and pale" when he put down, 
with a few haughty and vigorous words, the 
attempted remonstrance of the one member 
who dared to protest. 

After putting an end to the foolish war 
with the Nabob of Oude, with whom he 
entered into alliance, he carried out the 
policy advocated by Holwell and other en- 
lightened Indian statesmen. " Let us be our 
own Soubah," wrote Holwell ; and this is 
what Clive effected. He obtained from the 
Great Mogul, in return for a pension secured 
to that weak potentate, the nomination of the 
Company to the office of Duan, or finance 
ministers of Bengal. They procured the right 
of collecting the revenues of the three pro- 
vinces — Bengal, Orissa, and Bahar — together 
with the monopolies of salt, betel, etc. ; and 
thus their authority as the acknowledged 
masters of Northern India received the 
sanction of the highest native authority — the 
imperial throne at Delhi. Any attempt to 
evade the transit duties on merchandise now 
became a fraud on the Company itself, for 
which all offenders in the service were to be 
visited with instant dismissal ; and thus the 
" private trade," the fruitful source of many 
abuses, was put down. In the army, also, the 
power of the stern inflexible Governor was 
soon felt. The officers were soon made 



aware that they must consider themselves the 
servants of the State, and must be ready to 
march at the first summons, and implicitly 
to obey any orders given to them ; moreover, 
the acceptance of presents from native princes 
was rigidly prohibited. All such gifts were 
to be handed over at once to the treasury of 
the Government. These innovations pro- 
duced a profound impression in a mutinous 
army, fully av/are of its importance, and 
accustomed to have its own way. The officers 
murmured loudly, and presently proceeded 
to organise what may be termed a military 
" strike." A large number resigned their 
commissions on the same day, feeling con- 
vinced that Clive would make any concessions 
rather than leave the army without leaders. 
But he put down the movement with a stern 
hand. The ringleaders in the mutiny were 
cashiered. The others were allowed to return 
to their duty after earnestly professing their 
regret. Clive had sent for officers from 
Madras, and had taken other steps to show 
that he was master of the situation, and that 
no man was indispensable to him. 

At the same time he found a remedy for 
the grievance which had been a frequent 
cause of extortion and misrule. The salaries 
of the Company's servants were rearranged 
on a scale sufficiently liberal to allow of the 
officials living up to their position, and yet in 
time accumulating fortunes. The revenue 
derived from the tax on salt was devoted to 
the payment of salaries. The result of these 
reforms was the removal, at least for a time, 
of the reproach of rapine and extortion that 
defaces the pages of the chronicle of British 
conquest and supremacy in India ; and 
just principles of rule took the place of the 
previous misgovernment. 

When Clive sailed for England for the 
third time, the conqueror of Plassey had 
gained a far harder victory than that over 
Suraj-ud-Dowlah ; but he had also raised up 
many implacable enemies, who accused him 
of having marred their fortunes after he had 
made his own, and persistently pointed out 
the incongruity between Clive's earlier accep- 
tance of presents by himself, and his later 
denouncing of their receipt by others. And 
this consciousness it was that preyed upon 
his mind amid all his wealth and prosperity, 
and combined with other causes to produce 
such exquisite misery that existence became 
unendurable to him, and the victor of Plassey 
in his fiftieth year put an end to his own life. 

H. W. D 



288 




Death of ToMPFy (see /a^e 301). 



C^SARISM IN ROME: 



THE STORY OF THE FALL OF THE REPUBLIC. 



A Roman Holiday — The Ides of March — Regai Rome — Republican Rome — The Commencement of a Memorable Epoch 

The Oppressions of the Aristocracy — Cato the Censor — Tiberius Gracchus and his Law for the Amelioration of the 
Condition of the People — Caius Gracchus — The Story of Jugurtha — Marius, Sulla, and the Social War — The 
Mithridatic War and the First Civil War — The Roman Reign of Terror — Julius Csesar — The Second Civil War — The 
Catiline Conspiracy — The Greatest Crisis in the History of Rome — The First Triumvirate — The Contest between 
Caesar and Pompey — Cassar crosses the Rubicon — The Beginning of the End — Caesar's Laws and Policy — The Second 
Triumvirate — Proscriptions and Assassinations — Augustus Emperor — Influence of Ceesarism on the World. 




A Roman Holiday. 
|T is a day of high festival in ancient 
Rome, and crowds of her noblest 
citizens, clad in their gayest-coloured 
togas, throng her classic streets. 

They pass the bridge so grandly kept by 
stout Horatius in the brave days of old ; they 
cross the Forum, where once the blood of 
poor Virginia cried aloud for vengeance on 
the '' Wicked Ten " ; they gaze anew, with 
feelings of swelling pride, at their famous 
Capitol, and then with a burst of acclamation 
they hasten to the Lupercal, on the Palatine 
Hill, where, in a chair of gold, which gleams 
like a meteor in the brilliant sunshine of the 



southern sky, they behold great Caesar him- 
self, clad in a triumphal robe, presiding over 
the mystic ceremonies of the day. A smile 
of triumph passes over his stern face as he 
acknowledges their warm welcome, yet even, 
then he hears a soothsayer cry, " Beware 
the ides of March ; Cassar, beware the ides, 
of March." Caesar angrily bids him be-- 
gone, and again the people shout aloud, and. 
the priests advance and the ceremonies, 
begin. 

For it is the feast of the Lupercalia,, 
when those ancient rites are celebrated, 
which tradition says have been handed down 
from the times of Romulus himself — those: 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



ancient rites which propitiate the great god 
Lupercus, and cause him to give a fruitful 
year. The solemn priests — the Luperci — offer 
up the wonted sacrifices, and then cut the 
skins of the slaughtered animals into strips and 
twist them into thongs, with much ceremony. 
Some they hand to the magistrates, and re- 
taining others themselves they then run 
through the city, striking on the hand all 
those who wish the god to bless them. 

But what is this? — Mark Antony, the 
consul, who, according to custom, should run 
with the rest, approaches Csesar, and before 
all the people offers him a diadem wreathed 
with laurel. The astounded populace look 
on in sullen silence. They well know the 
meaning of that strange sight. It means 
that Ccesar wishes to be king, and has caused 
Antony to offer him the crown. 

The politic Csesar, well understanding 
their silence, refuses the proffered jewel, 
whereupon the people greet him with their 
accustomed plaudits. Now, they know not 
what to think. Perhaps, after all, Caesar is 
loyal to the Republic. 

Again the officious Antony offers the 
diadem, and again there is deep silence. 
Again does Cassar refuse. Once more is the 
farce repeated, and then the Dictator orders 
the diadem to be consecrated in the Capitol, 
and the people turn away. 

After the Feast. 

But that night there were some men who 
cared for their country who slept with 
troubled rest. True they had seen " how on 
the Lupercal " Cassar had thrice refused the 
kingly crown, but what a pass had things 
come to in Rome when the consul dared to 
offer a diadem to one of her citizens ! "No 
more kings in Rome " had been the people's 
cry ever since false Tarquin had been driven 
hence. 

Their feelings of unrest were not quieted 
when during the next few days Caesar's 
statues were found adorned with diadems, 
but then Flavins and Marcellus, two stout 
tribunes, tore off the crowns, and committed 
to prison some of those unwise persons who 
had saluted Caesar as king, so the people 
followed them with cheerful acclamations. 

Then Caesar, highly indignant at their be- 
haviour, deposed the tribunes, and so the 
war went on, and there were several who 
whispered as the Dictator passed by, " Beware 
the ides of March." Did not the soothsayer 
at the feast say " Beware the ides of March"? 

The Ides of March. 
One month after the feast of the Luper- 
calia(which was held on the 15th of February), 
Csesar started from his home for the senate 
house. He was lighthearted and gay — not- 
withstanding that Calphurnia, his wife, had 



had troubled dreams and presages of evil, 
and had implored him not to go out to-day, — 
for had not a certain soothsayer been warning 
him for some time past of a terrible evil 
that should befall him on the 15th ? — the ides 
of March, — and now the day had come, but no 
ill had befallen him. And as he made his 
way to the senate, he called the false prophet 
and spoke laughingly to him. " The ides of 
March are come, but no harm has befallen 
me " ; to which the soothsayer softly said, 
" Yes, the ides of March are come, but not 
goner 

This was the day that the majority of the 
senators were to meet at Csesar's summons 
prepared to offer him the crown and honour 
him by the title of king. The great object 
for which he had been working all his life 
was now near completion ! 

When he entered the house the assembled 
senate rose to do him honour. Then the 
accomplices of Brutus — the descendant of 
that Brutus who long time since had been 
foremost in expelling the evil Tarquin, the 
last king of Rome — crowded round him 
asking for the recall of his brother. Caesar 
refused, and as their importunities grew 
they clustered round him, and finally at a 
sign from one of their number, Cimber, drew 
their swords and struck at him ; and pierced 
by three-and-twenty wounds great Caesar fell. 

They murdered him because he aimed at 
despotic power and the destruction of the 
Republic, but though he died the system 
he created lived. Not even the desperate 
deed of his murder could save the moribund 
State. The Republic had fallen, and though 
a triumvirate was established, which for a 
short time endeavoured to rule Rome, Csesar's 
nephew, Augustus, very quickly succeeded to 
the place and power of the murdered dictator, 
and Ceesarism was fully established. How it 
came to pass that these momentous events 
transpired, we have now to tell. 

Regal Rome. 

In order to understand the introduction 
and triumph of Caesarism it will be necessary 
to give a slight historical sketch of Roman 
institutions from the foundation of the city. 

Rome, which was established by Romulus 
753 years before Christ, was for 243 years 
ruled by kings, whose power, however, was 
tempered by the senate. This body was 
instituted by Romulus, and consisted origi- 
nally of a hundred of the most experienced of 
the citizens, who from their age were known 
as "The Fathers," and from their office, 
"The Senators." This senate became, says 
Mommsen, the most powerful governing 
board the world has ever seen. Romulus 
also divided the peaple into two classes, the 
Patricians, or nobles, and the Plebeians, or 
common people. This distinction remained 



290 



C^SARISM IN ROME. 



for many centuries, and was the cause of 
much internal discord. 

It came to pass, hawever, that certain 
iings grossly abused their position and their 
power. The oppressions and cruelties of 
Tarquinius Superbus, the seventh and last 
Idng, at length became insupportable, and 
all sections of the state anxiously looked for 
some revolution which should overturn the 
king, who disregarded both liberty and law. 

The revolution came. While Tarquinius 
Superbus was besieging the city of Ardea, 
Sextus Tarquinius, his son, grossly insulted 
Lucretia, the wife of a Roman noble, Colla- 
tinus. She summoned her husband and 
father, and in their presence stabbed herself, 
after commanding them to revenge her death 
and disgrace upon the house of Tarquin. 
Lucius Junius Brutus, whose father and 
brother had been slaughtered by Tarquin, 
'ivho had himself escaped only by feigning 
idiotcy, was present at this sad scene, and 
plucking the fatal weapon from the wound, 
he swore to exterminate the Tarquins, and 
prevent them or any others from ever reign- 
ing in Rome. This example was followed 
by all present, and under his leadership the 
people rose, expelled the Tarquins, and es- 
tablished the aristocratical commonwealth, 
known as the Roman Republic. 

Republican Rome. 

At first the Republic appears to have dif- 
fered but slightly from the Monarchy. The 
senate and the various other departments of 
government continued, but instead of the 
kings, two magistrates, called consuls, were 
chosen annually from among the patricians. 
The consuls were invested with great powers. 
They commanded the armies, and had the 
power of assembling or dissolving the senate. 
They wore robes fringed with purple, and 
were preceded by twelve men called lictors, 
bearing bundles of rods bound together with 
an axe in the middle, known diS fasces. When 
presiding at assemblies of the people they 
sat in ivory chairs, — called the curule chairs, 
— and carried ivory rods in their hands. In 
those days the Romans were accustomed 
to designate their years by the annual office 
of their consul. The first consuls were 
Lucius Junius Brutus and Collatinus, the 
husband of Lucretia. 

The progress of the Republicwas grievously 
hindered by internal discord. The govern- 
ment was vested in an irresponsible clique 
of nobles, from whom the consuls and the 
senate were elected, and under whom the 
plebeians were cruelly and bitterly oppressed. 

For fully a hundred years did the struggle 
continue, until at last it ended by the removal 
of the political and social disabilities under 
which the plebeians had suffered, and the 
passing of a law by which they were declared 



to be on a level with the patricians. Consuls 
were elected from their ranks, and for the 
first time marriages between all classes were 
considered legal and binding. 

The Roman Republic had now approached 
perfection. It was no longer an irresponsible 
oligarchy, but out of an exclusive aristocracy 
and an oppressed serfdom had grown a 
moderate democracy in which all had equal 
rights. Each class exerted its influence and 
counterbalanced the other. It was this con- 
stitution which lasted so many years, and 
enabled Rome to prosecute successfully the 
terrible Punic and Macedonian wars, and to 
make herself the Mistress of the World. 
We have now to see how this magnificent 
Republic fell. 

The Commencement of a Memorable 
Epoch. 

The Roman historian, Sallust, regards the 
destruction of Carthage as the commence- 
ment of that memorable epoch, which ended 
in the ruin of the Republic. 

With the enormous extension of power 
which this fatal success opened up, the 
national character suffered a fatal deteriora- 
tion. Coupled with this, also, was the growth 
of a new aristocracy, more wealthy and more 
unscrupulous than that against which the 
plebeians had struggled during the earlyyears 
of the Republic. 

The traditions of free self-government 
which had enabled their fathers to mould 
such a mighty state were forgotten ; men 
looked only to their own selfish interests and 
self-aggrandizement; the aristocrats bound 
down the commons with bands of iron rule, 
and secured for themselves the honours and 
emoluments which accrued from great 
national dominion and great national expen- 
diture. 

The stern integrity of life, the frugality, 
the temperance and rectitude which in former 
days marked the Roman citizen, began to 
disappear, and the love of luxury and vice 
became prominent. The old Roman " virtue " 
was undermined. 

Still further, the long wars had turned good 
citizens into useless soldiers, — useless for 
everything but fighting, — and thousands re- 
turned home without employment to spend in 
idle sensuality their ill-gotten gains. After the 
licentiousness of their camp life and the base 
delights ofpillage and rapine, it was impossible 
to settle down to hard toil. Hence arose that 
hon'ible slave system, — the most terrible curse 
of ancient Rome, — the curse that finally aided 
to bring about the downfall of its greatness. 
Conquered people were made to till the soil 
for their masters. At least 50,000 captives 
were sent home from Carthage, while 1 50,000 
Epirotes were sold after the conquest of 
Epirus. The rule seems to have been that 



291 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



when a captive taken in war was preserved 
instead of being slain, — hence the name serviis, 
— he could be made to work for his captor's 
benefit. There was little or no restriction on 
the master's power of punishing his slave or 
even of putting him to death, and the horrible 
atrocities perpetrated on the miserable victims 
of the slave system of republican Rome are 
far beyond description. Mommsen says that 
" compared with the sufferings of the Roman 
slaves, the sum of all negro suffering is but 
a drop." . 

But the blood and tears of the poor slaves 
called down terrible evils upon the Republic, 
and oppression and cruelty brought their ter- 
rible retribution, as they always will. 

In the year 134 B.C. the Roman world was 
suddenly thrilled with the news of a horrible 
social outbreak in Sicily. The fury of the 
revolt for a time made all opposition useless ; 
the slaves overran the island like demons let 
loose, and oneafteranother the Roman forces 
sent to quell the insurrections were cut to 
pieces. But the slaves were without organiza- 
tion, and when they had somewhat slaked 
their thirst for revenge, their paroxysms of 
ferocity were over, their power had spent 
itself, and two years later the consul, Publius 
Rupilius, was able to announce that he 
had restored " order." 

CoxTiNUED Oppressions. 

After this outbreak, the " new nobles " con- 
tinued to oppress the people — both slaves and 
freemen — even more than before. They 
regarded intellect, virtue, and manners as 
nothing ; wealth, power, and material pro- 
sperity were everything. They cared for 
nothing but to add farm to farm, and many 
a poor burgess went to the wall in the un- 
equal struggle. The riches of the rich in- 
creased, as likewise did the poverty of the 
poor. The political power gradually passed 
more and more into the hands of this wealthy 
aristocracy, until there came about the most 
unhappy state of things that can befall any 
state — a corrupt and wealthy governing class, 
a selfish, unscrupulous, and arrogant aristo- 
cracy, and a poverty-stricken lower class, who, 
struggle as they may, can find no means of 
improving their position. The pride, wealth, 
influence, and cruelty of this new order were 
a thousand times worse than the haughty 
arrogance of the old patricians ; while, added 
to their nepotism and selfishness was their 
gross immorality, and last, but not least, 
their never-ceasing quarrels among them- 
selves for place and power. The former oli- 
garchy ended in the establishment of a free 
Republic ; the latter ended in the fall of all 
free institutions, and the establishment of 
Cassarism — government by brute force. 



Cato, the Censor. 

The degeneracy of the age did not pass 
without rebuke. Doubtless there were many 
wise Romans who saw the inevitable end to 
which these national evils would lead, but 
among them Cato, the censor, stands out 
prominently. With remarkable sternness he 
pointed out the demoralized state of the 
people, and as far as in him lay, endeavoured 
to stem the tide of iniquity which iiooded' 
the streets of the cit)^ But while Rome 
chose to pursue apolicy of fierce and unscru- 
pulous conquest, and to hold foreign nations 
in subjection by the brute force of an immoral 
soldiery-^while the nation chose to exalt 
this gross materialism as its rule of life, it 
was impossible to expect or cause the people 
to adopt simple, temperate, and virtuous 
habits. 

Tiberius Gracchus, and his Law for 
THE Amelioration of the Condition 
OF THE People. 

Desperate — one might almost say revolu- 
tionary — attempts to prevent the social ruini 
of the state were made by Tiberius and Caius 
Gracchus, two brothers, sons of the celebrated 
Cornelia, daughter of Scipio, who had de- 
stroyed Carthage. They were of distinguished 
eloquence and great accomplishments. 

Tiberius Gracchus, a tribune of the people^ 
seeing the misery of the poor, and of the 
subject inhabitants of the provinces, and 
seeing also the overbearing wealth of the 
rich (whose estates were, as we have stated, 
cultivated by slaves instead of by free and 
manly citizens, who had, therefore, but little 
means of obtaining a livelihood), proposed a 
law founded on the old Agrarian law, prohi- 
biting the acquisition of an exorbitant 
quantity of land, and providing for the 
distribution of the remainder among the 
poor. As may be imagined, the most violenJ 
commotion followed, and we may regard this 
as the first blow struck in that internecine 
strife which led at length to the fall of the 
Republic — the first bitter fruits of those evils 
to which we have alluded. 

Long and fierce were the debates which 
ensued, and at length the senate resorted 
to unwarrantable means to counteract his 
influence. The senate, — composed of aristo- 
crats, — whose excessive power the proposed 
law would limit, persuaded Octavius, another 
of the tribunes, to interpose his official veto 
on the motion of Tiberius — for according to 
the constitution of Rome at that period, if 
any tribune (they were ten in number) vetoed 
a proposal of one of his colleagues, it was at 
once lost without further discussion. 

Tiberius was enraged at this unexpected 
opposition, and forgetting in his intense 
earnestness the formality of law, he proposed 



292 



CJESARISM IN ROME. 



the deposition of his colleague. The people 
•agreed, with acLiamation, and Octavius was 
deposed from office. Tiberius Gracchus, 
Caius Gracchus, and Claudius, were ap- 
pointed triumvirs for carrying this proposed 
iaw into effect with all its intricate provisions. 

But this success was only the commence- 
ment of his difficulties. The senate were so 
enraged that they stopped at nothing to 
thwart his schemes, and when the time came 
round for his re-election — for the tribunes 
were elected annually — every effort was made 
to prevent his success. As it appeared likely 
he would triumph they resolved on his death. 
They accused him of endeavouring to acquire 
supreme power, "i/^ intends to wear the 
diadejn," they shrieked ; " the tyrant must be 
slain to save the State." 

The consul, however, refused to listen to 
their violent proposals, and thereupon a 
senator named Nascia exclaiming, " As 
the consul refuses to protect the Common- 
wealth, follow me," summoned his followers 
and colleagues, and rushed to the Capitol, 
where Tiberius was then addressing his 
followers. A terrible riot ensued, in which 
Tiberius and more than three hundred of 
his partizans were slain, and their bodies 
thrown into the Tiber. 

The nobles followed up this success with 
great ferocity. The partizans of Tiberius 
were banished and slain without trial, some 
of them suffering the most terrible deaths — 
■one, Caius Vallun, being confined in a vessel 
with snakes and vipers, until the venomous 
reptiles stung him to death. 

Caius Gracchus. 

But though the nobles had crushed free 
speech for the time being, they had not 
succeeded in deterring the people from the 
projects Tiberius had promulgated. The 
internecine strife between the oligarchy and 
the democracy, which was to continue for 
many years, had begun, and the brother of 
Tiberius, Caius Gracchus, now came forward 
as the people's champion. The opportunity 
which enabled him to do this was the claim 
of the conquered Italians to be admitted as 
citizens of the Roman Republic, and to obtain, 
at least, some share in the privileges of their 
rulers. 

Caius was a far abler man than his brother, 
and endeavoured to procure the same results 
for ivhich Tiberius had struggled, — the esta- 
blishment of a contented and prosperous 
middle class, as the conservators of society 
and the state, and as a check upon the corrupt 
aristocrats, — but in a less sudden and abrupt 
manner. 

With keen foresight, moreover, he saw that 
'the Republic would continue divided against 
itself — and therefore contain the elements of 
weakness — so Ion": as the Romans and Ita- 



hans were hostile to each other, and the rich 
clique of nobles endeavoured to absorb all 
the emoluments of that vast empire. He 
aimed, therefore, not only to improve the 
condition of the poorer classes, but to recon- 
struct the constitution. He aimed to weld 
the dissimilar bodies firmly into one nation, 
and thus to consolidate the strength of the 
Republic. Unfortunately his counsels did 
not prevail, and the terrible struggle was 
prolonged until great Csesar came diwd/orced 
the union by causing all to bow to his dicta- 
torship. 

By reason of his great talents Caius exerted 
for a time considerable authority ; but what 
was one against so many } The nobles 
continued in their arbitrary course. The 
wretched Italians were oppressed in every 
possible way. On the slightest pretext a 
young noble would order the death of any 
person he chose ; and when a Roman 
governor entered any city the inhabitants 
were denied the commonest privileges of 
life ; as for instance, they were not allowed to 
wash themselves in the public baths, so that 
the building might be sacred to the use of 
the officer. 

Caius Gracchus struggled against these 
enormities in vain. He was continuously 
and grossly insulted ; and on one occasion 
when one of his partisans struck to the ground 
a lictor who had affronted him, the senate 
declared that he was heading a revolution, 
and proclaimed the state in danger. A price 
was set on his head, and Opimius, his great 
opponent, who had hastily been proclaimed 
dictator, promised to pay its weight in 
gold. Thereupon a slave found opportunity 
to assassinate him, and extracting the brains 
from the great man's skull filled it with lead, 
and so obtained a huge reward. 

Cornelia retired in grief to the country, and 
her only consolation was to tell to admiring 
visitors the story of her great father, Scipio 
Africanus, or her sons — the Gracchi. " The 
grand-children of Scipio were my sons," 
she would say ; " they gave their lives 
for the noblest end — the happiness of the 
people." Calmly and loftily she bore her 
sufferings, and many distinguished persons 
visited her in her retirement. In after days 
statues were raised to her sons, and a monu- 
ment was set up to herself in the city, and 
underneath were placed these words only : 
"To Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi." 

The Story of Jugurtha. 

The nobles exulted over their victory with 
insolent triumph. Three thousand of the 
partizans of Caius Gracchus were slain, and 
the bodies thrown into the Tiber ; then the 
senate set to work to undo all the good that 
had been accomplished. 

The incidents in the story of Jugurtha, 



293 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



which followed shortly after the deaths of 
the Gracchi, bring into full light the corrup- 
tion of the statesmen who now governed the 
affairs of Rome. 

Jugurtha, the natural son of Massinissa, 
king of Numidia, was a bold, politic, and 
unscrupulous man. He saw that the love of 
gold was the mainspring of the Republic, and 
that every senator had his price. Thereupon 
he bribed the senate to oust his half-brother 
from the throne of Numidia. The fiat of the 
senate was of course law, and by purchasing 
the support of the senate, a commission was 
sent to Africa, which divided Numidia be- 
tween him and his brother Adherbal, Not 
long after its departure, however, he invaded 
his brother's territory, conquered him, and put 
him to a shameful death. This caused great 
irritation at Rome, and war was commenced 
against him. For five years, however, by 
means of bribes and intrigues and battles, 
he managed to hold his own. It is said that 
he exclaimed of Rome, " Oh, venal city, thou 
art destined to perish whenever any one shall 
be found who will purchase thee." 

Several generals were sent against Jugurtha, 
but by reason of bribes he kept them at bay, 
until Marius, a brave and famous com- 
mander, was entrusted with the mission. 
He, being above bribery, soon reduced the 
Numidian usurper to the last extremity. 
Jugurtha was brought to Rome in chains, and 
thrown into a subterranean dungeon, where 
his gaolers stripped off his clothes, and even 
tore off his ears for the earrings to satisfy 
their greed of gain. No food was given him, 
and he was starved to death. 

Marius ; Sulla; The Social War. 

The war with Jugurtha brought into pro- 
minence two Roman generals, Marius and 
Sulla, whose personal rivalry for some time 
becomes the principal line of Rome's history. 
The wars with the Cimbrians and Teutons, 
which followed the Jugurthine war, and in 
which Marius was successfully engaged, led 
to his repeated elections as consul, while Sulla, 
who at one time was his lieutenant, and 
now aspired to be his rival, dogged his 
steps in every direction, always waiting to 
step in and take any advantages that Marius 
might throw in his way. Marius obtained 
great popularity by admitting to the army 
men of a lower class than had previously 
been employed in its ranks. 

No sooner, however, were these wars 
with the Cimbri and Teutons concluded, 
than the franchise having again been re- 
fused to the Italians, news arrived in Rome 
that civil war was raging in her provinces. 
The more immediate cause was the assassi- 
nation of Drusus, " the Gracchus of the 
aristocracy," who had endeavoured to ar- 
range a compromise between the arrogance 



of the rich and the claims of the poor. 
This circumstance seemed to reveal to the 
subject Italians that no help was to be ob- 
tained, and that their only refuge was in 
rebellion, and very speedily they had risen in 
furious revolt. The slaves of Sicily took 
advantage of this opportunity, and again rosey, 
and the whole peninsula was in arms, and 
scenes of the most atrocious cruelty were- 
perpetrated on both sides. 

With great promptitude Marius, Sulla, and 
Pompeius Strabo, were sent to quell the insur- 
rections, and by their superior generalship 
this was finally accomplished after two years' 
hard fighting. It is said that no less than 
300,000 men perished in the great struggle, 
and although " order " among the insurgents 
was restored by main force, yet they were 
virtually triumphant, for in the year 89 B.C. 
the Roman franchise and citizenship was. 
given to the Italians. It is said that this 
event exercised the greatest influence upon 
the old republican constitution, and made 
Ceesarism a political necessity. However 
this may be, it was clearly impossible to< 
refuse the franchise after the social war. 
Even the most arrogant of patricians could 
not but see that the presence of so many 
oppressed thousands with absolutely no 
voice in the constitution, would be a con- 
stant source of peril, and they would be 
ready to follow any chief who would promise 
them anything. It is moreover an abso- 
lute fact that the reactionary laws of Sulla, 
which we shall presently mention, were far 
more disastrous to the Republic. The 
granting of the franchise, connected as it was 
with so many irritating restrictions, was but 
opening the safety valve a very little way,, 
and not far enough. 

The Mithridatic War, and the First 
Civil War. 

The excessive jealousy that had long ex- 
isted between Marius and Sulla kindled into- 
the direst hatred when the latter was elected 
consul in 88 B.C., and received the command 
of the Roman legions in the war against 
Mithridates, Kingof Pontus. This remarkable 
man had during the social war supported the 
insurgents, defied the Republic, overrun the 
province of Asia Minor, and massacred 
Roman colonists and traders it was said to 
the number of 80,000. 

It is very possible that if the Mithridatic 
war had broken out before the social war,. 
Marius would have had the command, but 
during that war Sulla had by some means 
managed to win the chief glory, whether it 
was his by right or not, and he had lately 
strengthened his position by divorcing his 
third wife, in order to marry Cecilia, daughter 
of Metellus, one of the old senatorial 
nobles. The people well understood what 



294 



C^SARISM IN ROME. 



this marriage meant — that it was for political 
purposes alone, and it was celebrated by 
lampoons far more witty than complimen- 
tary. 

Sulla was steeped to the lips in the gross 
debauchery of the time, and his lax morals 
shocked even the sensualists of the day. 
His countenance was disfigured with terrible 
eruptions, and with jest it was compared to a 
" mulberry sprinkled with meal." His man- 
ners were haughty and morose. He was 
selfish and ambitious. His object was to rule 
Rome at the head of a dominant aristocracy, 
and the power he possessed as a success- 
ful, almost invincible general, reconciled the 
nobles to him, especially as he was known to 
be so fanatically devoted to the aggrandize- 
ment of their order. 

It is not a matter of much wonder, therefore, 
that the Senate appointed Sulla to the leader- 
ship. 

Marius, disgusted, discontented, and 
alarmed for his popularity, commenced to stir 
up a revolution. He found the materials only 
too ready to his hand. The new citizens of 
Latium and Italy, already mortified at finding 
the inefficiency of their votes, and that though 
the promised privileges had been given with 
one hand they were taken back with the other, 
were again ripe for revolt. Marius conceived 
the idea of turning their discontent to his own 
advantage. He proposed to repair the in- 
justice of the senate, and give them all they 
wanted. Obtaining the assistance of Sul- 
picius Galba, a tribune of great eloquence, a 
revolt was put into execution, which for the 
time prevailed. The consul remaining in 
Rome was attacked with a band of armed 
men, the senate was dissolved, and a new 
senate created which recalled Sulla, and ap- 
pointed Marius chief of the army. 

Sulla returned, but accompanied _by his 
army, with the avowed determination of over- 
turning the new government. Marius sent 
two prjetor^ to meet him and command him 
to desist, but they were stripped of their 
togas, their fasces broken, and they were 
ordered to return to him who sent them. 
Such violence betokened that worse was to 
follow. The citizens in alarm sent ambassa- 
dors to meet him, and promised to do full 
justice between the rival commanders, and 
it is said that the "mulberry face " himself 
faltered in the execution of his daring design; 
but being warned in a dream — wherein a 
Roman deity appeared and placed a thunder- 
bolt in his hand and commanded him to 
launch it at his enemies — he advanced. 

As he entered the city, stones and tiles were 
flung at his troops from the house-tops, but 
seizing a torch he threatened to burn the 
city to the ground if any opposition were 
offered. 

Marius and his chief partizans fled, and 



a price was set upon their heads. Sulla 
reigned supreme. 

The various romantic adventures which 
befell Marius — the greatest Roman general of 
the time — are related with much sympathy by 
Plutarch, but are too lengthy to be repeated 
here. He first wished to direct his steps 
to Africa, the scene of his great exploits, 
where his influence was still powerful, but 
becoming shipwrecked, he was discovered. 
But none of the " barbarians " would slay 
him — him whom they regarded as the cham- 
pion of Italy. At last a Cimbrian slave was 
sent with a sword to dispatch him. Turning 
his eyes full upon the messenger the old 
man said, " Slave ! dare you kill Caius 
Marius "i " Whereupon the man threw down 
his sword, rushed from the place exclaiming, 
" I cannot kill Caius Marius." Ultimately 
he escaped to Africa, where among the ruins 
of Carthage he meditated his return to 
power. 

Meantime Sulla was vigorously prosecuting 
the war in the East against Mithridates, and 
the partizans of Marius again made headway 
under the leadership of Cinna. He raised 
levies in lower Italy, and at the same time 
Marius reappeared in Etruria. Both chiefs 
approached Rome from opposite quarters. On 
this occasion, after a sanguinary struggle they 
were successful, and although seventy years 
of age, Marius was a seventh time elected 
consul, and prepared to lead an army to the 
East to supplant Sulla. At this crisis, how- ' 
ever, he died. 

Cinna succeeded to his place and power, 
but not for long. Flaccus, whom he sent to 
supersede Sulla, was murdered, and the army 
who had accompanied him was united to the 
ambitious and powerful leader. With the 
combined forces Sulla conquered Mithridates, 
and then led his forces a second time against 
Rome. The Italian legion summoned to 
oppose him could not stand against his great 
military talents and veteran soldiers, and at 
Sacriportus, and also at the CoUine Gate they 
were cut to pieces. For the second time 
Sulla had conquered Rome. The nobility 
received Sulla with mingled feelings of exul- 
tation, fear, and admiration, but even they 
were horror-stricken at the deluge of blood 
which he caused to be shed. On the morning 
after the battle at the Colline Gate 8,000 
prisoners were killed. When the affrighted 
senators asked him what meant the outcries 
they heard without their place of assembly, 
he replied coolly — - 

" It is only some rascals whom I have com- 
manded to be chastised." 

The Roman Reign of Terror. 
Day followed day, and the bloody massacre 
continued. It was a Roman Reign of Terror, 
far surpassing in horror, in unbridled savagery 



295 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY 



and licentiousness the horrors of the great 
French Revolution which followed it after 
many centuries. Many a private grudge 
was gratified, and many a private vengeance 
wreaked under guise of the political neces- 
sity. Marius Gratidian, a young relation of 
the great Marius, was murdered with the 
most revolting torture, and his bloody head 
was placed on Sulla's banquet table. The 
corpse of the great Marius was taken from 
its sepulchre and thrown into the Tiber. 
This was a greater outrage than ever before 
had been attempted in the contests of the 
Romans. The desecration of funeral rites 
was in their eyes a terrible impiety. 

This authorised system of murder continued 
for several months, and the favourites of Sulla 
made a lucrative trade out of selling the right 
to proscribe persons, as the individuals who 
thus proscribed another obtained his posses- 
sions ; so one man was killed for his baths, 
another for his farm, and so forth. It is re- 
corded that one unfortunate man, when one 
day examining the proscription-lists for idle 
curiosity, saw with surprise and alarm his 
own name placed thereon. "My Alban farm 
has killed me !" he exclaimed in horror, and 
even then his murderers smote him. 

Sulla heaped favour upon his partizans. To 
Catiline, a man of as great debauchery as 
himself, he gave excessive wealth. Crassus 
also now laid the foundation of that enormous 
wealth which afterwards earned him the 
questionable renown of being the richest of 
Romans. 

Caius Julius C^sar. 

Among the witnesses of these terrible 
doings there was one young man who laid 
up their teachings in his heart, and made his 
life-plans accordingly. Caius Julius Ccesar, 
destined to become the greatest leader of the 
Roman people, and to reduce this terrible 
chaos to something like order, was a young 
man of eighteen when Sulla's Reign of Terror 
was proceeding. Being connected by blood 
with the great Marius, he only very narrowly 
escaped death. Caesar's young wife was a 
relative of Marius, and Sulla desired Cajsar 
to repudiate her. This he stoutly refused to 
do. 

It was determined to assassinate him, when 
suddenly he thwarted the plot by fleeing to 
the Sabine Hills. Assassins followed him, 
while many friends pleaded with Sulla that 
his life should be spared. At length the 
dictator, with prophetic fervour, exclaimed, 
" I spare him ; but, take care, that trifling boy 
will be more dangerous than many Marius's." 

Caesar escaped to the East, where he joined 
in the siege of Mytilene. 

Sulla was now lord of all, and the triumph 
of the nobles was complete. He was the 
dictator of Rome, and Rome was the mistress 



2q6 



of the world. With trembling awe the people 
awaited the announcement of his will. Such 
a spectacle as this would not be lost upon 
such a man as Caesar, who had already shown 
such abilities as to cause Sulla to speak of 
him as he had done. Already in that young 
man's mind there had grown up the idea of 
the course he meant to pursue. Humanly 
speaking, we might say that without Sulla 
Julius Ccesar could not have accomplished 
what he did. 

Sulla proceeded to re-establish the supre- 
macy of the nobles, and on this ground he 
applied for an unlimited dictatorship. 

His aim was to repeal all the popular mea- 
sures of the preceding half century, and to 
lay Rome and the world prostrate at the feet 
of an irresponsible clique of nobles of which 
he was chief The utter prostration of the 
party of Marius enabled him to carry this 
into effect, and the reactionary system of 
Sulla has been called the greatest disaster in 
the history of Rome. Having effected what 
he called "reform," his love of luxury induced 
him to retire into private life— where, sur- 
rounded by buffoons and dancing girls, he 
indulged to the last in sensual excesses. 

About a year afterwards, 78 B.C., he died, 
it is said, of a loathsome disease, caused by 
his long life of debauchery, which bred vermin 
in his body, which no medicine or ablution 
could purge away. 

The Second Civil War. 

With the death of Sulla the last stage in 
the fall of the Republic began. By a violent 
effort Sulla hadrestoredthe government to the 
hands of the nobility, — i.e.^ a group of a 
few hundred families, — but within ten years 
their incapacity to rule was plainly seen. It 
was impossible to restrict to so small a number 
the government, the honours, and emoluments 
of the world. Lepidus, one of the consuls 
who succeeded Sulla, was annoyed that he 
had not received higher rewards from his 
old chief, and attempted to repeal his laws. He 
proclaimed the restoration of the powers 
of the people's tribunes which Sulla had 
curtailed, and revived the popular party 
which the dictator had beaten to the ground. 
He incited the miserable population of 
Etruria to rise against the faction from 
which they had suffered such intolerable 
wrong. The Senate appointed Catullus to 
lead an army to quell the revolt, which was 
soon done. Lepidus escaped to Sardinia, 
where he died shortly afterwards. 

It must not be supposed that Lepidus was 
solely actuated by patriotic motives in thus 
attempting to revive the popular party, and 
redress the people's wrongs. His antece- 
dents, his character, and actions all point 
to the fact that he hoped to attain to the 
power and position that Sulla had wielded, 



CA£SARISM IN ROME. 



and he simply used the democracy for that 
purpose. 

And thenceforth that principle seems to 
have been the dominant one of Roman 
history. It is a record of the desperate 
attempts of desperate men from among the 
nobihty to obtain a dictatorship. 

The senatorial party now placed themselves 
under the leadership of their natural chiefs, 
—Catullus, Lucullus, Servilius, Lentulus, etc., 



of Marius — recovering their strength, he 
Ihrtw himself manfully into their cause, and 
insisted that the trophies of Marius which 
had been displaced by his successful rival 
should be reinstated. 

Very clearly his commanding mind saw 
how things were tending in Rome ; he saw 
the mistaken violence of Sulla; he saw 
how impossible it was that a small clique 
of nobles — themselves split up into rival 




Mark Antony's Oration over Cesar's Corpse [page 302). 



— men of ancient lineage, but poor abilities, 
who by their dense stupidity, selfishness, and 
utter carelessness of the claims of the many 
millions subject to the sway of Rome, helped 
to fan the smoulderingdiscontentof the people 
mto the flames of civil war. 

It was now that the unequalled genius of 
Julius Caesar began to show itseff. After 
serving abroad for some time he returned to 
Rome, and finding his friends — the followers 



factions — could govern, and, imbued with the 
traditions of Marius and Cinna, he aspired 
to rule Rome at the head of the democracy. 
His great rival was Pompey, then the 
greatest man in the Roman Republic, who 
was now in the East, where his conquests 
had been extended so far that he might 
almost consider himself the rival of Alexander. 
Pompey had been one of Sulla's generals. 
At his command he had put away his wife, 



297 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



who was related to Marius, and had married 
as Sulla dictated. Caesar knew well the kind 
of man with whom he had to deal. But Pom- 
pey was now absent from Rome, and Ci^sar 
pushed himself forward into the very front 
rank of the popular party, and struck dismay 
into the hearts of the nobles by calling to 
account the instruments of Sulla's cruelties. 
Everything was prospering with him, when 
suddenly the Catiline conspiracy was dis- 
covered, and the courage with which the 
senate, led by Cicero, defeated it, gave them 
a renewed lease of power. 

The Catiline Conspiracy. 

Sergius Catilina, one of the base creatures 
upon whom Sulla had lavished great favours, 
having failed to be elected to the consulship, 
formed a conspiracy among a number of 
discontented youths, who having lost their 
wealth and position by reason of their own 
excesses or of civil strife, were ripe for 
any wild enterprise. We may suppose that 
their aims were personal rather than political ; 
they longed to get rid of the load of debts 
which weighed them down ; they yearned to 
divide the public offices and emoluments 
among themselves ; they looked for support 
to the cut-throats of Aie city ; they expected 
the assistance of old disbanded soldiers, who 
having squandered their spoils were ready to 
participate in any enterprise which promised 
more; and, further, some of them would not 
have refused to take advantage of a slave 
insurrection. 

Meanwhile, Catiline, who placed himself at 
the head of this movement, and endeavoured 
to organize it, paced the streets with blood- 
shot eyes and pallid visage, revolving the 
most dreadful schemes of plunder and revo- 
lution. But Fulvia, the mistress of Crassus, 
one of Catihne's confederates, betrayed the 
plot to Cicero, — the"upstart orator," — who by 
the force of his genius had won his way into 
the senate. The nobles, knowing his great 
abilities, and determining to play on his 
vanity for their own ends, had allowed him 
to be elected consul. He had suspected the 
conspiracy for a long time, and by his instruc- 
tions Fulvia obtained from her paramour all 
the particulars of the plot. 

He was obliged to proceed with the greatest 
circumspection, for the plot included scions 
of the noblest houses ; but in the meantime 
the conspiracy grew. Magazines of arms had 
been collected, various bodies of insurgents 
were arrayed to march against the city from 
different points at a given signal, and arrange- 
ments had been made to fire it in a hundred 
places. 

The Greatest Crisis in the History 
OF Rome. 
Cicero was equal to the occasion. Certain 



troops arriving from the East were sent 
against various insurrectionary movements in 
the neighbourhood, and the great orator 
summoning the senators, of whom Catiline 
was one, denounced him before them all 
in the famous speech, which is known as 
" Cice^'d's First Oration against Catiline "y of 
which these areafewof the opening sentences, 
*" How long then, oh, Catilina, how long will 
you abuse our patience ? What ! are you 
quite unmoved by the guard which keeps 
night-watch on the Palatine, by the patrols 
of the city ? . . . Think you that all your 
schemes are not open to us as the day ? . . . 
The senate knows them, the consul sees 
them, and the man still lives ! Lives, do I 
say? — Aye, lives, and comes here into the 
midst of us to join in our counsels, and to 
mark us one by one for murder. And yet 
we, into whose hands has been placed the 
sword of Scipio, of Opimius, of Ahala, still 
suffer it to sleep in its scabbard ! . . . Yes, 
I still wait, I still delay ; for I wish you not 
to* perish till you cease to find a citizen so 
perverse as to excuse or defend you. Then, 
and not till then, the sword shall descend 
upon you. Meantime, live as you now live, 
tracked by enemies and surrounded by sol- 
diers. . . . Renounce, then, your designs, 
for they are discovered and frustrated. . . . 
I track your deeds, I follow your steps, I 
know your very thoughts. ... I know the 
men you mean to murder me. ... I exhort 
you to go from this city. Go where your 
armed ruffians await you. . . . Make war 
against your country. You have determined 
to do this ; the day is fixed, and every 
arrangement made." . . . Then turning to 
the senate Cicero explained the meaning of 
this harangue. 

This speech completely turned the tide of 
affairs, and roused the senate to the deepest 
indignation. Catiline essayed to speak, but 
finally he fled precipitately, frightened by 
the shouts of execration which greeted him. 
But as he fled he shouted, " I will hide the 
burning of my own house in the wreck of the 
city." He left Rome, and placed himself at 
the head of his insurgents, and died in battle 
against the troops sent by the senate to quell 
his insurrection. 

Cicero, dazzled by the splendour of his 
success, and excited by the flatteries of the 
nobles he had saved, lent himself to acts 
of cruelty against many persons who were 
only supposed to have been connected with 
the conspiracy. These presumed asso- 
ciates were strangled in prison without trial, 
and once more the arbitrary power of the 
irresponsible chque of nobles was supreme. 
But he was never forgiven the assumption of 
superiority he took up, and it was not the 



* Merivale. 



298 



CJLSARISM IN ROME. 



senate alone that was irritated at his remark, 
" I am the Saviour of Rome; I am the Father 
of my country." 

But what a terrible satire upon the 
triumphs of Pompey in the East, was the 
state of things in Rome which the con- 
spiracy revealed. Had it succeeded, the 
city would have been at the mercy of a set 
of aristocratic young bravos and cut-throats ; 
like a foul ulcer upon fair flesh, it revealed the 
corruption which lay within, hidden beneath 
the showy pomps of Roman conquests. 

The First Triumvirate. 

But though the sharp suppression of the 
conspiracy gave a longer lease of power to 
the senate, it was but for a short time, and 
the next feature to notice is the paralysis of 
the power of the senate— that board of govern- 
ment which for so many years had been the 
mightiest power in the world. Rent by 
wretched jealousies, and torn by contention 
as to who should obtain the highest magis- 
tracy, it did nothing but feebly squabble or 
attempt to frustrate the purposes of men 
whom it disliked. 

Meantime, Caesar, whose schemes had been 
somewhat thwarted by the conspiracy, forced 
himself again to the front. While the nobles 
had been contending among themselves, he ; 
obtained the preetorship, the second rank in 
the scale of office, and in the year 60 B.C. he 
went forth to gain his first laurels as com- 
mander in the war with Spain. 

Pompey, returning from his arduous 
struggles in the East, found that his popu- 
larity had considerably waned with the senate. 
They refused to accord him the honour 
of a triumph, or to ratify his treaties and 
political arrangements in the East. Further, 
they were jealous, and afraid of his power 
with his large army. He could get no satis- 
faction until he had formed a coalition with 
Crassus and Caesar, — when he returned 
from Spain to sue for the consulship. This 
coalition is known as the First Triumvirate, 
and the immediate result of the compact was, 
that secretly supported by the influence of 
Pompey and the g'old of Crassus, and borne 
on the tide of his own popularity, Caesar 
was elected consul by loud acclamations. Pie 
soon marked his accession to power by pro- 
posing and passing certain popular laws, 
which tended to increase the supply and lower 
the price of corn, and to limit the excessive 
accjuirement of land by the nobles. It was in 
vain that Bibulus, his colleague, endeavoured 
to oppose these laws. Ceesar was successful in 
every respect ; and when his year of office had 
expired, and he had carried his war against 
the senate to the utmost limits of the law, he 
caused Pompey and Crassus to be appointed 
consuls in his stead, and himself to be de- 



puted dictator for five years of the western 
army, and pro-consul of Gaul. 

In this distant country he was beyond the 
reach of the enmity of the nobles, but yet 
could keep himself informed of all that trans- 
pired within the city. As a dictator of the 
army he was compelled by the laws to keep 
without the gates of Rome while retaining 
his command, and therefore every rainy sea- 
son he repaired to Lucca, the nearest point 
on the frontier, there to consult with his friends 
on the measures likely to lead to the bene- 
fit of himself and his party ; among other 
things it was arranged that Pompey should 
be appointed pro-consul of Africa and Spain, 
and Crassus dictator in Syria, and that 
Cesar's command should be extended for 
another five years after the expiration of his 
first term of office. 

But the bands which had held together 
this political union between Ceesar, Pompey, 
and Crassus were being gradually loosened. 
Ccesar had married his daughter Julia to 
Pompey — although he was older than Csesar 
himself — in order to cement the union, and 
that he might work on the selfish old man 
through his wife ; but in the year 54 B.C. she 
died, and Csesar lost a great part of his 
influence over him. The senate, too, began 
to play off one against the other, and to 
take advantage of his absence to flatter 
Pompey. On the occurrence of a scarcity in 
the city they conferred upon him extraordi- 
nary power to preserve the people from 
famine. Crassus failed in Syria, and the 
Parthians, against whom he led his army, 
obtained a decisive victory over the Romans 
at the terrible battle of Charrhte. Crassus 
was slain, and the remnant of his army 
brought back by the ablest of his lieutenants. 

The Contest between C^sar and 
Pompey. 

This breaking, by death, of the triple league 
between the three great pro-consuls was an 
opportunity for the senate, and they saw it. 
They recommenced their overtures to Pom- 
pey, — who still remained in Rome, and 
governed his provinces by means of lieu- 
tenants, — and granted him the distinction of 
a dictatorship over Rome itself for six months. 

Pompey, too, was now terribly jealous of 
his great colleague. Caesar was not the 
dissipated spendthrift he had once imagined 
him to be, and instead of being the prop to 
his power, Pompey found that he had be- 
come a serious rival, and the most successful 
and popular of public men. 

Ccesar had indeed achieved remarkable 
and brilliant success. The rebellious Gauls 
had been tamed into complete submission, 
and were now the most contented and valu- 
able of the Roman allies. The barbarians 
of Britain had also been brought under the 



299 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



sway of the Republic, and before his second 
term of office as dictator had expired, he had 
most successfully accomplished the task that 
he had undertaken. He determined therefore 
to return to Rome, and apply for the consul- 
ship a second time, as he was now quite 
justified in doing. 

The senate, with Pompey at their head, — 
for he had now quite thrown in his lot with 
the nobles, — endeavoured by all means in 
their power to prevent his return, and at last 
they boldly commanded him to relinquish his 
dictatorship of the army. He retorted that 
Pompey,- — who at that time held command 
of all the troops in Spain,— while still residing 
in Rome, should also give up command of 
his army. But this Pompey stoutly refused 
to do, although the opposition he offered to 
Caesar was in direct contravention of their 
preconcerted plans, for before the death of 
Crassus it had been arranged by the triumvi- 
rate that Cccsar should be consul again in 
48 B.C. 

This last action of Pompey's made it clear 
to Cassar that he must regard Pompey as an 
enemy. He knew, moreover, how cordially 
the senate hated him, and how strong was 
the opposition arrayed against him, and that 
£0 show himself in Rome without his army 
would be but to court assassination. Still 
further, he saw how incapable the senate 
were of government. A selfish, careless, cor- 
rupt, and worn-out body, their only idea of 
I'uling was to crush the people beneath a 
grinding tyranny, which must eventually 
cause the commons to rise in rebellion, and 
open the city to the inroads of rough bar- 
barians, as had previously been the case. He 
saw that the conquests ofthe city had become 
so large, that there was imminent danger of 
the genuine Roman race being overcome by 
its alien subjects ; and that by reason of 
internecine strife there was a great risk ofthe 
gigantic commonwealth breaking up into 
numerous states by reason of its own weight. 
He therefore conceived the grand idea of 
crushing all rival factions, of fusing all sepa- 
rate interests, and of moulding the mighty 
mass of alien subjects into one people, 
obedient to the sway of one man, and that 
man — himself The people were powerless 
to govern themselves, the aristocrats were too 
corrupt and divided. The only strength in 
Rome was the army, and of the best part of 
that army Ceesar was dictator. It was indeed 
Aut CcFsar, ant inilhis — Either Caesar, or 
Nothing. 

CiESAR Crosses the Rubicon. 
Csesar moved slowly towards Italy at the 
head of his exultant and well-trained army. 
His soldiers regarded him almost as a god, 
and he knew that he could rely upon them to 
any extent. It was clear that no union could 



now exist between the Senate led by Pompey 
and himself, and that civil war was imminent. 

Warily he waited for some circumstance 
which should give him the advantage and 
afford him some show of legality, and a brief 
pause ensued in the stern march of events. It 
was but the calm before the storm. 

One night two tribunes ofthe people, who 
had protested in vain against the terrible 
oppressions of the senate, alarmed for their 
own safety, fled from Rome with the news that 
the laws proposed on behalf of the popular 
party had been contemptuously rejected 
(January ist, 49 B.C.), and that Cassar was to 
be compelled to resign his office. 

Then Csesar struck — sharply and well. 
With lightning-like speed he crossed the 
Rubicon,- — the small stream forming the fron- 
tier ov^erwhich a dictator might not legally pass 
with his army, — and marched towards Rome. 
The senate and Pompey were dismayed, 
and fled, vainly protesting. Csesar knew 
now that hesitation would be fatal, and it is 
said that as his horse stepped out of the 
stream on to the soil of Italy, he exclaimed, 
J act a est a lea, The die is cast. Either 
the shadowy senate, or Cccsar, must reign. 

The dictator was careful to assume the 
appearance of legality, and he proclaimed 
that he entered Italy with his army to vindi- 
cate the law. On his way to Rome he 
garrisoned city after city, and rendered the 
whole population subject to himself This 
was not difficult for him to accomplish, for on 
every hand the people rose to welcome him 
as their deliverer from the oppression of the 
cruel aristocracy which had ground them 
down so long. 

Then when he had secured the provinces 
he turned his steps to the Tiber city, where a 
joyful people received him with acclamations. 

From the remnant of the nobles who re- 
mained in Rome he summoned a senate; he 
seized the treasures of the State, and with 
politic clemency proclaimed an amnesty to 
all nobles who would unite with him, and 
denounced the fallen government as traitors 
and rebels. 

The Beginning of the End. 

But Pompey, although fallen, was not 
beaten, and he was now collecting a large 
army from his veteran soldiers in the East, 
who had enabled him to win such magnificent 
victories in Greece and Asia. Still further, 
Spain was garrisoned with his troops, and by 
his command they marched against Gaul. 

Ccesar, therefore, swiftly crossed the 
Pyrenees, and attacked Pompey's lieutenants 
in Spain. Obtaining several signal victories 
over them he quickly returned to Rome, and 
announced himself guardian of the state 
against all enemies. Joyfully the people 
granted him the dictatorship of the state 



300 



C.SSARISM IN ROME. 



as well as of the army, and he prepared to 
finally crush his great rival. 

Pompey had now collected together a large 
army in Epirus, and had taken up a strong 
position on the coast. Caesar therefore 
gathered all his forces for a final struggle. 
His weakness lay in want of ships. Pompey 
had still command of the sea and a superior 
fleet, and in the first engagement Caesar was 
repulsed with loss. He then boldly dashed 
into Thessaly in the very centre of the enemy's 
country, hoping to draw Pompey from his 
strong position. 

In this he was successful. The followers 
of Pompey elated with their success against 
the great Caesar insisted on their leader 
following him. The old general, the hero of 
a hundred fights, hesitated, but the tempta- 
tion was too strong; he panted to crush like 
a nutshell this upstart Caesar, this former 
"tool" of his, as he had fondly and foolishly 
hoped he was. His forces doubled those of 
Caesar, why not venture ? So he yielded. 
The armies met on the plains of Pharsalia, 
and a long and sanguinary struggle ensued, 
which ended in the complete rout of Pom- 
pey's army. The old general fled to Lesbos, 
and the members of the senate with him 
were either scattered or slain, and its power 
as a governing body was completely broken. 

Pompey finding that he was pursued by 
Csesar escaped from Lesbos, thence to 
Cyprus, and finally to Egypt. He was trea- 
cherously murdered by Lucius Septimius as 
he was landing from a boat to the Egyptian 
shore, and his head was sent to Caesar in 
triumph. It is stated that his assassination 
was ordered by Ptolemy, the young King of 
Egypt, who hoped thereby to obtain favour 
with the all-conquering Cassar. In this he 
was mistaken; the dictator shed tears when 
the ghastly gift was brought him. He erected 
a temple to the memory of his great rival, and 
punished his murderers. 

Although the form of government was still 
a Republic, the spirit had departed, and every- 
thing depended on the will of Cssar. After 
settling various disputes and rebellions in the 
East, and remaining in Egypt fascinated by 
the charms of Cleopatra, he returned to 
Rome, where the people eagerly welcomed 
him, and again made him dictator. The 
greater number of the nobles made their 
submission, and Csesar treated them with 
great clemency. A remnant fled to Africa, 
and under the indomitable Cato still stood 
out for the oligarchy at Utica. Had they 
possessed means, money, and wisdom, they 
might have greatly embarrassed Cassar when 
he was engaged in quelling disturbances 
in the East. But they allowed the opportu- 
nity to slip, and Csesar continued his conquer- 
ing course. 

At the [battle of Thapsus, B.C. 46, Cato's 



troops were completely overthrown, and the 
rout of the senatorial party was complete. 
Cato, recommending his followers to yield to 
the clemency of the dictator, escaped the 
field of battle, only to throw himself on his 
sword. 

All Caesar's opponents being now over- 
thrown he returned once more to Rome, to 
find himself the undisputed dictator of the 
world. True, all the old forms of government 
were to be continued, yet those forms were 
subject to his will. He was made consul for 
five years, dictator for one year, and after- 
wards for life, tribune of the people, and 
empowered to make peace or war at his will. 
He was also declared imperator, or com- 
mander-in-chief of the army, and his word 
was law. 

The founders of the constitution had pro- 
vided for the creation of a dictator — i.e., an 
autocratic ruler — in times of peril, but they 
never seemed to have thought that there 
might come a time when the dictator would 
be consul, praetor, and tribune at the 
same time, and roll into one person all 
the offices and dignities of the state ; yet 
this was now the case, and this initial mis- 
take in the Republican constitution of allow- 
ing a dictator to be at any time appointed,, 
completed its ruin. Ctesar was not therefore 
roughly violating any law of the state in what 
he had done, and we must not regard him as 
an ambitious autocrat riding rough-shod over 
the liberties of the people. He drove away a 
cruel oligarchy which was more oppressive 
and tyrannical than any king, and, according 
to the law, accepted a dictatorship granted 
him by the people. The difference was that 
/lis dictatorship was now for life, and in 
Rome itself, whereas others had been for a 
term only, and had expired when, with their 
army, they returned to Rome. The title he 
took, " Imperator," which was now impressed 
on the coinage of the time, intimated as 
much, and it also signified the rule of the 
sword, which was now indeed the dominant 
power in Rome. The Republic had ruled 
others by the sword, and it was now ruled by 
the sword itself. 

CESAR'S Laws and Policy. 
The dictator consolidated his power by 
wise laws. He suffered no unjust punish- 
ments, briberies, or confiscations, and the 
populace soon felt the benefit of his mild and 
equable rule. He also built temples and 
restored cities; he codified the laws of the 
Republic, and projected a complete survey 
of Italy and the provinces; while last, but not 
least, he rectified the calendar which has 
lasted to our own day, with but a few trifling 
alterations, and is now used all over Europe. 
His object was to mould the whole of the 
conquered peoples into one empire of uniform 



301 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



laws and customs, therefore he opened the 
senate to chiefs from Gaul and Africa. Cleo- 
patra, the beautiful Egyptian princess, was 
given a Roman palace, and it was said that 
he intended to marry her. He conferred the 
citizenship on the whole of the Cisalpine 
population, and men of strange manners and 
uncouth mien now mingled largely with the 
genuine Romans in the Roman streets. 

Unfortunately he now suffered his vanity to 
overrule his reason, and allowed his better 
judgment to be warped by the flatteries of 
his friends. He permitted himself to be 
worshipped as a divinity, and favoured the 
designs of his flatterers who wished to crown 
him king. 

So it came to pass that Rome became filled 
with rumours that Caesar desired the diadem, 
and not satisfied with being dictator for life 
wished to be crowned king — a name hateful 
beyond all others to Roman ears. And so it 
happened that at the feast of the Lupercalia, 
Antony thrice offered him the diadem, and 
the scene was enacted which we have en- 
deavoured to describe at the opening of this 
paper. But there were discontented repub- 
licans who looked with suspicion on Cesar's 
proceedings, and they hatched the conspiracy, 
the members of which stabbed the dictator 
in the senate house. It is said that only one 
of their number, Brutus, acted from really 
pure and disinterested motives. 

When the deed was done, and Rome was for 
the time without a leader, Cicero — who had 
accepted the supremacy of the dictator with 
the resignation of a wise philosopher, because 
he saw that it was futile to fight against the 
inevitable — joined the band of pseudo-patriots 
and repaired to the Capitol, whither they went 
to justify their crime to the people. 

If they had truly been the patriots that 
they styled themselves, and had listened to 
his advice, new life might have been breathed 
into the forms of the Republic, and at this 
crisis the empire which Csesar had esta- 
blished might have been overturned in its 
infancy. But they were led away by this 
skilful cajolery of Mark Antony, who ob- 
tained permission to celebrate Csesar's obse- 
quies in public, and on the day of the funeral 
delivered such a soul-stirring oration, that 
the populace were entirely swayed over to the 
side of Ceesarism, and had not the conspira- 
tors fled, there in great reason to believe that 
not one would have been left alive. 

The Second Triumvirate. 
The period following the murder of Caesar 
was occupied with the intrigues of Antony 
and " young Octavius," the nephew of Caesar, 
who had been adopted by the dictator as his 
son. He was at this time only a young man 
of nineteen, but he made friends with Cicero, 
even as Antony had cajoled the other con- 



spirators, and made a bold bid for the place 
and power of his kinsman. 

Popular feeling was so strong against the 
conspirators that most of them found it 
advisable to escape from the city, and Brutus 
and Cassius, the two principal members, re- 
tired to Syria. The field, therefore, was far 
more open for the machinations of Octa\'ius 
than might at first be supposed. Moreover, 
he was great Caesar's heir, and he demanded 
the restitution of his inheritance from Antony, 
who had in the meantime possessed himself 
of it. 

Antony collected some troops together 
and retired to the Cisalpine, while the senate, 
impelled by the philippics of Cicero, sent out 
an army under two consuls to crush him. 
Octavius also led an army ostensibly against 
Antony and in support of the senate, but 
really to watch events. In the battle which 
ensued Antony was routed, but the consuls 
were slain. Thereupon Octavius swiftly 
united himself to Antony, and these two 
again made a coalition with the third division 
of Caesar's troops under Lepidus, and the 
three leaders agreed to share the government 
between them. 

This compact is known as "The Second 
Triumvii-ate," and thus it came to pass that 
after Caesar s death Caesar's government was 
carried on by his friend and co-consul Mark 
Antony, his nephew Octavius, and his lieu- 
tenant Lepidus, backed up by his army. The 
senate and the citizens were alike ignored. 

Proscriptions and Assassinations; 
The Plains of Philippi. 

The firstfruits of this triumvirate were the 
slaughter of some thousands of persons — 
senators and citizens — whom the triumvirs 
thought likely to thwart their plans. As- 
sassins were hired to carry out these edicts 
of execution, and again the streets of Rome 
ran blood" Among others the noble orator 
and eloquent patriot, Cicero, who was indeed 
one of the fathers of his country, and had 
saved her in the time of the Catiline con- 
spiracy, put off his escape until too late, and 
was treacherously slain. And as he fell, so 
fell other patriots. 

Having waded to their chairs of state 
through a sea of blood, the triumvirs now 
bethought them of the conspirators who had 
fled to Syria. During the time which had 
elapsed since the death of Caesar, Brutus and 
Cassius had collected a formidable force in 
the East, and as the troops of the triumvirs 
drew near it seemed doubtful how the day 
would go. 

Brutus, it is said, was much disturbed in 
mind, and afflicted with doubts as to the 
wisdom and justifiability of his action in the 
murder of Caesar. He was anxious either to 



302 



CyESARISM IN ROME. 



gain a great triumph and free Rome from 
the usurpers, or to be' himself slain. 

The two armies met on the plains of Phi- 
iippi, and the legions under the command 
of Cassius having suffered defeat, he threw 
himself on his sword rather than yield himself 
up as a prisoner. Brutus had been more 
successful, but finding himself now sole com- 
mander he drew off his forces. The trium- 
virs, were, however, but badly off for food, 
and if Brutus had been content to wait his 
opportunity his opponents might have been 
forced by famine to retreat ; but some twenty 
days later he offered battle and suffered a 
signal defeat, which he rendered irrecover- 
able by killing himself. His followers were 
now completely broken, and although some 
escaped and joined themselves to Sextus, son 
of Pompey, the republican party never made 
another effort. The plains of Philippi wit- 
nessed their last wild stand. 

The Fall of the Triumvirate ; 
Augustus Emperor. 

After the battle of Philippi, Octavius retired 
to Rome, where he governed the city and 
Italian provinces with a degree of wisdom and 
self-control that gained him great favour. 
Antony, according to arrangement, governed 
the East, while Lepidus held command of 
Gaul. 

The fascinating and wily Cleopatra, Queen 
of Egypt, remembering how successful she 
had been with the great Caesar, now set to 
work to ingratiate herself with Caesar's eastern 
successor ; and so successful was she, that 
before long she had him completely in her 
toils. He took up his abode on the banks of 
the Nile, and neglecting the affairs of state, 
yielded himself up entirely to a life of easy 
indulgence. 

His long-announced expedition against the 
Parthians ended in disaster, and great dis- 
gust at his worthless rule began to spread 
amongst his followers. Reports reached Rome 
that Roman rule in the East was becoming 
weakened, that Antony had masqued as an 
Egyptian god, and last, but not least, that he 
was preparing a terrible attack on the Tiber 
city itself, with intent to rule as its king, and 
make his mistress Cleopatra its queen. 

This was Octavius' opportunity, and he 
took it. Coming forward as the saviour of 
the state, he led a magnificent army across 
the Adriatic to vindicate the rule of Rome. 
Antony had not been idle, and had collected 
many troops and ships, and if Cleopatra 
had not acted treacherously the issue of the 
struggle would have been very doubtful. 
But when the first battle was fought between 
the opposing fleets off the promontory of 
Actium, she, fearing that Octavius would gain 
the day, suddenly gave her own ships the 
signal of retreat, and with them retired to 



Alexandria. Antony, forgetful alike of honour 
and of the danger of defeat, fled after her, 
leaving his ships and soldiers to their fate. The 
ships were for the most part destroyed, but 
his soldiers, disgusted with the conduct of 
their leader, surrendered en masse to the 
conquering Octavius. The whole military 
force was now in the hands of Octavius, who 
pushed on promptly for Alexandria. 

The treacherous Cleopatra opened the gates 
of her city to the young Roman without a 
blow, and Antony, in a paroxysm of rage, 
threatened to kill her. She shut herself up 
in a tower, and sent word that she should slay 
herself, and that before he received the mes- 
sage she would be dead. The besotted Roman 
then accused himself of causing her death ; 
and seeing now that his rival was completely 
his conqueror, and that his mistress was dead, 
he resolved, too, to quit the world. Stabbing 
himself he besought her attendants to carry 
his body and place it beside hers. They 
did so, and the artful Cleopatra witnessed his 
death in her chamber. Having thus got quit 
of the old love she endeavoured to be " on 
with the new " ; and brought all her power of 
blandishment to bear on the young Octavius. 
She had ensnared Caesar and Antony ; this 
young man would prove an easy conquest ; 
she might yet save her own kingdom, and 
indeed, rule the world from the Capitol of 
Rome. But when in her presence the youth- 
ful conqueror resolutely turned his eyes from 
her ; and not only did he demand her rich 
kingdom of Egypt, but also declared his 
intention of exhibiting her as his captive to 
the citizens of Rome when he celebrated 
his triumphal entry into the imperial city. 

To this the haughty Cleopatra offered in- 
dignantly a scornful refusal, but in vain ; and 
rather than yield she determined to die. She 
was guarded day and night, for the young 
Octavius counted greatlyupon herappearance 
in his triumph; but she contrived to get an 
asp conveyed to her in a basket of fruit, and 
caused the poisonous reptile to sting her arm, 
and thus perished. 

The entire control of the army and of the 
Roman Empire had now passed into the 
hands of Octavius ; for Lepidus, who had held 
command of Gaul, had rashly committed an 
act of hostility against the governor of Rome 
who thereupon had promptly marched an army 
against him and defeated him. When, there- 
fore, Octavius returned to Rome, and had 
entered the city at the head of his army, he 
evaded the law, — which provided that every 
dictator should disband his forces and resign 
his title on his return home, — and remained 
the commander-in-chief even as his uncle the 
great Csesar had done. Thenceforward he 
set himself to consolidate the empire as his 
uncle had left it. He acted, however, with 
great prudence and circumspection, and as- 

303 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



cended to absolute autocratic rule slowly and 
by degrees. He resolutely refused to have 
aught to do with titles of" king " or " dicta- 
tor," and invented a new title for himself, 
" Augustus," " the most sacred one " ; and 
as Augustus Csesar he is known to this day. 

His reign was a brilliant one. As his 
uncle had done, he devoted himself to the 
consolidation and improvement of the em- 
pire, to a just administration of the laws, 
and to a binding together of the subject 
peoples into one common nationality. He 
spent large sums on the embellishment of 
Rome, and so beautified the city that the 
proverb arose, " Augustus found Rome brick 
and left it marble." On every side he raised 
a fabric of material prosperity, and, cheated 
by this, the stubborn Romans forgot their 
ancient freedom. 

Henceforth their history was continued 
under the reigns of sixty Caesars, who for 
the most part were voluptuous loungers or 
wretched despots. Only a few exhibited any 
approach to the wisdom and genius of the 
great man, — the foremost man of all the world, 
— as Shakespeare calls him, who moulded 
that mighty mass of jarring discords into 
one empire. Crushed under the iron heel of 
an absolute despotism, the sighs and cries of 
the people for freedom were lost amid the 
intrigues of autocrats and stifled by the over- 
whelming force of an omnipotent army. But 
the cruelties which once the nobles had visited 
on the people were now visited on them- 
selves. The Emperor, as chief of the army, 
caused every one to be subservient to his 
will, and Csesarism — government by brute 
force — reigned supreme. 

Influence of C^sarism on the 

World. 
Thus closed that memorable epoch — an 
epoch of a hundred years — when the Republic 
of Rome fell into fragments, and the empire 



rose on its ruins. It fell because of its inter- 
nal corruption and faulty construction : it was 
no longer a Republic as we understand the 
word, but an aristocratic commonwealth — a 
discordant oligarchy in which absolute power 
was usurped by a few ; and the people gladly 
welcomed the rest afforded by the wise sway 
of a moderate and discreet man of command- 
ing genius, after a century of misrule by a 
clique of wicked nobles — a century of inter- 
necine strife and sanguinary struggles, in 
which they were always sacrificed to the 
selfish amis of opposing parties. 

Of all periods of long-past history, this 
epoch is one of the most important and in- 
structive, for it has influenced the character 
of European civilization even to the present 
day. Forgetful of the pecuhar circumstances 
of the time, and forgetful also of the trans- 
cendent genius of Caesar, there have been 
men who have been misled by his success, 
and endeavoured to walk in his steps. Even 
now there are some among us, as well as 
on the Continent, who point admiringly to 
the triumph of Cassarism, and proclaim it the 
form of government which is wisest and best. 
But when it is shorn of its splendours, 
Ccesarism is seen to be simply the govern- 
ment of a mighty mass of people by brute 
force, directed by the commanding genius of 
one man, and that man the dictator of the 
democracy rather than the nominee of proud 
patricians, or the hereditary ruler of a reign- 
ing house. And however necessary such a 
government may have been in the epoch 
which we have attempted to describe, the 
true lesson to be learned therefrom is that, 
in free self-government alone, where each 
estate in the realm exerts its own legitimate 
power and influence, is that happiness of the 
people to be found which affords the best 
safeguard of a prosperous and well-established 
state. 

F. M. H. 




304 




The English Hoof on Irish Soil. 



STRONGBOW AND KING DERMOT 

THE STORY OF THE CONQUEST OF IRELAND. 



The Land of Continual War — The Holy Angel's Communication and St. Bridget— The Native Kings of Ireland— Hungry 
Looks from England— Henry the Se:ond's Scheme, and Appeal to the Pope— The Irish Church- Kin^^ Dermot and 
the Lady Devorgoil— Giraldiis Cambrensis and his Opinion of Women— A Papal Bull— Flight of King Dermot to 
England— Strongbow and other Soldiers of Fortune— Siege of Wexford — A Kingly Cannibal— Normans and Natives 
— Massacre and Marriage— King Roderic and the Invaders — Strongbow King of Leinster — King Henry interferes^ 
A Royal Visit — "More Irish than the Irish "—Appeal to the Bruces of Scotland— The Statutes of Kilkenny — 
Poyning's Law and " the Pale" — Rule of the Tudors— Terrible Condition of the Native Irish— Absenteeism— Pro- 
jects for Reforming the Irish Church— A Reign of Terror— The Plantation of Ulster— The Irish Society of London — 
The Curse of Cromwell— Boyne Water and the Siege of Limerick — The Treaty of Limerick — A Policy of Oppression. 



The Land of Strife. 
|N abojk entitled De Salute Popitli^ 
the author of v/hich, an Irishman, 
who styled himself " Panderus," 
lived in the early part of the six- 
teenth centurv, it is related that the good 




St. Brigetta, or Bridget, was told by " her 
holy angel," that there was a land in the west 
part of the world where most souls were lost, 
"for there is most continual war, root of hate 
and envy, and of vices contrary to charity, 
and without charity the souls cannot be 



305 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



saved." The opinion of the author of the I 
book was that Ireland was the land that the i 
angel meant, " for there is no land in the | 
world of so continual war ; nor of so great j 
shedding of Christian blood ; nor of so great I 
robbery, spoiling, preying, and burning ; nor ; 
of so great wrongful extortion continually, as \ 
Ireland." 1 

When these words were written, Ireland 
had been for more than three centuries 
nominally subject to the kings of England, 
the dominant landholders were of English 
descent, and the common law of England 
was presumably the law of the Green Island. 
Mr. Froude, referring to the passage quoted 
above, says, with apparent justice, " The 
Pander's satire upon the English enterprise 
is a heavy one." 

Augustin Thierry, the historian of the 
Norman Conquest in England, traced by the 
aid of extensive knowledge, and with a strong 
sympathy, the story of the Norman-English 
conquest of Ireland. He says, " The con- 
quest of Ireland by the Anglo-Normans is 
perhaps the only one that, after the first 
disasters which all conquests necessarily 
entail, has not, in the slow and imperceptible 
progress of events, been succeeded by a 
gradual amelioration in the social condition 
of the conquered people. . . . The sad and 
singular fate which weighs alike upon the old 
and the new inhabitants of the isle of Erin, 
has for its cause the vicinity of England, and 
the influence which its government has con- 
tinually exercised, since the conquest, over 
the internal affairs of that country." 

The Native Kings of Ireland. 

Ireland, like England, had struggled 
bravely, and in the end successfully, against 
the invasions of the Scandinavian sea-kings, 
before the Norsemen, the Normans of his- 
tory, established a sovereignty in England. 
There was friendship between some of the 
famous Saxon leaders and the Irish princes. 
When the sons of the great Earl Godwin 
unsuccessfully rebelled against Edward the 
Confessor, Harold, the second son, took 
refuge in Ireland, with his brother-in-law, 
Donough, King of Munster, who had married 
Driella, sister of Harold. This Donough 
was the son of Brian Boru, the warrior king 
celebrated in song and history in connection 
with the defeat of the Danes at Clontarf ; 
and after the death of Malachy, who wore, 
as Tom Moore reminds us, " the collar of 
gold," and was the last crowned King of 
Ireland, Donough assumed the title and 
claimed to exercise the power of Ard-righ, 
or King of all Ireland, having, in accordance 
with a policy not limited to those days, 
brought about the murder of his brother, 
Teigue, who had a superior claim. 

The island was then divided into five 



306 



kingdoms — Ulster, Leinster, Meath, Con- 
naught, and Munster. The Ard-righ, or 
chief monarch, possessed the central district 
of Meath, and usually resided at a place 
which has served as the rallying-point of 
Irish nationality even in our own times — 
Tara, or the hill of Teamhair, where, in the 
great hall of the palace of King Cormac, the 
semi-legendary monarch of the fourth cen- 
tury, a hundred and fifty warriors stood in 
the King's presence when he feasted, and a 
hundred and fifty cupbearers handed the 
guests cups of silver and gold ; and where,, 
too, bards of marvellous poetic powers played 
on "the harp which once in Tara's halls its 
soul of music shed." For twenty years after 
the death of Malachy, the kingdom of Meath 
was governed by two " wise men," Cuan 
O'Lochlann, a poet, and Corcran Cleiveach^ 
described as an anchoret, probably an eccle- 
siastic of ascetic life. King Donough of 
Munster had a formidable rival, as a claim- 
ant to the supreme kingship, in Dermod 
Mac Mael-nambo, King of Leinster, the 
northern portion of the island. The former 
was successful ; but Turlough O'Brien, the 
son of the murdered Teigue, avenged his- 
father's death by attacking and defeating: 
Donough, who went on a pilgrimage to 
Rome to do penance for the fratricide he 
had committed, and there he died. Nine 
years afterwards the King of Leinster was 
killed in battle, and Turlough was recognized 
as King of Ireland. 

Two years after the death of Donough,. 
his brother-in-law, Harold, was defeated at 
Hastings, and the Norman William was 
King of England. How the great conquest 
was achieved and followed up we all know. 
The Saxons were subdued, Norman soldiers 
of fortune became powerful barons, castles 
were erected to overawe the common people, 
and the land of England was parcelled out 
among the followers of the powerful William 
and his immediate successor on the throne. 

Hungry Looks from England. 

It is hardly to be supposed that Ireland, 
so near to England, peopled by a balf-savage 
race, and known to be suffering from internal 
dissensions, caused by the contests of the 
petty kings for supremacy, would be over- 
looked by the ambitious earls and barons, 
accustomed to win wealth and honours by 
the sword, or by the Enghsh monarch, 
trained to believe in the right of conquest. 

Henry the Second, son of the Empress 
Maud and Geoffrey of Anjou, and great- 
grandson of the Conqueror, had been only 
two years on the throne, when he attempted 
to put into execution a scheme which had 
probably been long cherished. As a Christian 
King he felt bound to obtain the sanction of 
the Pope, as head of Christendom ; and 



STRONGBOW AND KING DERMOT. 



Popes, in their political relations, were 
amenable to reason, especially if arguments 
were accompanied by other inducements. 
Pope Adrian IV., Nicholas Breakspeare, an 
Englishman by birth, attained the tiara in 
the same year that Henry ascended the 
English throne, and there had been a great 
interchange of complimentary messages. 
The project for annexing Ireland to England 
was favoured by the papal conclave as a 
means of obtaining greater control over the 
Irish Church. The influence of Rome in 
ecclesiastical matters had been gradually 
developing, several of the bishops having pro- 
fessed unreserved obedience ; lout the clergy 
generally, and with them the greater portion 
of the people, animated by a love of national 
independence, had exhibited a spirit of 
passive resistance to the extension of papal 
influence. Eighty years before, an Irish 
bishop, Patricius, who had been chosen by 
the clergy and the people, and confirmed in 
his office by the king of his province and 
the Ard-righ, or supreme king, had visited 
England for the purpose of being consecrated 
at Canterbury, in obedience to a law of the 
Roman Church, which required that every 
bishop should receive consecration from an 
archbishop decorated with the pallium ; and 
following up this demonstration of submis- 
sion, several Irish bishops accepted the title 
of pontifical legate in Hibernia. 

The Irish Church. 
In mi, St. Celsus, Archbishop of Armagh, 
and Maelmure (the servant of Mary), Arch- 
bishop of Cashel, fifty bishops, three hundred 
priests, and three thousand members of 
religious orders, attended a synod convened 
in Westmeath, for the purpose of reorganiz- 
ing ecclesiastical matters and enforcing 
discipline among the clergy and laity. The 
number of the bishops was reduced to 
twenty-four, and other regulations were 
agreed to. St. Malachy, who succeeded 
Celsus as Archbishop of Armagh, had, while 
Bishop of Down and Connor, made a 
pilgrimage to Rome, and received from 
Innocent II. the appointment of apostolical 
legate ; but his request that the Irish arch- 
bishops might receive the pallium (the vest- 
ment made of the wool of lambs, blessed by 
the Pope on the festival of St. Agnes, and 
rendered more sacred by being deposited on 
the tomb of St. Peter during the eve of his 
festival), and so be pontifically recognized 
in their high office, was refused until the 
pallium was formally asked for by the 
prelates themselves. In 1148, Malachy con- 
vened a great synod, at which, as legate of 
the Holy See, he presided, and at which it 
was decided that he should make another 
attempt to obtain the coveted palliums. 
Pope Eugene III. was then visiting the 



abbey of Clairvaux, in France, wliere St. 
Bernard had established the famous order 
of Bernardine monks. But the Pope had 
quitted Clairvaux before the arrival of 
Malachy, who, a few days afterwards, was 
attacked by a mortal sickness, died, and was 
buried in the abbey. The Pope, however, 
consented to confer the palliums, and in 1151 
sent Cardinal Papirius with them to Ireland, 
and in the following year they were con- 
ferred at the Council of Kells, at Avhich also 
it was decided that the clergy should be 
entitled to tithes. The laity probably cared 
little for the palliums, and, it would seem, 
objected to the tithes, for they were not 
enforced until after the conquest by the 
English. 

King Dermot and the Lady 
Devorgoil. 

In 1 157, Christianus, Bishop of Lismore, 
and the Pope's legate, held a synod attended 
by a large number of bishops, and Murtough 
O'Loughlin, King of Ireland. One of the 
objects of the meeting was the excommunica- 
tion of Donough O'Melaghlin, King of Meath, 
who is described by the historians of the time 
as being " the common pest of the country." 
He had obtained possession of the lands o£ 
Tiernan O'Ruac, or O'Rourke, Prince of 
Brefni, who had married his sister, Devorgoil,. 
or Devorgilla, and being on terms of friend- 
ship with Diarmid (Dermot) MacMurrough, 
King of Leinster, a man ready to commit 
any crime to promote his own interests or - 
pleasures, assisted him in a project, the 
execution of which was, as we shall see, the 
immediate cause of the English invasion. 
The two kings, united in their enmity to- 
wards O'Ruac, planned the abduction of 
Devorgoil (Donough's sister, be it remem- 
bered) by MacMurrough ; and she, worthy 
of her relationship, was a willing accomplice, 
and not only left her husband, but took with 
her in her flight the cattle which had formed 
her dowry. She afterwards returned, and. 
passed forty years in religious seclusion, 
contrition, and penance, devoting her wealth 
to works of charity, and building churches 
and convents. Gerald Barry, better known 
to us by the Latinized form of his name, 
Giraldus Cambrensis, (that is Gerald the 
Welshman,) says of Devorgoil, who has 
been made the subject of many a ballad and 
legend, " By her own procurement and en- 
ticings she became, and would needs be, a 
prey to the preyer ; " adding (we must re- 
member the good chronicler was a celibate 
monk, and probably not without prejudices 
against the " wily sex "), " Such is the 
variable and fickle nature of a woman, by 
whom all mischiefs in the world (for the 
most part) do happen and come." 

The papal hold on the Irish ecclesiastics 



307 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



was increasing, but as yet the temporal 
power of the Pope was very imperfectly 
recognized. The kings were practically 
pagans, whatever their occasional profes- 
sions might be, and kings and people alike 
objected to the interference in temporal 
matters of the Pope. They had their own 
laws, administered by their own Brehons, or 
judges — laws described by Spenser as "a 
rule of right unwritten, but delivered by 
tradition one to another, in which oftentimes 
there appeared great show of equity in deter- 
mining the right between party and party, 
but in many things repugnant quite both to 
God's laws and man's." These laws, origi- 
nally framed at the instigation of St. Patrick, 
and therefore, it may be supposed, not quite 
"repugnant to the laws of God and man," 
for the good saint was a scholar too, helped 
to preserve a spirit of national independence 
which the papal conclave and the Irish eccle- 
siastics perhaps found inconvenient ; and as 
the Papacy has never strongly objected to 
avail itself of the temporal arm, Adrian was 
probably the less unwilling to sanction the 
designs of Henry of England. 

Papal Sanction of the Invasion of 
Ireland, 

The bull asked for was issued ; and, after 
the formal greeting and benediction^ proceeds 
in these terms : — 

" Thou hast communicated unto us, our 
very dear son in Jesus Christ, that thou 
wouldst enter the island of Hibernia, to sub- 
ject that land to obedience to laws, to extir- 
pate the seeds of vice, and also to procure 
the payment there to the blessed apostle 
Peter of the annual tribute of a penny for 
each house. Granting to thee thy laudable 
.and pious desire the favour which it merits, 
we hold it acceptable that, for the extension 
of the limits of the holy Church, the propa- 
gation of the Christian religion, the correction 
of morals, and the sowing the seeds of 
wirtue, thou make thy entrance into that 
island, and there execute at thy discretion 
.whatever thou shalt think proper for the 
thonour of God and the salvation of souls." 
The bull of course concluded with an exhor- 
tation to consider the interests of the Church, 
,and of the religion and morals of the people, 
. and so to order matters generally that " thou 
shalt become worthy of obtaining in heaven 
a reward everlasting, and upon earth a name 
ilkistrious and glorious in all ages." 

The bull has been described as a " a sort 
of decent envelope for a political compact, 
. entirely similar to that of William the Bastard 
with Pope Alexander II. for the invasion of 
England." Henry was willing enough to 
.avail himself of it ; but his quarrels with his 
brother Geoffrey of Anjou, the rivalry of the 
■King of France, and the troubles arising 



from the murder of A'Becket, for a time 
hindered the execution of the project. Be- 
sides, although it was easy enough to plan 
an invasion, it was less easy to find an excuse, 
however bad, for attempting it. The King 
must depend upon his barons for military 
aid ; and those powerful personages were 
not very ready to obey a king or a pope 
either, unless they saw their way to some 
advantage for themselves. 

The results of the abduction of Devorgoil 
by Dermot MacMurrough offered an oppor- 
tunity for English interference. That un- 
principled and cruel King of Leinster, 
familiar with acts of treachery and sacrilege, 
had made himself odious by such acts as 
forcibly carrying away the abbess of Kildare, 
and putting out the eyes of eighteen men of 
noble rank, and of many others too ignoble, 
perhaps, for compassion. He treated the 
unhappy Devorgoil with great harshness 
while she remained with him ; and after he 
had been compelled to give her up, it is not 
surprising that an alliance was formed against 
him, that he was excommunicated by the 
Church, and driven from his dominions. 
Giraldus Cambrensis gives a vivid sketch of 
Dermot, who may, perhaps, be regarded as a 
typical prince of those ferocious and unscru- 
pulous days : " MacMurrough was a tall 
man of stature, and of a large and great 
body ; a valiant and bold warrior in his 
nation ; and by reason of his continual hal- 
looing and crying, his voice was hoarse ; he 
rather chose and desired to be feared than 
to be loved ; a great oppressor of his nobility, 
but a great advancer of the poor and weak." 

King Dermot Flies to England. 

MacMurrough sought refuge in England 
in 1168, hoping to find the King at Bristol, 
and to ask his assistance in recovering his 
kingdom. But Henry was in Aquitaine, and 
thither went Dermot MacMurrough, who 
contrived to obtain the King's promise of 
help, on condition that he should pay a 
vassal's homage to the English crown. Henry 
himself had no men or money to spare, but 
he knew that some of the warlike barons at 
home would be willing to avail themselves 
of his permission to assist MacMurrough, if 
they could by doing so advantage themselves. 
The King wrote a letter to "all his liege men, 
English, Norman, Welsh, and Scotch, and 
to all the nations under his dominion." In 
this document, intended for circulation 
among the nobles, he said : " As soon as the 
present letter shall come to your hands, 
know that Dermot, Prince of Leinster, has 
been received into the bosom of our grace 
and benevolence: wherefore, whosoever within 
our territories shall be willing to lend aid 
towards this prince as our faithful and liege 
subject, let such person know that we do 



308 



STRONGBOW AND KING DERMOT. 



hereby grant to him for said purpose our 
licencQ and favour." 

So, for the sake of imposing the tax of 
Peter's pence, the Pope readily sanctioned 
the invasion by an English king of a country 
to which he had not the shadow of a claim ; 
and with no better excuse than that of restor- 
ing a king who had being driven from his 
dominions as a punishment for his atrocious 
crimes, Anglo-Norman warriors carried 
fire and sword into Ireland, and laid the 
foundation of that political supremacy which 
for more than seven hundred years has been 
the fruitful source of war, crime, secret con- 
spiracy, and open rebellion, and an undying 
animosity of creed and race. 

Soldiers of Fortune. 

MacMurrough returned to Bristol (then 
known as Bristow), the spot where he had 
landed when he fled from Ireland. There 
were adventurers and soldiers of fortune, 
waifs and strays of the sword,— pirates and 
brigands in reality, though they would have 
disdained the name, — to be met with, who 
would readily have taken service under 
even Avorse men than MacMurrough, if pay 
and plunder were assured ; but he desired 
the aid of influential and practised leaders, 
who could bring a large body of trained and 
well-equipped men-at-arms into the field. 
He knew the men he would have to encounter, 
and was too shrewd to suppose that he could 
recover Leinster with the assistance of a 
small and disorderly rabble of adventurers, 
any one of whom would be quite ready to 
desert him, and take arms on the other side, 
if the other side offered a better prospect of 
" loot." 

More valuable allies were at hand, and to 
them MacMurrough appealed. Some of the 
Norman nobles who had been invited to 
England to take part in the contests between 
William Rufus and his successor Henry I., 
and their brother Robert of Normandy, had 
been rewarded for their services by grants of 
confiscated estates ; and others were paid by 
permission to harry the Welsh and possess 
themselves of such territory as they could 
conquer. Foremost among these leaders, 
distinguished by valour and proficiency in 
military exercises, was Gislebert, or Gilbert 
de Clare, younger brother of Richard, Earl 
of Hertford, and created Earl of Pembroke 
in 1 138. He had under his command a 
trained body of soldiery, Normans and 
Brabangons chiefly (the latter esteemed the 
best infantry in Europe), but with some of 
English birth in the ranks. By the last- 
named he was known as Strongbow, an 
epithet descriptive of his skill in archery, 
and by that name his son was also known. 
Availing himself of the permission to attack 
the Welsh, he undertook an expedition by 



sea, and landed on the western coast of 
Pembroke. The Cambrian people were 
unable to repel the invaders, and most of 
them fled to the mountains ; those who 
attempted resistance were ruthlessly slaugh- 
tered. An extensive tract of country was 
soon taken possession of, and the conquerors 
shared the towns, houses, and domains 
among them. Strong forts to secure them 
against reprisals were erected ; and the 
Norman and Flemish captains became 
wealthy landowners. Their descendants 
were the aristocracy and county gentlemen 
of Pembrokeshire ; and the English soldiers, 
who, being fewer in number, obtained fewer 
of the prizes of conquest, were the ancestors 
of the small farmers and traders who for 
centuries after preserved their English habits 
and language in a district surrounded by 
Welshmen, and known as " Little England 
beyond Wales." 

Richard de Clare, " Strongbow the 
Second." 

Other Norman leaders followed the ex- 
ample of Strongbow, and established them- 
selves by the right of the strong arm in Wales. 
Irish traders who had visited the Welsh ports 
were struck with surprise at the sight of 
the massive armour of the soldiers and the 
powerful Flemish horses ; and on their return 
told wonderful stories of the strength and 
skill of the Avarriors they had seen. Mac- 
Murrough, who had known them by reputa- 
tion, now applied to them for aid, addressing 
himself to the most powerful — the second 
Strongbow, Richard de Clare, who had in 
1 149 succeeded his father as Earl of Pem- 
broke, and was sometimes styled also Earl 
of Chepstow, or Strighul, from a castle 
belonging to his family in the neighbour- 
hood of that town. Thierry says of these 
Norman and Flemish adventurers : " In 
settling on the domains which they had so re- 
cently usurped, these men had not laid aside 
their old idle and dissipated manners for 
habits of order and quiet ; they consumed in 
gaming and debauchery the revenues of their 
lands, exhausting instead of ameliorating 
them, counting on fresh expeditions rather 
than upon domestic economy to repair their 
fortunes at some future day. They retained 
the spirit and the character of soldiers of 
fortune, ever disposed to try the chances of 
war abroad, whether on their own account or 
in the pay of another." 

Strongbow (by that name he is better 
known in history than as the Earl of Pem- 
broke) listened favourably to the proposals 
of MacMurrough. Others were ready to 
join in the adventure, among them Robert 
Fitz-Stephen and Maurice Fitz-Gerald, said 
to be sons of Nesta, a beautiful but frail 
Welsh princess, who had been the mistress 



309 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



of Henry I., but afterwards married Gerald, 
lord of Carew, governor of Pembroke Castle. 
Maurice Fitz-Gerald was, as the name in- 
dicates, her son by this lawful marriage ; 
Fitz-Stephen was her son by Stephen de 
Marisco, or Maurice, constable of the castle 
of Cardigan. MacMurrough promised these 
young knights the city of Wexford, and two 
" cantreds " of land — a cantred being equiva- 
lent to the English " hundred," or that 
number of homesteads. Strongbow himself 
was to succeed MacMurrough as King of 
Leinster, and to marry his daughter Eva. 
These inducements were sufficient to procure 
the hearty co-operation of Strongbow and 
his friends, who looked forward to those 
opportunities which conquest offers in addi- 
tion to the stipulated rewards ; and an ex- 
pedition was at once planned. Knights, 
esquires, and archers to the number of four 
hundred, led by Robert Fitz-Stephen, who 
was accompanied by other able warriors, 
embarked, and directed their course to the 
Irish coast. Fitz-Stephen landed at Bannow, 
near Waterford, in May 1169; and a day 
afterwards Maurice de Prendergast, with a 
second and smaller detachment of invaders, 
disembarked a few miles farther north, near 
Wexford. 

Siege of Wexford. 
nVTacMurrough, who had reached Ireland 
'shortly before, remained in concealment, 
-according to some authorities, in the Augus- 
"tinian monastery at Ferns, founded by him- 
self in one of his virtuous or politic moods. 
He was, however, rash enough to come out 
of his concealment before the arrival of his 
friends, and with a small force made an 
•;attempt to regain his kingdom. King 
Roderic and O'Ruarc easily subdued him, 
and, more merciful than might have been 
expected, considering the temper of the 
times, allowed him to retain ten cantreds of 
his former territory on condition of his hold- 
ing the land as the immediate vassal of 
-Hoderic. MacMurrough was willing enough 
to save his life on the easy terms of pro- 
mising to accept the conditions. Keeping 
his promise, however, was quite another 
matter. Directly he heard of the arrival of 
Fitz-Stephen and his other alhes, he joined 
them with about five hundred followers, 
'whom he had contrived to collect ; and the 
^united force laid siege to Wexford, a town 
founded by the Danes, and included in the 
kingdom of Leinster. The inhabitants of 
the town — hardy, seafaring folk — would have 
resisted, and thrown up intrenchments ; but 
the ecclesiastics of the town advised terms 
of capitulation, which were agreed to, and by 
that course the townspeople were probably 
spared from massacre, for the Normans and 
Flemings would no doubt have stormed the 



town, and mercy to the captured had no 
place in their military creed. 

A Kingly Cannibal, 
An excursion was then made into the dis- 
trict of Ossory, the prince of which was an 
old opponent of MacMurrough, — a not un- 
natural result perhaps of the fact that some 
years before that ferocious King had cap- 
tured the prince's eldest son and put out 
his eyes. The Ossorians at first defied their 
assailants, being secure in their bogs and 
woods ; but having imprudently ventured 
into open ground were cut to pieces. Three 
hundred bleeding heads were brought to 
MacMurrough, who, we are told, " turning 
every one of them, one by one, to know 
them, did then for jo.y hold up both his 
hands, and with a loud voice thanked God 
most highly." The sequel of the story, how- 
ever, scarcely increases an appreciation of 
MacMurrough's devout temper of mind. 
"Among these there was the head of one 
whom especially and above all the rest he 
mortally hated ; and he, taking up that by 
the hair, with his teeth most horribly and 
cruelly bit away his nose and lips." After 
this the whole district was subdued, with 
much ''murdering, spoiling, burning, and 
laying waste," and at last the prince sued for 
peace, and acknowledged himself the vassal 
of the cannibal monster MacMurrough. 

Normans and Natives. 

At first the Irish princes took little notice 
of the new comers — " set nothing by the 
Flemings," say the native annalists ; but 
they soon discovered the importance of the 
invasion. MacMurrough was in a short 
time at the head of five thousand men, in- 
cluding his allies, whose mail armour, long 
lances, crossbows, and powerful horses 
(protected by armour), were regarded with 
something like terror by the half-clad and 
poorly-armed natives. Giraldus Cambrensis, 
who visited Ireland shortly after the landing 
of Strongbow — if, indeed, he did not, as 
some writers on Irish history suppose, ac- 
company the expedition — and whose narra- 
tive is the best we possess, tells us that the 
most formidable weapons of the inhabitants 
of Erin were small steel axes, long slender 
javelins, and short and very sharp arrows. 
The Normans, preserved by their armour 
from injury by these weapons, closed with 
the natives ; and while the shock of the 
heavy chargers overturned the small horses 
of the Irish, they attacked with their heavy 
lances and their broadswords the men who 
had no defensive arms but light wooden 
shields and long tresses of horsehair " glibs," 
matted and hanging down on each side of 
the head. In some cases these glibs were 
formed of the men's own hair, allowed to 



STRONGBOW AND KING DERMOT. 



grow, and forming a mass sufficiently thick 
to offer resistance to ordinary blows. 

Chief after chief submitted, and then the 
Irish King, Roderic, awoke to the peril of 
the situation. He summoned the princes to 
meet at Tara, and collected an army, with 
which he marched to Dublin. MacMurrough, 
in some alarm, retreated to Ferns, whither 
lie was followed by Roderic ; but jealousies 
and dissensions occurred among the Irish 
■chiefs, as is usually the case in hastily 
-organized forces, when the supreme autho- 
rity is weak. The Ulster men returned to 
their homes ; others were, half-hearted in the 
■cause ; and Roderic, an indolent and un- 
warlike man, agreed to acknowledge Mac- 
Murrough's authority. A private promise, it 
has been affirmed, was made that the foreign 
allies should be dismissed, and no more 
■foreigners brought into the country. It is 
most likely that the restored King of Leinster 
had no intention to keep to this arrange- 
ment, and it may be taken as certain that 
Strongbow and his associates would not have 
-acceded to it. They had been brought into 
the country to please MacMurrough, and 
they would stay in it to please themselves, 
whether he liked it or not. 

Another contingent under Maurice Fitz- 
Gerald arrived, and King Dermot (we may 
give him that title now), thus strengthened, 
advanced to Dublin, the inhabitants of 
•which, after a brief defence, sued for peace. 
Donald O'Brien, who had married a daughter 
of Dermot, having rebelled against Roderic, 
joined his father-in-law ; and soon afterwards 
Strongbow, for whom the King had been 
'waiting impatiently, arrived. The Earl of 
Pembroke, who was not in great favour at 
the English court, had prudently resolved to 
visit Normandy and ask the permission of 
Henry II. before starting for Ireland, think- 
ing that the English King might make it the 
-excuse for seizing his estates. The royal 
Teply, we are told, "was so carefully worded 
that the King could declare afterwards he 
either had or had not given the permission, 
whichever version of the interview might 
eventually prove most convenient to the 
royal interests." Strongbow thought it his 
interest to understand that permission had 
been granted ; but did not reach Ireland 
until several months after Fitz-Stephen. On 
the eve of his departure he received a 
peremptory order from Henry, forbidding 
him to leave England, but he paid no atten- 
tion to it. He landed at Dundonnell, near 
Waterford. His uncle, Hervey de Mont- 
marisco, had preceded him, and had cap- 
tured seventy of the principal citizens of 
Waterford, who were cruelly murdered by 
his followers, who first broke their limbs and 
then hurled them from a precipice into the 
sea. 



A Red-Handed Marriage. 

Strongbow lost no time, but on the day 
after his arrival besieged Waterford. The 
citizens displayed great bravery ; but the 
assailants made a breach in the walls, 
poured in, and a frightful massacre ensued : 
" They entered into the city, and killed the 
people in the streets without pity or mercy, 
leaving them lying in great heaps ; and then, 
with bloody hands, they obtained a bloody 
victory." In the midst of the slaughter 
Dermot arrived ; and at his request Strong- 
bow's soldiers suspended the carnage, — not 
because the King was merciful, but because 
he wished to strengthen the bond between 
himself and his powerful ally, by at once 
celebrating the marriage between Strongbow 
and Eva which had been arranged. The 
ceremony was performed in Waterford the 
day after the massacre, and the King rode 
by the side of his daughter through the 
streets, cumbered with mangled corpses, and 
the bleeding bodies of men, women, and 
children, dying of their wounds. 

Then the King, his ruthless son-in-law, 
the bride gained by slaughter, and the blood- 
stained mercenaries, proceeded northward 
to return to Dublin. But Roderic had al- 
ready repented of the treaty he had weakly 
assented to, and began to realize the im- 
portance of the arrival of the English troops 
on Irish soil. He collected a large army- 
near Clondalkin, about five miles to the 
south-west of DulDlin ; and the townsmen, en- 
couraged by his presence, prepared to renew 
the defence of the city. But the energetic 
English made forced marches over the Wex- 
ford hills, and reached Dubhn before they 
were expected. The citizens were struck 
with panic, and sent their archbishop, a man 
of eminent piety, afterwards canonized, 
Laurence O' Toole (or Lorcan O'Tuahal), the 
first prelate of Dubhn of Irish origin, to 
endeavour to negotiate terms of peace. He 
repaired to the camp of Dermot, but the 
English soldiers had no mind to await the 
result, and, led by Raymond, known as "le 
Gros," and Miles de Cogan, forced their way 
into ihe city, and another merciless butchery 
was perpetrated. This Raymond, notable 
alike for corpulency and cruelty, was the 
nephew of Fitz-Gerald, being the son of 
William, Lord of Cavan, his elder brother. 

Only His Son ! 
King Roderic, fearing an encounter with 
such formidable foes, retreated to Meath, and 
united his forces with those of O'Ruac, the 
husband of Devorgoil. He sent messengers 
to Dermot, demanding the fulfilment of the 
agreement, made at Ferns, for the dismissal 
of the English contingent, and threatening, 
in the event of the non-compliance of Dermot, 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 




Captive Citizens at Watekford. 



31: 



STRONGBOW AND KING DERMOT. 



to put to death his son Cormac, who had 
been left as hostage. Dermot valued Strong- 
bow and his allies far more than he did his 
own son, and, it is said, "laughed at the 
threat." Roderic was as good as his word, 
and the young prince was killed at Athlone. 
The Ard-righ Roderic then returned into 
Connaught, his path being followed for some 
distance by Strongbow, who burned and 
plundered as he went. 



Monte Marisco two districts on the coast 
between Wexford and Waterford, and to all 
the rest possessions proportioned to their 
rank and military talent. The rumour of 
these successes attracted other adventurers, 
who responded to the invitation to take arms 
under Dermot, and soon there was an influx 
of " adventurers and vagabonds of Norman, 
of French, and even of English race." They 
were warmly received, and presented with 




" The Curse of Cromwell." 



Re-established as King of Leinster by the 
aid of his indomitable mercenaries, Dermot 
was profuse in his rewards. No doubt 
liberality was in this case better policy than 
faithlessness and treachery, to which he was 
more accustomed, for his allies were quite 
able and wilHng to reward themselves. He 
gave to Fitz-StepLen and Fitz-Gerald the 
government and all the revenues of the town 
of Wexford and its suburbs ; to Hervey de 



lands and money. One of them was, pre- 
vious to his arrival, so impoverished that 
he was nicknamed Raymond le Pauvre (the 
poor). He accepted the designation as his 
surname, which in course of time was modi- 
fied into Power, the name of a powerful and 
wealthy family which exists to the present 
day, the descendants of the fortune-seeking 
Richard 



313 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Death of Dermot ; Strongbow King 
OF Leinster. 

Dermot MacMurrough died miserably of 
a loathsome malady, at Ferns, in 1171. The 
native Irish princes had confed-erated against 
him, and, formerly denounced for his private 
crimes, he was afterwards regarded as a 
national enemy, who had brought a horde 
•of powerful foreigners into the country. The 
Irish believed that they had incurred Divine 
wrath, and that the Anglo-Norman invasion 
had been permitted as a just punishment. 
They thought to appease the anger of God 
by liberating all men of English race who 
had been made slaves in Ireland, after being 
■carried off by pirates or bought for money, 
and effect was given to the resolution by a 
council of the chiefs and bishops of the 
country. Strongbow, immediately after the 
death of Dermot, proclaimed himself King 
of Leinster, and found himself face to face 
with many difficulties. The Irish subjects 
of the late King deserted him ; Dublin was 
attacked by a Scandinavian fleet, commanded 
by Hosculf, who had been driven out of the 
city, and escaped with difficulty, when it was 
attacked by the Anglo-Norman forces. The 
Danes were repulsed, their leaders captured, 
and Hosculf put to death. The Irish princes, 
exhorted by the ardent and patriotic arch- 
bishop O'Toole, united their forces, invited 
assistance from the Isle of Man, and so 
pressed Strongbow that he retreated to 
Dublin, which was blockaded by his oppo- 
nents, and the garrison and inhabitants re- 
duced to extremities from want of food. It 
seemed as if the object aimed at, the sub- 
mission and expulsion of the foreigners, 
would be allowed. Strongbow offered to 
capitulate, if permitted to hold the kingdom 
of Leinster as the vassal of Roderic ; but the 
Irish King would accept nothing short of the 
surrender of Dublin, Wexford, and Water- 
ford, and the immediate departure of the 
invaders from the country. 

The King of England Interferes. 

Another difficulty was experienced by 
Strongbow. Henry II. of England saw with 
feelings of alarm and jealousy that private 
adventure was likely to achieve a conquest 
which he had reserved for himself So long 
as Dermot lived, the English king had re- 
garded Strongbow and his adherents as 
mercenaries, \vhose successes might help 
further to disorganize Ireland, and so for- 
ward his own views. But the adventurers 
were now masters of the situation. Strong- 
bow was a king, and was every day adding 
to his strength by inviting desperate soldiers 
of fortune to the newly conquered country. 
Were Henry now to invade Ireland, he 
would probably have to encounter the able 



warriors who had been his own subjects ; 
and so critical were his own relations with 
the powerful and turbulent nobles of England, 
who despised him for his weakness in connec- 
tion with the murder of Becket and his sub- 
sequent abject penitence, that he could not 
hope to be able to equip an army fit to cope 
with the legions of Strongbow, should he 
prove defiant. Henry published a proclama- 
tion, ordering all his liege men in Ireland to 
return immediately to England, on pain of 
the forfeiture of all their lands and chattels, 
and of perpetual banishment. He forbade 
any reinforcements to be sent to Ireland, or 
any ship from any part of the English or 
Irish dominions to touch on the Irish coast 
on any pretext whatever. 

Strongbow, shut up at the time in Dublin, 
and opposed by the confederation of the 
Irish princes, could not defy the English 
King, but was resolved not to obey him. 
He tried concihation, and sent Raymond le 
Gros to England with the offer to the King 
of all the lands he had acquired in Ireland. 
He probably hoped that this course would 
save his English estates ; but Henry took 
no notice of the offer. At this juncture 
intelligence reached Dublin that Fitz-Stephen 
was closely besieged in Wexford. A crisis 
was imminent, and Strongbow resolved to 
make an attempt to cut through the foes who 
surrounded him. The attempt was unex- 
pected by the Irish, who fled in disorder, 
Roderick himself narrowly escaping capture. 
Before Strongbow could reach Wexford it 
had capitulated ; and when he approached 
the town was set fire to, and the inhabitants 
took refuge in a stockaded island. 

A Royal Visit. 
Affairs in England had an unfavourable 
appearance ; and Strongbow thought it well, 
at last, to obey the royal mandate to return. 
With some difficulty he obtained an interview 
with the King, and, by the offer of all the 
lands he had won in Ireland, obtained not 
only the royal sanction to his proceedings, 
but security for his own Welsh estates. A 
royal visit to Ireland was then resolved on ; 
and on the i8th of October, 1171, the King 
landed at Croch, or Crook, in the county of 
Waterford, in company with Strongbow and 
many other lords. Four hundred ships 
carried five hundred knights and four thou- 
sand men-at-arms. The Irish princes at 
first thought the English King was merely 
making a visit of state, to enforce justice 
among his own subjects ; but they were soon 
undeceived, finding that Henry's purpose 
was to claim supreme dominion. Enfeebled 
by internal dissensions, many of the Irish 
chiefs were not unwilling at first to accept 
him as a chief monarch who would exercise 
a nominal authority similar to that of the 



314 



STRONGBOW AND KING DERMOT. 



native Ard-righs, but not interfere with 
individual rights. Macarthy of Desmond, 
Donnell O'Brien, King of Thomond, and 
•other princes, did homage to Henry, and 
swore fealty. Roderic, the chief monarch, 
received the English ambassador sent to him 
with respect, but the northern princes held 
aloof. Henry held a great court in Dublin ; 
and, representing that he had come to 
redress grievances (as yet he did not assume 
the title of King of Ireland), summoned an 
ecclesiastical synod — at which, however, very 
little was effected, the ecclesiastics caring 
little for his authority, and recognizing the 
Pope as their head in temporal as well as 
spiritual matters. The King held a royal 
court of justice at Lismore, to arrange for 
the government of the English colony. The 
military leaders already in the country, and 
those who had accompanied the King, had 
their own views as to the right of the native 
Irish to their own property, whatever pro- 
fessions it might be politic to make at the 
time ; and the King gratified them by putting 
the chief men in positions which they were 
not likely to fail to improve. Strongbow 
was appointed Earl Marshal ; Hugh de 
Lacy, one of the new arrivals, Lord Con- 
stable and Governor of Bristol, and De 
Wellesley (a famous name in our own times), 
royal standard-bearer. De Lacy is generally 
considered as the first Viceroy of Ireland, 
and he was installed in the Norman fashion, 
with the sword and cap of maintenance as 
the insignia of his dignity. To assist him to 
support his new position, Henry conferred 
on him the territory of East Meath, without 
, taking the trouble to ascertain whether the 
real owner, Tiernan O'Ruac, was willing to 
part with it. He naturally protested, and 
De Lacy proposed a conference at the hill of 
Tara. The parties, each attended by armed 
men, met ; but a dispute ensued, O'Ruac 
was. killed and mutilated, and his head 
having been exposed over the gate of Dublin, 
was afterwards sent as a present to King 
Henry. Strongbow attacked O'Dempsey, 
whose estates he wished to possess, at 
Offaley ; and Raymond le Gros made great 
acquisitions, not only of land, but of cattle 
and other spoil. 

We cannot, within the limits imposed upon 
us, relate all the raids made by the English 
soldiery, who were not always successful, and 
indeed at the battle of Thurles, in 1 1 74, sus- 
tained so serious a reverse that the encouraged 
native chieftains openly revolted, and the 
English might have been reduced to extremity, 
if Raymond le Gros, who had gone to England, 
had not returned with a strong force, and 
changed the situation. 

Henry now having made his peace with 
the Holy See, and obtained pardon for his 
.■share in the murder of A'Becket, produced 



the bull he had received more than twenty 
years before from Pope Adrian, and sum- 
moned a synod of the clergy at Waterford, 
where the document was read. The successes 
of the English increased, and Roderic sent 
to Henry ambassadors, who were received at 
Windsor at Michaelmas, 1175. The result 
was a treaty by which Henry was acknow- 
ledged as a supreme feudal sovereign, to 
whom Roderic paid homage ; and Henry 
bound himself to secure the sovereignty of 
Ireland to Roderic, excepting only Dublin, 
Meath, Leinster, Waterford, and Dungarvan. 
Miss Cusack, one of the latest and most 
careful of Irish historians, says, " Had Ire- 
land been governed with ordinary justice, 
the arrangement might have been advan- 
tageous to both countries. Roderic was 
still a king, both nominally and ipso facto. He 
had power to judge and depose the petty 
kings, and they were to pay their tribute to 
him for the English monarch. Any of the 
Irish who fled fi-om the territories of the 
English barons were to return ; but the 
King of Connaught might compel his own 
subjects to remain in his own land. Thus 
the English simply possessed a colony in 
Ireland ; and this colony in a few years 
became still more limited, while throughout 
the rest of the country the Irish language, 
laws, and usage prevailed as they had hitherto 
done." 

Prince John King of Ireland. 
The English nobles and military leaders, 
however, were irrepressible. They laid claim 
to lands belonging to Irish princes and 
chiefs, and many sanguinary contests ensued. 
Henry II., at a council held at Oxford in 
1 177, solemnly conferred the title of King ot 
Ireland on his youngest son, John, then only 
eleven years old, and proceeded, in his name, 
to make new grants of territory to the English. 
Sir John Davies, Speaker of the first Irish 
Parliament, and author of " Discovery of the 
True Reason why Ireland has never been 
Subdued," tells us that " all Ireland was by 
Henry II. cantonized among ten of the Eng- 
lish nation ; and though they did not gain 
possession of one-third of the kingdom, yet 
in title they were owners and lords of all, as 
nothing was left to be granted to the natives." 

" More Irish than the Irish." 
In 1205 the earldom of Ulster was granted 
to Hugh de Lacy, and that is the earliest 
instance of the creation of an Anglo-Norman 
dignity in Ireland. In the course of the 
next century there occurred the remarkable 
historical phenomenon of a conquering race 
voluntarily assimilating themselves to the 
conquered. The English colonists became 
more and more estranged from their mother- 
country, more and more Irish in their habits 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and sympathies, even altering their names so 
as to get rid of Norman pecuharities. The 
De Burghs became Bourkes, or Burkes ; the 
Geraldines of Munster merged their family 
name in that of Desmond, and a younger 
branch of the family named themselves 
M'Shehy. Edmund Spenser, the poet, only 
in the latter part of the sixteenth century, 
says, " The MacMahons in the north were 
anciently English— to wit, descended from 
the Fitz-Ursulas, which was a noble family 
in England ; likewise the MacSweenies, now 
in Ulster, were recently the Veres in England, 
but they themselves, for hatred of England, 
so disregard their names." In truth there 
was very little national feeling among the 
English colonists. They were descended 
from adventurers whose estates had been 
achieved by their swords, and, whether of 
Norman, French, or Flemish descent, were 
very much disposed to make a nationahty 
wherever they could find an estate. For 
English authority they cared little ; and when 
fresh bands of colonists were sent out, in the 
hope of correcting this tendency to assimilate 
with the Irish, the new comers, or at least 
their children, soon followed the example of 
their predecessors. Mr. Froude says, " Ire- 
land was a theatre for a universal scramble 
of selfishness, and the invaders caught the 
national contagion, and became, as the phrase 
went, ipsis Hibernis Hiberniores (more Irish 
than the Irish)." The children of English 
parents were frequently entrusted to Irish 
foster-mothers ; and the native minstrels, 
harpers, and chroniclers ingratiated them- 
selves with the English nobles by praising 
their warlike achievements, and so, says the 
author of a letter to Thomas Cromwell, 
included in the State papers, " procuring a 
talent of Irish disposition and conversation 
in them." 

At the close of the thirteenth century, the 
English possessions in Ireland consisttfd of 
ten counties— Dublin, Louth, Kildare, Water- 
ford, Tipperary, Cork, Limerick, Kerry, 
Roscommon, and part of Connaught ; and 
the " Liberties" of Connaught and Ulster; 
Meath, Wexford, Carlow, and Kilkenny ; 
Thomond and Desmond. The powerful 
nobles who owned these " liberties" and 
were paramount in the counties, exercised 
almost regal authority, created barons and 
knights, administered iheir own laws in their 
own fashion, established courts for criminal 
and civil cases, appointed their own judges 
and sheriffs ; and '• although they builded 
castles and made freeholds, yet there were 
no tenures or services reserved to the crown, 
but the lords drew all the respect and de- 
pendence of the common people unto them- 
selves." They plundered their Irish neigh- 
bours, and of course inspired a feeling of 
open hostiHty. Districts outside the English 



possessions were known as "marches," and 
were occupied by native septs, who made 
Avhat reprisals they could, and in time acquired 
a taste for this predatory warfare, as in 
Scotland the Highland caterans enjoyed 
harrying the Lowland landholders. 

Quarrels of the Great Families. 

The great families quarrelled desperately 
atnong themselves. The historian Mac- 
Geoghan, in a note to the " Annals of 
Clonmacnois," observes that " there reigned 
more dissensions, strifes, wars, and debates 
between the Englishmen themselves, in the 
beginning of the conquest of this kingdom, 
than between the Irishmen, as by perusing 
the wars between the Lords of Meath, John 
Courcy, Earl of Ulster, WiUiam Marshal^ 
and the English of Meath and Munster, 
MacGerald (Fitz-Gerald), the Burke, Butler, 
and Cogan, may appear." The grandson of 
Strongbow, Richard Earl of Pembroke, was 
treacherously killed while attending a con- 
ference to which he was invited by Geoffrey 
de Marisco, who had been appointed Viceroy. 
As to the Irish princes, all means were 
considered fair by which they could be 
ensnared and killed. Thomas de Clare 
obtained from Edward I. the grant of the 
territory of Thomond, the fact that it was 
the property of the O'Briens not being taken 
into account. De Clare at first professed 
great friendship, and the too credulous Irish- 
man listened to him; "'they swore to each 
other all the oaths in Munster, on bells and 
relics, to be true to each other for ever." 
Very soon afterwards, De Clare, having got 
O'Brien into his hands, had him dragged to 
death between horses. It is gratifying to 
know that the murderous De Clare did not 
obtain the coveted kingdom, but was slain 
by some of the O'Briens, The O'Connors, 
chiefs of Offaly, and twenty-four other 
followers, were massacred by Peter de 
Bermingham, who had invited them to a 
banquet. 

Titles were assumed by, or conferred on, 
the powerful nobles : Hugh de Lacy became 
Earl of Ulster; Richard de Burgo Earl of 
Connaught ; the Fitz-Geralds were Earls of 
Desmond ; and the Butlers, who derived 
their name from an ancestor who accom- 
panied Henry I. to Ireland as chief butler, 
were Earls of Ormond. Strong castles were 
erected at Dublin, Athlone, Roscommon, and 
Randoun, for the purpose of keeping down 
the natives, who were taxed to support the 
garrisons. 

An Appeal to the Bruges of Scot- 
land. 
The Irish princes looked to the Bruces of 
Scotland as their allies and perhaps their 
deUverers from the oppressions of the Eng- 
316 



STRONGBOIV AND KING DERMOT. 



lish. In 1 31 5, after the Scotch, under Robert 
Bruce, had achieved such a victory at Ban- 
nockburn, Edward Bruce landed in Ireland 
with a force of six thousand men, and was at 
once joined by a strong Irish contingent. 
For a time it seemed that the enterprise 
would be successful, and Robert Bruce was 
proclaimed King of Ireland. Desirous to 
obtain the papal sanction for their proceed- 
ings, Donneil O'Neill, King of Ulster, and 
other princes wrote to the Pope on the part 
of the nation, explaining why they were 
anxious to transfer the kingdom to Bruce. 
They told the Pope he had been deceived by 
false representations ; spoke of " the sad 
remains of a kingdom which has groaned so 
long beneath the tyranny of English kings, 
of their ministers and barons, some of the 
latter, although born on the island, exercising 
the same extortions, rapine, and cruelties as 
their ancestors inflicted. The people had 
been obliged to take refuge, like beasts, in 
the mountains, and even there were not safe. 
There was only law for the English, none for 
the Irish ; and any Englishman could, as 
often happened, kill an Irishman of any rank, 
and seize his property. The Church had 
been despoiled of its lands and possessions 
by sacrilegious Englishmen." A few years 
later Pope John wrote to Edward III. to the 
effect that the object of Pope Adrian's bull 
had been entirely neglected, and that the 
" most unheard-of miseries and persecutions 
had been inflicted on the Irish." 

When Bruce appeared to be gaining ground, 
the De Lacys actually took side with him, so 
little of national feeling did they possess, and 
so ready were they to secure their own in- 
terests by attaching themselves to the win- 
ning party. Some of the Irish quarrelled 
among themselves, in the old fashion, and 
when one chief marched with his followers 
to join Bruce, another Irish chief made a 
raid on his territories. Dublin, in which a 
large number of Bristol folk had settled, held 
out so stoutly that Bruce relinquished the 
attempt to take it ; and then came the great 
battle near Dundalk, in which Edward Bruce 
was slain. Bermingham, the English com- 
mander, obtained the earldom of Louth, and 
the manor of Ardee, in return for Bruce's 
head, which was salted and sent to the King, 
Edward II. John de Lacy, and Sir Robert 
de Coulragh, who had sided with Bruce, were 
taken prisoners, and punished by being 
starved to death in prison. The English 
barons themselves perpetrated frightful cruel- 
ties in their quarrels between themselves and 
with the Irish. A new Viceroy, Sir Anthony 
de Lacy, was sent from England, and he 
hanged Sir William Bermingham and his 
son in the keep of Dublin Castle ; the Earl 
of Ulster starved to death Walter de Burgo 
a<t Innishowen, for which he was stabbed by 



Sir Richard Mandeville, De Burgo's brother- 
in-law. The Earl's death was avenged by the 
slaughter of three hundred of the followers 
of his murderer. A band of English and 
Irish attacked MacNamara, a minister, and 
burnt a church in which were two priests 
and a hundred and eighty persons, not one 
of whom escaped. Fitz-Nicholas, an Eng- 
lishman, killed the heir of the MacCarthy 
More as he sat on the bench beside the judge 
at the assize court, Tralee, and no notice was 
taken of the crime. 

The Statutes of Kilkenny. 

We could easily fill pages with records of 
these enormities, but these instances suffice 
to show the disorganized condition of the 
country. In 1360, the third son of King 
Edward III., Lionel, afterwards Duke of 
Clarence, was appointed Viceroy, and in 1367 
he summoned a Parliament at Kilkenny, by 
which the famous Statutes of Kilkenny were 
enacted, the object being to make the line 
of demarcation between England and Ire- 
land more distinct, and to prevent the 
assim.ilation in manners and customs which, 
except in the remote mountain districts, 
was, as we have shown, so prevalent. The 
statute made it high treason for an English 
colonist to intermarry with the Irish, to stand 
godfather to an Irish child, or to entrust 
an infant to a native nurse. Any man of 
English race taking an Irish name, or using 
the Irish language, apparel, or customs, 
should forfeit all his lands. The English 
were not to make ^var upon the natives 
without the permission of the Government. 
The Irish were not to be permitted to pasture 
on land belonging to the Enghsh, nor to be 
admitted to ecclesiastical benefices or reli- 
gious houses, nor entertained as minstrels. 
The clause about making war remained a 
dead letter, for when the English were dis- 
posed to make war there was no authority 
strong enough to prevent them. At any 
rate, there was plenty of fighting, as the 
annals show, between the Irish, as the 
settlers had begun to call themselves, and 
'•'the wild Irish," as they styled the natives. 
It was necessary also to avoid pressing the 
clause about the use of the Irish language, 
for a large number of the colonists could 
speak no other. 

Poyning's Law and "the Pale." 
In 1494, the Viceroy, Sir Edward Poyning, 
a man of considerable ability, who had been 
sent over by Henry VII., summoned a Par- 
liament at Drogheda, at which the famous 
statute, known in history as Poyning's Law, 
was enacted. It provided that henceforth no 
Parliament should be held in Ireland until 
the chief governor and council had first cer- 
tified to the King, under the great seal, the 



Z^l 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



reason for its being summoned, and obtained 
permission to hold it. The general object of 
the Act was nominally to reduce the people 
to " whole and perfect obedience," and to 
abolish "the many damnable customs and 
uses " practised by the English lords and 
gentlemen. 

The part of Ireland occupied by descend- 
ants of the English settlers and the new 
arrivals was known as the Pale — the word 
being taken from one of the enactments of 
Poyning's Parliament, which required all the 
colonists to "pale in," or enclose, the portion 
of the country possessed by the English. 
At this time, the English Pale, which at one 
time had comprised the " four shires," Dublin, 
Kildare, Meath, and Louth, had been greatly 
diminished, and formed a narrow strip about 
fifty miles long and twenty broad, and that 
was the only part in any sense English ; for 
beyond it the common law of England had 
no authority, the King's writ was not re- 
spected, and the country was divided among 
independent chiefs, who levied tribute on the 
inhabitants of the Pale as payment for a 
nominal protection of their rights, and as a 
compensation for abstaining from the plunder 
of their farms. Their law was " strength and 
the Brehon traditions " (the old native law). 
As for the great ennobled families, they were 
not in the Pale, and were a law to them- 
selves. 

Rule of the Tudors. 
When Henry VIII. came to the throne, in 
1509, he appears to have been honestly 
desirous to ameliorate the condition of Ire- 
land. When a boy he had been appointed 
Viceroy of Ireland, with the Earl of Kildare 
for his deputy — the same audacious noble- 
man who had been summoned to England 
by Henry VII. to answer a charge of high 
treason, having encouraged the pretender, 
Perkin Warbeck, but so ingratiated himself 
with the King that he was married to a rich 
wife and sent back practically to rule Ireland 
— and in 151 5 an elaborate report on the 
state of Ireland was prepared by royal com- 
mand. The document has been recently 
published in the " State Papers." The 
author of the paper says, "There be sixty 
regions in Ireland, inhabited with the King's 
Irish enemies, some regions as big as a shire, 
some more, some less, where reigneth more 
than sixty chief captains, whereof some calleth 
themselves kings, some king's peers, in their 
language, some princes, some dukes, that 
liveth only by the sword, and obeyeth to no 
other temporal person, save only to him that 
is strong. And every one of the said cap- 
tains maketh war and peace for himself, and 
holdeth by the sword, and hath imperial 
jurisdiction, and obeyeth no other person, 
English or Irish, except only such persons 



as may subdue him by the sword. Also in 
every of the said regions there be divers 
petty captains, and every of them maketh 
war and peace for himself, without licence of 
the chief captain. And there be more than 
thirty of the English noble folk that follow 
the same Irish order and keepeth the same 
rule." 

Terrible Condition of the Native 
Irish. 

The condition of the poor native Irish^ 
ruled by so many masters, perpetually quar- 
relling and fighting among themselves, or 
with the English colonists, is described by 
the writer of the State paper — an English- 
man, be it remembered. Labour was treated 
as disgraceful ; the strongest and fiercest of 
the peasant class were picked out by the 
chiefs and trained to fight, and the weaker 
men were driven to the fields like beasts of 
burden, wretchedly fed and few in number^ 
"supposed to be the most wretched speci- 
mens of human nature which could be found 
upon the globe." The author of the State 
paper of 1 5 1 5 asks, " What common folk in. 
all the world is so poor, so feeble, so evil 
beseen in town and field, so bestial, so greatly 
oppressed and trodden under foot, fares so 
evil, with so great misery, and with so 
wretched life, as the common folk of Ireland? 
What pity is here, what truth is to report 
there is no tongue that can tell, no person 
that can write. It passeth far the orators 
and muses all to show the order of the nobles, 
and how cruel they entreateth the poor com- 
mon people. What danger it is to the King 
against God to suffer his land, whereof he 
bears the charge and the cure temporal, to 
be in the said misorder so long without 
remedy! It v/ere more honour to surrender 
his claim thereto, and to make no longer 
prosecution thereof, than to suffer his poor 
subjects always to be so oppressed, and all 
the nobles of the land to be at war within 
themselves, always shedding of Christian 
blood without remedy. The herd must render 
account for his fold, and the King for his." 

This was bold speaking, but perhaps none 
the less on that account acceptable to the 
clear-headed and energetic young King, who 
seems to have thought that the Irish problem, 
as perplexing then as now, might be solved 
by wise government and the exercise of jus- 
tice. He was not, probably, of opinion that 
the animosity and opposition of the Irish 
chiefs was absolutely insurmountable, al- 
though the writer of the report hac^ arrived 
at the conclusion, "If the King were as wise 
as Solomon the Sage, he should never sub- 
due the wild Irish to his obedience without 
dread of the sword and of the might and 
strength of his power. As long as they may 



318 



STRONG BOW AND KING DERMOT. 



resist and save their lives, they will not obey 
the Kins^." 

Projects for Reforming the Irish 
Church. 

When Henry VIII. had effected the Re- 
formation in this country, he saw no reason 
why the Irish Church should not be as Pro- 
testant as the English. The Irish ecclesi- 
astics, however, and the Irish people too — 
both the Anglo-Irish and the "wild Irish" 
— had their own opinions on the matter. 
Dr. Browne, a convert to Protestantism, 
formerly an Augustinian friar, was appointed 
Archbishop of Dublin, and made known the 
contents of a letter sent to him by Thomas 
Cromwell, in the King's name. This official 
document announced "the royal will and 
pleasure of his Majesty, that his subjects in 
Ireland, even as those in England, should 
obey his coinmands in spiritual matters as in 
temporal, and renounce their allegiance to 
the see of Rome." But Dr. Browne soon 
found, to use his own phrase, that "the 
common people of this isle are more zealous 
in their blindness than the saints and mar- 
tyrs were in truth." The Archbishop of 
Armagh was a formidable opponent, " laying 
a curse on the people whosoever should own 
his Highness's supremacy, saying that the 
isle — as it is in the Irish chronicles, insula 
sacra — belongs to none but the Bishop of 
Rome, and that it was the Bishop of Rome 
who gave it to the King's ancestors." 

A Parliament was summoned in 1536, and 
several bills were introduced. One declared 
the King to be supreme head of the Church 
in Ireland ; another prohibited appeals to 
Rome ; another ordered first-fruits and 
twentieth parts to be paid to the King ; and 
another abolished the authority of the Pope. 
To the Parliament, however, the ecclesiastics 
were entitled to send proctors, and these 
proctors so vehemently opposed the pro- 
positions that the bills could never have 
become Acts if a ready expedient had not 
been discovered, and that was not allowing 
the proctors to vote. So, as far as Parlia- 
ment could do it, the King was supreme, 
and the Anglo-Irish nobles and gentlemen 
— or many of thein — made no objection to 
the supremacy, for they scented, not very far 
off, a confiscation of Church property. Very 
soon the Church lands were sold to the 
highest bidder, or bestowed as a reward on 
favourites and powerful persons who had 
curried favour with the King or his deputy. 
In 1 541 a Parliament held in Dublin con- 
ferred the title of King of Ireland on Henry. 

In the short reign of Edward VI. efforts 
to establish the royal supremacy were con- 
tinued, but so far as the majority of the 
clergy and the mass of the people were 
concerned, with little success. On Easter 



Sunday, 1551, the liturgy was read fur the 
first time in Christ Church Cathedral, 
Dublin ; and almost immediately afterwards 
the primacy of all Ireland was annexed to 
the see of Dublin by Act of Parliament. The 
Reformers had obviously reason on their 
side when they objected to the service of the 
Church being conducted in Latin, which was 
not " understanded of the people " ; but they 
scarcely mended matters by insisting on the 
use of the English language, almost equally 
unintelligible to the great bulk of the Celtic 
and Anglo-Irish population. When Mary, 
a Catholic, became Oueen, there was another 
reverse. Archbishop Browne, and Bishops 
Staples of Meath, Lancaster of Kildare, and 
Travers of Leighlin, were removed, and two 
others fled beyond the seas. When the 
news of Edward's death reached Ireland^ 
bells were rung, and processions of Roman 
Catholics paraded the streets of Kilkenny, 
chanting and flinging about incense and holy 
water. Five years afterwards Mary was in 
her grave, and once more the sovereign and 
government were Protestant. 

Persecutions of the Catholics; 
A Reign of Terror. 

Very soon began the persecutions. Abbots 
and priests were put to death — hanged and 
quartered — for saying the mass ; monks, 
friars, and lay brothers were slaughtered — 
one at the altar of his own church ; and 
others died from the effects of imprisonment 
and torture in Dublin Castle. Loftus, the 
Protestant Archbishop of Armagh, advised 
that the Anglo-Irish nobles should be 
" sharply dealt with," and fined "in a good 
round sum," because they were Catholics. 
Sir John Perrot, one of the military com- 
manders, killed fifty persons, and arranged 
their heads as a trophy in the public square 
of Kilmallock ; and he advised the Queen 
that " friars, monks, Jesuits, priests, nuns, 
and such-like vermin, who openly upheld the 
Papacy, should be executed by martial law." 
If we may beheve Miss Cusack—and that 
able writer, although influenced perhaps in 
her opinions by her attachment to Roman 
Catholicism, appears to have been very 
careful to have good authority for her state- 
ments of facts — " the officers of the troops 
sent to put down Popery seem to have 
rivalled each other in acts of cruelty. One 
is said to have tied his victim to a maypole, 
and then punched out his eyes with his 
thumbs. Others amused themselves with 
flinging up infants into the air, and catching 
them on the points of their swords. Francis 
Crosby, the deputy of Leix, used to hang 
men, women, and children on an immense 
tree which grew before his door, without any 
crime being imputed to them except their 
faith, and then to watch with delight how the 



319 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



unhappy infants hung by the long hair of 
their martyred mothers." 

The Plantation of Ulster. 
Our limits will not permit us to trace step 
by step the history of Ireland during the 
remainder of the reign of Ehzabeth. Shane 
O'Neill, the Irish chief who claimed to be 
King of Ulster, defied the English, and 
gained some successes. Then he was in- 
duced to visit the English court, cajoled with 
fair promises, and ultimately murdered at 
Carrickfergus, where he had been invited to a 
feast, and his head was impaled on the wall 
of Dublin Castle. An obsequious and tongue- 
tied Irish Parliament, assembled in 1569, 
formally annexed Tyrone, Shane O'Neill's 
possessions, to the English throne, and then 
began what was known as the " plantation 
of Ulster." Large districts conferred on 
favourites were described as " divers parts 
and parcels of her Highness's earldom of 
Ulster that lay waste, or else was inhabited 
ivith a wicked, barbarous, and uncivil people." 
What might become of these people under 
the rule of their new masters seems not to 
have troubled the Queen or her councillors. 

A Revolt. 

Charles I., involved in troubles with his 
Parliament, and on the brink of civil war, had 
little leisure for Irish affairs, and the time was 
considered favourable for an attempt on the 
part of the Irish CathoUcs to throw off the 
Protestant yoke. For a time the revolt, 
headed by George Moore, an Anglo-Irish- 
man, bore an exclusively religious character, 
and met with little success ; but soon Phelim 
O'Connor, with a large body of native Irish, 
joined the movement, and then the insurrec- 
tion became truly formidable. 

Hatred of the Protestants was allied to 
hatred of the English and Scotch settlers, 
Protestant or not. The Presbyterians^ and 
colonists of Ulster and the western provinces 
were ruthlessly attacked ; nearly forty thou- 
sand massacred. The English Parliament, 
ready enough to believe evil of Charles, and 
suspicious of his supposed tenderness to the 
doctrines of Romanism, so hateful to the 
Independents and Presbyterians, accused 
him of having encouraged the outbreak. 
He warmly defended himself against the 
charge, and to prove his sincerity sent into 
Ireland all the troops that could be made 
available. The English army showed no 
mercy — even those who laid down their arms 
were not spared ; and their severity renewed 
the ardour of the Irish,— the English were 
beaten, a large portion of Ulster was 



recovered, and the Scotch settlers driven 
out. A native council of administration was 
established, composed of bishops, chiefs of 
the old Irish tribes, lords of Anglo-Norman 
descent, and deputies chosen in each pro- 
vince by the Irish population. 

When the great Parliamentary war in 
England broke out, the national assembly 
of Ireland entered into private negotiations 
with each party, offering support to that 
which should to the greatest extent recognize 
the independence of Ireland. The Parlia- 
mentarians would "have none of them," 
hating Papists more perhaps than they hated 
the King. The remnants of the national party 
were disposed, after the execution of Charles I., 
to enter into negotiations with the victorious 
Parhamentarians ; but the Protestants and 
Presbyterians united under the leadership 
of the Duke of Ormond, and proclaimed 
Charles II. as king. 

The Curse of Cromwell. 

Then came "the curse of Cromwell." The 
great Oliver, with the titles of Lord Lieu- 
tenant and Commander-in-Chief, and his 
Ironsides, were despatched to Ireland. If, in 
the language of the Psalmist, they went with 
" the high praises of God in their mouth," 
of a verity the quotation may be completed 
by saying they had "a two-edged sword in 
their hand." At Drogheda, which Crom- 
well's army captured, more than three thou- 
sand of the garrison and townspeople were 
massacred ; and at Wexford and in other 
places the same merciless spirit was ex- 
hibited wherever the terrible Cromwell 
appeared. 

On the 26th of September, 1653, all the 
property of the Irish people was declared 
to belong to the English, and Parliament 
assigned Connaught for the habitation of the 
Irish natives, "whither they must transplant, 
with their wives and daughters and children, 
before the i8th of May following, under the 
penalty of death if found on this side of the 
Shannon after that day." Any man, woman, 
or child who had disobeyed the order, no 
matter from what cause, could be instantly 
executed in any way, by any of the soldiers 
or " adventurers " to whom land had been 
allotted, without trial. 

Ireland was conquered, but not subdued. 
The work of Strongbow and his allies was 
completed, so far as the strong hand of power 
could complete it. The fire of resistance 
was smothered for a time, but later history 
shows how dangerous has been, and is, the 
smouldering of the embers. 

G. R. E. 



320 




BuRNSiDES Landing. 



FEDERALS AND CONFEDERATES, 



A STORY OF SECESSION. 



• John Brown's body lies mouldering in the grave- 
His soul is marching on ! " 



The Missouri Compromise— John Brown— The Breach— Mutterings of the Storm— Fort Sumter— Bull Run— Progress of 
the War— Numerous Battles— The Trent Affair— Campaign of 1S62— Capture of New Orleans— The Merriviac and 
the Monitor— 'Y\i& Struggle at Shiloh— Fighting in 1S63 and 1864— On the Chickahominy— Lee in Virginia— Great 
Losses — Conclusion of the Civil War. 




The Missouri Compromise. 

In the year 1820, when Missouri was 
admitted into the American Union, 

it was especially enacted that the 

limits of slavery were to be observed, and it 
was determined that slavery should cease at 
a line drawn below the new state. But this 
suggestion did not meet with approval, and 
a concihatory proposition was brought forward 
which enacted that Missouri should be ex- 



cepted from the prohibition placed upon 
" the territory ceded by France to the 
United States under the name of Louisiana." 
This exception in favour of the new state 
was termed the Missouri Compromise^ and 
laid down the rule that any future states 
should not be slave-holding territory. Thus 
reluctantly, a slave-holding state was ad- 
mitted ; and this objection to its admission 
as such denoted that a very important change 



321 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



was taking place in the feelings of the House 
of Representatives at Washington. 

Only a few years before, when Louisiana 
and Mississippi had been respectively ad- 
mitted into the Union, no objection had been 
made to the propagation of slavery ; and 
just a year previously, when Alabama became 
one in the Federation, no question was raised 
as to slave-holding. So a change had come 
o'er the spirit of the North which was 
eventually to rise up and crush out the 
accursed system. Yet the abolition had not 
been very rapid in the Union, but it had 
been progressive and steady. The general 
feeling was opposed to slavery in the Union 
from the very commencement of its existence 
as a nation ; but it must be admitted that the 
South had at any rate an excuse for not 
immediately complying with the abolitionists' 
demand. We must in fairness remember 
that climate, custom, social life, and the 
necessity for cotton all demanded labour, 
and made slavery much more profitable in 
the South than it could be in the North. 
So when the new state was admitted a calm 
reigned for a time. But what was to happen 
when other new states applied for leave to 
join the Union ? 

The Kansas-Nebraska Question. 

The Abolition Question slumbered until 
1831, when William Lloyd Garrison estab- 
lished the Liberator in Boston. Afterwards 
numerous anti-slavery societies were formed, 
and the more Northern portion of the Union 
drifted into opposition with the South upon 
this question. The result was that in 1854 
Mr. Douglas as a slave state sympathizer 
carried the Nebraska bill, and the Kansas- 
Nebraska struggle marks another important 
way-station upon the road to war and se- 
cession. In Kansas the fight commenced 
between immigrants from the free North 
and the upholders of bondage in the slave 
South. Murder, assassination and conflict 
were rife; and in the midst of this most 
deplorable struggle Mr. Buchanan, a decided 
advocate of slavery, was chosen President. 
He was willing to admit Kansas, therefore, as 
a slave state ; but the immigrants were in the 
majority, and it eventually became free. The 
Missouri Compromise had been repealed by 
Mr. Douglas's Nebraska Bill, but the passers 
of it turned against Buchanan in the Senate, 
and voted against the Kansas Bill the Pre- 
sident sought to introduce. 

The South was defeated on this question, 
and, as Dr. Draper writes, "There can be no 
doubt that the South, in bending herself to 
the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 
committed a mistake. ... In permitting the 
abandonment of that concession she grasped 
at the shadow of equality with the North 
and lost the substance ; from that moment 



the anti-slavery party had her at their 
mercy." At any rate, there can be little doubt 
that "the Kansas-Nebraskastruggle marks an 
epoch in the great controversy between the 
North and the South. It closes the period of 
parHamentary debate between them and 
introduces one of violence and open war." 

John Brown's Raid. 

Mr. Buchanan's tenure of office was draw- 
ing to a close in 1859. In March i860 a 
new President would be appointed, and the 
election fight was proceeding with much 
animosity. There were four pairs of candi- 
dates, and a decided anti-slavery President 
was anticipated and nominated in the person 
of Abraham Lincoln. 

But prior to the election a memorable 
incident occurred in Virginia. Amongst the 
most warlike and bigoted of the anti-slavery 
immigrants into Kansas was one John Brown 
—a regular type of Puritan — who left his 
home for the avowed object of fighting for 
the abolition of slavery in Kansas. He had 
four sons, and at the head of a small body of 
determined men he fought the Missourians 
and sustained their attacks with remarkable 
bravery and success. At Ossawattomie he 
greatly distinguished himself, and after 
various fortune he returned from the east to 
carry out his abolitionist ideas personally 
and by force of arms. He was a most 
zealous partisan, of stern and unbending 
character and of Puritan piety. 

He determined to carry his men and pro- 
jects boldly into Virginia, the very hotbed 
of slavery ; and he did so. In December 1858 
he crossed the Missouri and liberated some 
slaves, whom he subsequently conveyed in 
safety into Canada ; but returned to Virginia, 
where under the pretext of farming he set 
about maturing his preparations. He col- 
lected about twenty men and managed to 
secure arms and ammunition in abundance 
without causing any suspicion in his neigh- 
bourhood. His idea was to capture the 
stores at Harper's Ferry, and on Sunday 
night, i6th October 1859, John Brown made 
his attack upon the arsenal. 

The party entered the village without 
molestation, and at once put out all the lamps 
and captured the watchmen on guard. The 
great storehouse was soon in their possession, 
having been acquired with scarce a struggle, 
for the watch were overpowered without 
difficulty. The surprise of the Virginians 
may be imagined when, on going to their 
work at the arsenal, they were made prisoners, 
and at least sixty people were thus seized. 
But the enterprise was hopeless. No acces- 
sion of force came to the intrepid abolitionist. 
A few negroes joined him, but only by threats. 
Up till midday John Brown was master of 
Harper's Ferry ; but the militia very quickly 



322 



FEDERALS AND CONFEDERATES. 



surrounded the arsenal and the insurgents 
were caught in a trap. It is difficult to see 
v/hat other termination to the affair the 
leader could himself have anticipated. 

The siege did not last long : volley after 
volley thinned the little circle of zealots inside, 
while the attacking party also suffered. One 
of Brown's sons was shot dead, and another 
mortally wounded. The leader himself be- 
haved with extraordinary courage and coolness , 
but they availed him nothing. General 
Robert Lee came down on the i8th and 
battered in the door — Brown was taken 
fighting, and bayoneted as he lay on the 
ground. He and three others of his party 
only were left alive. He was soon put on 
his trial, and on the 30th of November he 
was sentenced to be hanged at Charleston. 
He died on the 2nd of December, as he 
had lived, calm and defiant, and apparently 
in no way concerned with the event. He 
was a man whom Oliver Cromwell would 
have made a general of — and the South made 
him a martyr. The well-known song " Old 
John Brown" became afterwards a "marching 
chorus " in the Northern armies ; and the 
almost solemn influence of the refrain — 
" Glory, glory, hallelujah !" — nobody who has 
heard it sung by native sympathizers will 
•easily forget. 

The Confederate States. 

When Mr. Lincoln was elected President 
things came to a climax in the South. It 
was known that the new nominee was a stern 
anti-slavery man, and this conviction deter- 
mined the Legislature of South Carolina to 
call a Convention; and the Governor in his 
message to the electors had said that in the 
event of Mr. Lincoln's election to the Presi- 
dency the only alternative was " secession." 
" If," he continued, "in the exercise of 
arbitrary power, and forgetful of the lessons of 
history, the Government of the United States 
should attempt coercion, it will become our 
solemn duty to meet force by force." 

This was plain speaking. But Mr. Lincoln 
was elected by the North, for no Southern 
state voted for him ; so the North won ! 
The Southern people thus regarded their 
"political equality" as departed. They were 
very sore, and the results of the irritation 
very soon appeared upon the surface. South 
Carolina, a representative state as much as 
Massachusetts in the North, seceded from 
the Union on the 20th December, i860, and 
Francis W. Pickens was elected Governor. 
On that day the assembled Convention met 
at Charleston, and the Union was declared 
dissolved. A declaration of independence 
. was drawn up at the same time. 

This declaration was received with great 
joy in Charleston, and the whole population 



kept holiday. Business was suspended and 
bells were set ringing ; dance music and the 
" Marseillaise " were mingled by the bands, 
and a red-silk standard was made for the 
Independent State. Ministers were elected, 
and every step that could be taken was 
attempted to cast off the Union ; the news- 
papers in the city going so far as to publish 
news from the Northern States as " Foreign 
Intelligence." 

The result of this action was very quickly 
apparent. One after another, in rapid suc- 
cession of secession, came Mississippi, 
Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas; 
then Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and 
North Carolina followed suit. Kentucky, as 
Lincoln's state, declined, and the border 
states at first remained neutral. The se- 
ceding states declared themselves of the 
Confederacy on the dates understated, the 
borderers being obliged to come in. 

South Carolina, seceded 20th December, i860. 

i85i. 



Mississippi 

Alabama . . . 

Florida . . . 

Georgia . . . 

Louisiana . . 

Texas . . . . 

Virginia . . . 

Arkansas . . . 

Tennessee . . 
North Carolina , 



9th January, i£ 

nth 
i2th 
19th 
28th 

ist February, , 
17th April, , 

6th May, 

8th ,, 

20th 



The western part of Virginia declined to 
secede, and was admitted subsequently as a 
new state in the LTnion under the name of 
West Virginia. On February 4th, i86r, a 
Congress was assembled from the then 
seceded states, and at Montgomery, in 
Alabama, a constitution was proposed and 
discussed. 

Meantime the Southern representatives 
had quitted their places in the Legislature at 
Washington, and things looked extremely 
threatening. In the North the feehng was 
equally strong ; and yet all this time Mr. 
Buchanan, who was still President — for his 
term did not expire until March although 
Lincoln was then elected — rather favoured, or 
at all events did not check, the preparations 
of the Unionists. When the Congress above 
referred to had finished their sitting, they 
promulgated the constitution of the Con- 
federate States of America, and Jefferson 
Davis, who had been the representative of 
Mississippi, was chosen unanimously as the 
President of the Confederacy, and Alexander 
H. Stephens as the Vice-President. 

Mr. Davis, in his inaugural address, 
appeared confident that the South would 
find aUies and supporters in England and in 
the border states. " England will recognize 
us," he declared, " and we have a glorious 
future before us, The grass wjjl grow in the 
Northern cities where the pavements have 



323 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



been worn off with the feet of commerce. . . . 
We are now determined to maintain our 
position, and make all who oppose us smell 
Southern powder and feel Southern steel." 
Brave words, uttered possibly in haste, and 
no doubt repented of at leisure a few years 
afterwards in " durance vile." 

There was a quiet, unassuming manner 
about Jefferson Davis in after years, a 
retiring disposition, apparently, when we 
last conversed with him, which covered the 
energy he undoubtedly possessed. He was 
a mah of singular purity of mind and morals, 
unselfish, temperate, and courteous in his 
bearing to all. He had a command of 
language not always perceptible in educated 
Englishmen or Americans, with some scholar- 
ship, and expressed his 
sentiments clearly and 
firmly. 

Abraham Lincoln was 
a rougher diamond, a 
man brought up literally 
as a hewer of wood and 
drawer of water ; a right- 
thinking, determined 
American of spotless in- 
tegrity. His character- 
istics do not need to be 
enlarged upon here. His 
assassination, which was 
lamented by all civilized 
people, and caused an im- 
mense sensation, need not 
be noticed in this place. 

Attempts at Com- 
promise. 

The North had scarcely 
believed that the South 
meant fighting, and the 
South on its part had 
some idea that it would 
obtain all it wanted by 
moral force. But when 
Anderson fortified himself in Fort Sumter, 
the people of Charleston felt very indignant, 
and Mr. Floyd, the Northern War Secretary, 
had previously requested Mr. Buchanan to 
withdraw all the troops from Charleston, a 
move which the President declined to make. 
General Cass had also resigned the Secretary 
of State's portfolio because Mr. Buchanan 
would not reinforce the troops; and now Mr. 
Floyd resigned because he would not with- 
draw them. Floyd had been busy trans- 
ferring arms from the North to the South 
while War Secretary, and the Confederates 
rewarded his treason by making him a 
major-general in their army when he 
retired southwards. 

A commission was sent up to Washington, 
and taunted the President with his want of 
decision. He declined to receive the members, 




AbrahajiI Lincoln. 



except as distinguished citizens, and would 
not recognize their ambassadorial character. 
These gentlemen endeavoured to cast all the 
blame upon the President ; and quitting 
Washington, shook the dust from their feet, 
while intimating that on the head of Mr. 
Buchanan the evil must rest. He declined 
to read their closing communication; and 
continued in dread of treason and death 
until his term had expired. 

Meanwhile the seceded states were seizing 
stores and munitions and arsenals through- 
out the South. The President sent his 
address to Congress on January 9th, refer- 
ring to the fact that in several states which 
had not yet seceded the forts, arsenals and' 
magazines of the United States had been 
seized, and in conclusion 
he advocated a peaceful 
termination to the dis- 
pute. Just previously the 
Confederate Carolinians 
had seized the custom- 
house, post-office, and 
arsenal at Charleston, as 
well as Forts Pinckney 
and Moultrie, when Major 
Anderson withdrew his 
little Federal garrisonfrom 
the latter post to Fort 
Sumter. This was the 
first adverse move ; and 
well might Buchanan, in 
his address above men- 
tioned, characterize it as 
" the most serious step 
that had been taken since 
the commencement oi 
the troubles." 

On that same 9th of 
January, the date of the 
President's speech, the 
first shot was fired in 
the war. The " ball wa& 
opened " in the South r 
the Union was dissolved, not to be cemented 
again save with blood and with the corpses 
of thousands of men of one and the same 
race. 

A vessel sent by the Federals with troops 
to reinforce the little garrison of Fort 
Sumter was fired on as she was entering 
the Charleston harbour. The commander 
of the ship, deprecating hostilities, pru- 
dently withdrew without returning the fire. 
An attempt was made to capture her, but 
she escaped. Thus the Civil War in America 
was commenced. Batteries were constructed,, 
and the whole South became a busy hive of 
preparation for hostilities. Reprisals already 
took place. Arms for the South were seized 
in New York, and Northern vessels at New 
Orleans were detained. Virginia declared 
that it would forcibly repel any advance of 



324 



FEDERALS AND CONFEDERATES. 



■Northern troops southwards. The Presi- 
dent's ministry had practically deserted him, 
and war was advocated. The light-hearted- 
ness with which the South entered upon the 
greatest contest of modern times is remark- 
able. The hauling down of the American 
flag at Fort Sumter was the occasion for a 
kind of fete or picnic ; and we read that the 
demand of the President of the United 
States for 75,000 soldiers was received with 
" derisive laughter " ! This merriment was 
soon turned into mourning, and the joyous 
cheers were succeeded by the cries of the 
wounded and dying. 

The Muttering of the Storm. 

On the 4th March, 1 861, Abraham Lincoln 
assumed the government of the United 
States. A native of Kentucky, he had come 
up to assume his responsi- 
bilities through a hostile 
country, and was therefore 
compelled to adopt a dis- 
guise and to travel as 
quickly as possible for fear 
■of assassination. He 
reached Washington in 
safety, and delivered his 
address boldly. He de- 
clared he did not intend 
to interfere in any way 
with slavery in -states 
where it already existed. 
■"In your hands, my dis- 
satisfied fellow-country- 
men," he said, "and not 
in mine, is the momentous 
issue of civil .war. The 
Government will not as- 
sail you. You can have 
210 conflict without being 
yourselves the aggressors; 
you have no oath regis- 
tered in heaven to destroy 
the Government, while I 
shall have the most solemn one to ' preserve, 
protect, and defend ' it." 

After Lincoln's inauguration commis- 
sioners arrived from South Carolina to urge 
that secession might be peacefully arranged, 
and wishing to open negotiations with that 
•object. But the President declined to listen 
to them, contending that they had no locies 
standi. These peaceable commissioners then 
declared that any attempt to reinforce Fort 
5umter, or to provision it, would be regarded 
by the Confederate States as a declaration 
©f war ; and when the news came to Lincoln, 
as it shortly did, that he could not relieve 
Fort Sumter with a less force than 20,000 
men, he hesitated. But his hand was forced. 
His cabinet and thepeopleoutsidedecided him, 
and it was determined that an attempt should 
be made to reinforce and provision the place. 




Stonewall Jackson, 



The United States frigate Powhatan, 
which was up at New York, was made ready 
for this purpose, and further preparations 
were made. Two small steamers and several 
transports and vessels of war were got 
ready. But from various circumstances, in- 
cluding the effects of a tempest, the expedition 
failed. This was in April. News of the 
approaching departure of the ships was con- 
veyed to South Carolina, and this was inter- 
preted as a declaration of hostilities by the 
Confederates, and they resolved to anticipate 
matters. 

The Storm Breaks over Sumter. 
Jefferson Davis immediately directed 
General Beauregard to summon Major Ander- 
son to surrender Fort Sumter. This position 
occupies the centre of the entrance to 
Charleston harbour. Be- 
hind it at some little dis- 
tance are Forts Ripley 
and Pinckney. Forts 
Moultrie, on Sullivan's 
Island, and Johnston, on 
James's Island, command 
Sumter, Morris Island and 
its batteries lying south 
and dominating the 
channel. 

Major Anderson de- 
clined to surrender, and 
Beauregard made prepa- 
rations for his attack. 
Anderson had no supplies, 
nor had he sufficient am- 
munition to sustain a 
siege. At daybreak a 
notice was sent to him 
that in an hour the Con- 
federates would open fire, 
and Beauregard kept his 
word. But no reply came 
from Major Anderson 
until 7 o'clock on Friday, 
April 1 2th, which day marks the actual 
commencement of hostilities ; and after 
sustaining a bombardment for two days, 
and doing all he could to reply eff"ectiv»ely, 
Beauregard's terms were accepted, and the 
stars and stripes descended from the fort. 
Yet, with all the expenditure of shot and 
shell, with battered walls and fired gates, 
and the magazine in flames, not one man 
had been killed upon either side. 

Anderson and his men marched out with 
the honours of war, while the Sunday sanctity 
was invaded by firing of guns, the playing of 
bands, the cheers of the ladies at the fall of 
the stars and stripes, and the elevation of 
the Palmetto flag amid universal rejoicing. 
" The glorious little state of South Carolina 
had " humbled the flag of the United States ; 
and "defeated their twenty millions." The 



325 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY, 



bloodless nature of the victory gave rise to 
adverse criticism. People didn't v/ant to 
play at war. " Give us blood ! No half 
measures ! Why, an American battle is 
not so dangerous as an American steam- 
boat ! " So after a practical siege of three 
months Sumter surrendered : it might have 
been reinforced with ease. 

The very day after the surrender, President 
Lincoln issued a proclamation calling for 
seventy-five thousand men (militia) for three 
months' service, and the greatest enthusiasm 
was aroused in the Northern States ; an 
enthusiasm more striking in consequence of 
the almost surprised and solemn silence with 
which the surrender of Sumter had been 
received. 

The North is Aroused. 

It had not been an easy matter to con- 
vince the people of the Northern States that 
the Secessionists meant mischief. But when 
they heard, as they did now, that an attack 
was about to be made upon Washington, 
public feeling and patriotism rose to fever 
heat. " The moment blood is shed Virginia 
will make common cause with her sisters of 
the South," was a cry which now came true. 
The state had given in her adhesion to 
secession, and she had a great deal to do. 
There were several worthy objects for her 
enterprise. Washington City and the Ar- 
moury, with Fort Monroe, were three very 
important points. 

Massachusetts was the first in the field, 
and the sixth regiment marched out from 
Boston the centre of an ovation. Four 
corps were soon ready, and the 6th was 
ordered to Baltimore, where it came into 
collision with a Secessionist party ; and there 
they learnt the news that the Virginians had 
taken the Armoury at Harper's Ferry. They 
forced their way to the railway in order to 
reach Washington, and had much difficulty 
in doing so. At last they fired on the people, 
and the first blood was drawn. This affair 
took place on the anniversary of the battle of 
Lexington, which inaugurated the War of 
Independence in 1775. 

The regiment proceeded to Washington 
just in time. Meanwhile the Marylanders 
were protesting against troops being sent 
through the state, and when they found their 
remonstrances unheeded, the people, incited 
by King " Cotton," destroyed bridges and did 
all and everything in their power to prevent 
the Republican militia from reaching the 
capital. General Butler found the bridges 
across the Susquehanna had been burned, 
so he took a steamer and carried his division 
by sea to Annapolis, and then proceeded by 
train to Washington, which had been forti- 
fied. But "Maryland, my Maryland," 
though strongly urged by the poet to " spurn 



the Northern scum," remained a member of 
the Federal States, for Butler was in Balti- 
more and kept her down. 

The naval yard at Norfolk had been cap- 
tured by the Virginians, and now the Presi- 
dent made every effort to beat back the 
torrent which was descending upon the 
North. Bounties were liberally offered to 
recruits, and levies were called for. On the 
19th of April, and again on the 27th, the 
blockade of the Southern ports was declared ; 
and this error in Northern strategy virtually 
gave the South the position of a belligerent 
power, for a blockade means a recognition 
of the state blockaded — a simple closing of 
the ports, or rather a proclamation to that 
effect, would have placed the Southern States 
in the position of rebels only. 

The Northern States sent in supplies, and 
by several succeeding acts of Congress many 
thousands of men, up to one hundred thou- 
sand, were sanctioned to serve for periods 
of from six months to three years. On the 
24th of May, 1861, the army took up its 
positions, and McClellan entered Virginia 
in the west, and ere long kept full command 
of it. 

The Battle of Bull Run. 

This was the first important engagement 
in the long series of sanguinary encounters, 
which lasted for as nearly as possible four 
years. This battle was fought on 21st July,, 
1 86 1, and the last Confederate force surren- 
dered on 26th May, 1865 ; the last fight was 
between Col. Barrett and General Slaughter^ 
in which the latter (the Confederate) was 
victorious. 

Bull Run is a small stream near Manassas 
Junction, in Virginia, and here General 
McDowell was met by Beauregard, the Con- 
federate commander. 

There were two battles at Bull Run — the 
first was on the 21st July, the second a 
little more than a month later. We will 
attempt to describe them. The Confederates 
were encamped at Manassas about 20,ooO' 
strong, and the Federal forces near Washing- 
ton amounted to about twice that number^ 
McDowell took with him 35,000 men, mostly 
volunteers, and advanced against Beauregard,, 
who was thereupon assisted by General 
Johnston from Winchester. 

Early upon the 21st of July the opposing 
forces came within touch of each other, and 
making allowances for sick and non-effectives 
the armies were then nearly equal. About 
ten o'clock General Burnside commenced 
the engagement, and, with assistance from 
Tyler and Sherman, drove the Confederates 
back. About twelve o'clock Burnside had 
exhausted his ammunition, and had to retire ; 
and the Union army had succeeded in out- 
flanking the Confederates, and were driving 



326 



FEDERALS AND CONFEDERATES. 



them before them, so that when the Southern 
commanders, Johnston and Beauregard, 
came up, the field was apparently lost for 
them, as with the exception of a small 
reserve of five regiments, their force ap- 
peared in full retreat up the slope of the 
hill from the plateau round which a small 
brook circled. On the east of this plateau 
was a pine-wood, and in these pines the 
small Confederate reserve was posted. Bee 
(the Confederate) had reached the edge of 
the plateau with his broken division, and 
met General T. Jackson posted in the pine- 
wood, and unharmed. 

" They are beating us back," cried Bee, as 
his force retired upon his friends. Jackson's 
answer is historical : "Well, sir, we must 
give them the bayonet," he replied, but did 
not move an inch. Bee seeing that the 
reserve was steady, encouraged his men 
with the cry that Jackson was standing like 
a stone wall. " Rally behind the Virginians.^' 
The men took the idea, and Stone-'wall 
Jackson was instantly adopted by the sol- 
diers. The general never lost the soubriquet 
thus bestowed upon him. 

This rally made a very considerable dif- 
ference to the Unionists. They swept up 
the slope gallantly, but were received by a 
withering volley from Jackson's men, who 
kept up a fatal if intermittent fire from amid 
the pine-trees. Just then Beauregard and 
Johnston rallied the retreating troops ; the 
Union attack had been delayed too long. 
Had McDowell's generals carried out his 
programme earlier, they would have gained 
the day. The Confederates had concentrated 
their forces, and the guns were ordered up to 
dislodge them. But the Confederates stood 
firm on their slope, and their cavalry quite 
upset a New York regiment ; still the Union- 
ists had the best of it at four o'clock, and 
McDowell commanded a general advance 
upon the centre. The crisis had come. 

The advance Avas made ; the lost ground 
was recovered ; the cannon was playing with 
terrible effect as the charge was made —when 
suddenly the whole of the Northern right 
was crumpled up and driven in by a flank 
attack. Elzey's brigade, which had heard 
the firing, came up by rail, and, 1700 strong, 
threw itself with all the impetuosity of fresh 
troops upon the weary Northern battalions. 
A yell of despair seemed to go up ; panic 
succeeded ; and in a few minutes McDowell 
was hurled over the edge of the plateau, and 
down the slopes he had so hardly gained. 
In fifteen minutes all was over ; the rout — 
for it was nothing less — was complete. 

The conduct of the troops once out of 
hand was utterly unworthy of them. They 
hastened away panic-stricken to the fords 
and bridge. Sauve qui peut was the idea ; 
and though the general, like Napoleon at 



Waterloo, endeavoured to cover the retreat 
with his picked troops, some eight hundred 
strong, he could do little. The victors did 
not pursue far ; indeed, it was unnecessary, 
the flight was too rapid ; and so the news was 
carried to Washington, and all was conster- 
nation. Those who had come out in car- 
riages or on horseback to see the battle 
were carried back amid the panic-stricken 
soldiery. The Times contained an account 
of the panic, and Dr. Russell's life was in 
danger in consequence. 

[The second battle of Bull Run or Manas- 
sas was also gained by the Confederates, 
very nearly upon the same ground as the 
preceding one. In the latter Jackson and 
Longstreet defeated Pope, and the Union 
army was again thrown back upon Washing- 
ton. There was a good deal more manoeu- 
vering in this engagement ; and but for Col. 
Warren, who threw his brigade into the gap, 
and for a while tried to stem the tide of 
Confederate troops, the capital might have 
been captured. As it was, the Union force 
was withdrawn within the lines, and General 
Pope was, at his own request, relieved of his 
command.] 

This was a great disaster for the North, 
which gained no important advantage that 
year. But, on the other hand, it would ap- 
pear that the Confederates were blinded by 
success, and began to make that greatest of 
all mistakes in battle, in argument, or in any 
controversy, — they despised their adversary : 
so when they wet'e repulsed the moral effect 
was the greater. 

The Progress of the War. 

We have devoted a little more space to 
this engagement than we can afford to its 
successors, which come rapidly before us. 
It is not possible to detail all the battles, 
and a short summary of the principal events 
which took place must suffice. 

After the Confederates had driven out their 
opponents. General McCIellan was appointed 
to the command of the " Army of the 
Potomac,'' and his endeavours to organize 
his men and bring the levies into something 
like order and discipline occupied him some 
months. It must be rem.embered here were 
no trained soldiers, as in European armies. 
All, or nearly all, had to be learnt by generals 
as well as soldiers ; and it is marvellous to 
notice how quickly the American nation 
acquiesced in the discipline and privations 
inseparable from campaigning, which in 
their case fell upon them with double seve- 
rity. 

Col. Butler and Commodore Stringham 
took Forts Hatteras and Clark, on the coast 
of North Carolina ; and in October General 
Sherman and Commodore du Pont attacked 
Port Royal, South Carolina, and captured 



327 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



two forts, and secured possession of the 
harbour. The North sent instructions to 
Mr. Adams to represent to the British 
Government that the South could not be 
recognized as belligerents ; but ere the in- 
structions arrived England, and soon after- 
wards France, had recognized the Confede- 
rate nation. 

Meanwhile the Confederate States were 
not idle. They were forming armies and 
despatching them against their Northern 
brethren. Missouri sent a contingent, Texas 
and Arkansas were not behindhand either. 
A battle was soon fought in the first-named 
state between Lyon (Federal) and McColluch, 
at Wilson's Creek, Springfield. General 
Lyon was killed, the losses being very equal, 
amounting to over a thousand men on each 
side. The Federals retreated to Rolla, but 
General Fremont subsequently retrieved 
Northern fortunes, though only to be again 
driven back, — and thus with varying success 
the conflict proceeded in Missouri. The 
defence of Lexington, in September, when 
Colonel Mulligan, attacked by a much 
superior force, only surrendered when his 
men had been fighting for three days with- 
out water, is one of the most remarkable 
incidents of this period of the war. 

We may now glance northwards. In 
October the Federal forces began to assert 
themselves. By degrees their enemies re- 
treated, and on the 21st General Stone's 
troops, or rather a portion of them, crossed 
the Potomac at Ball's Bluff. This was a 
disastrous move. General Evans imme- 
diately fell upon them ; and after a brave 
struggle, in which more than half the Union 
force was put hors de combat, the Federals 
retreated, leaving quite a thousand men, 
with Colonel Baker, on the field. It was 
about this time that General McClellan was 
appointed commander-in-chief of the Federal 
forces, in room of General Scott retired. 

The Trent Affair. 
We now come to a page of our history 
which will perhaps be read with more 
interest than the mere details of the battles 
and skirmishing, marching and counter- 
marching of that disastrous conflict. There 
was a strong feeling in favour of the South 
underlying popular opinion in England ; and 
this sympathy, though by no means univer- 
sal in the United Kingdom, had, in addition 
to the fact of our recognizing the Confederates 
as belligerents, made England unpopular in 
the Federal States ; and when the news of 
the battle of Bull Run reached England 
there was certainly a feeling here that the 
North was pretty well " played out." No one 
then properly estimated the tremendous re- 
cuperating energy of the Federals, — any more 
than the Northern ladies or civilians would 



credit that the ill-clothed, almost barefooted, 
and quite miserable-looking men who came 
as prisoners from the battle-field of Shiloh, 
were the magnificent Southern material 
which had given General Grant all he could 
do to overcome. 

There was a great deal of irritation ; and 
newspapers "slung ink" at each other across 
the " herring-pond " with more directness 
than good taste. The North was regarded 
as behaving in a bullying and dictatorial 
manner, and the Americans complained of 
our neutrality. " The head and front of our 
offending," says a writer of the period, " is 
that we formed a just estimate . . . The 
seceders are a match for them." In October 
1 86 1, national feeling found a vent which 
nearly resulted in a breach of the peace 
between England and America. 

The American war-sloop San yacinto was 
at Havana, when the commander, Captain 
Wilkes, heard that two Southern commis- 
sioners were about to proceed to Europe as 
ambassadors to France and England. These 
gentlemen had managed to elude the block- 
ade, and finding the English mail steamer 
Trent at Havana, determined to take pas- 
sage in her to England, as they had a perfect 
right to do. 

But apparently the bold Captain Wilkes 
thought otherwise. He made up his mind 
to intercept these " rebel " ambassadors, as 
he considered them, and accordingly in a 
very high-handed manner he ran out into the 
channel, and when the steamer appeared he 
fired a shell across her bows, his order to 
"heave to "having properly been disregarded 
by the English captain of the Trent. The 
incident created a sensation on board, as 
may be imagined. 

The Trent had sailed from Havana on 
the 7th ; " and on the 8th," says an eye-wit- 
ness, " we observed a large steamer ahead, 
and on a nearer approach we found she was 
' hove-to,' awaiting us. . . . As soon as we 
were well within range we had the first 
intimation of her nationality and intentions 
by a round shot being fired across our 
bows and by her showing American colours." 
All the ports were open, and the crew at 
quarters. A boat soon pushed off from the 
San yacinto, and the lieutenant demanded 
that Messrs. Slidell, Mason, and two others 
should be handed over to him. Mr. Slidell 
appealed to the British flag ; and the lieute- 
nant said his orders were to take them by 
force if necessary. Captain Williams, R.N., 
as representing the Queen, violently pro- 
tested, while all this time the San yacinto 
was lying with shotted guns, and her marines 
had occupied the deck. Resistance was of 
course useless. Miss SHdell endeavoured to 
defend her father but the American lieute- 
nant ordered his men to advance upon her 



328 



FEDERALS AND CONFEDERATES. 



with fixed bayonets as she stood before the 
cabin door. Mr. Shdell then gave himself 
up, and the brave Americans, who confessed 
that they would not have attempted the act 
had the Trent been a man-of-war or armed, 
tock their prisoners on board their vessel and 
carried the envoys to Boston and to prison. 
The circumstances are detailed in the news- 
papers of 28th Nov., 1861, at some length. 

Captain Wilkes's high-banded proceeding 
met with great favour in the North amongst 
the people and the ministry. But the Presi- 
dent was quite aware of its illegality and 
error. "Wilkes meant well," said Lincoln, 
*' but it will never answer. . . We shall have 



ports were hurried over the ocean laden with 
supplies and stores for the troops ; and the 
loyal Canadians also responded to the move- 
ment with an alacrity only second to our own. 
However, the storm subsided. Lord Lyons 
had orders to leave Washington within seven 
days, if reparation and the release of the 
captured ambassadors were not carried out 
in full. The Americans gave way. Wilkes 
had been advanced to a hero's place for 
firing shot and shell at an unarmed trader, 
and a great deal of " high falutin' " bombast 
was indulged in by those who feted the bold 
captain of the San Jacinto on his return. 
But the determination of the "Britisher" 




City of Boston, U.S.A. 



to give these men up and apologize for what 
"we have done." 

The indignation aroused in England when 
the news arrived has found no parallel in 
later times— not even after the Boers' defeat 
of our troops at Majuba. Lord John Russell 
did not wait for any explanation; prepara- 
tions were immediately commenced. War 
with America appeared inevitable. The 
Guards and many other corps were de- 
spatched to Canada. The dockyards re- 
sounded with the din of ship-building and 
repairing. The Warrior, Black Prince, and 
many other first-class vessels of war were 
made ready for sea, and great enthusiasm 
prevailed. Our fleet already afloat was 
ordered up from the West Indies, and trans- 



could not be ignored, and so the wisest and 
the only honest course was pursued, and 
carried out as Lincoln had foretold. "We 
are asked," said Mr. Seward, " to do to the 
British nation what we have always insisted 
all nations ought to do to us." The English 
demands were thus acceded to. 

On the 18th of November, Mr. Davis in 
his Message to his Congress at Richmond, 
Va., congratulated his adherents upon the 
"succession of glorious victories they had 
achieved, and at their having checked the 
wicked invasion which greed of gain and 
lust of power brought upon " Southern soil. 
He also commented upon the capture of 
Messrs. Slidell and Mason, which no doubt 
raised hopes of English assistance in Southern 



329 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



minds. At the same time the Confederates 
made up their minds " to continue the struggle 
in humble dependence upon Providence, to 
whose rule we confidently submit. For the 
rest we depend upon ourselves." 

No doubt the South had the best of the 
conflict at the close of 1861. The North had 
intended to invade Southern territory, and 
had been repulsed : no ground had been 
won, and hundreds of lives had been lost. 
But the Confederate numbers were no match 
for the Northern legions : the discrepancy 
was too great. But at the close of 1861 our 
great national misfortune in the death of the 
Prince Consort almost entirely put aside for 
awhile the interest in American affairs. Our 
differences upon the War Question were 
swallowed up in the consideration of the 
sorrow we experienced at the loss of the 
Prince whose life-aims were peace and the 
arts of peace. 

The Campaigns of 1862. 

The inactivity of General McClellan and 
his army of the Potomac was giving rise to 
impatience, and the daily intelligence of " all 
quiet on the Potomac " was not appreciated. 
So on the 22nd of February a general move- 
ment of the forces was ordered by the Presi- 
dent, and the Potomac army was particularly 
mentioned as destined for service. The 
distrust which the General's inactivity had 
occasioned was spreading in a very ominous 
manner. But the Missisippi campaign was 
to begin with the year, and on the 30th 
of January a move was made. The first 
engagement was not favourable to the Con- 
federates' cause, for a body of their forces 
was defeated at Mill Springs, in Kentucky, 
and in the next month General Burnside 
took an island occupied by their men on the 
Carolina coast. At this time also General 
Grant came to the fore on the Tennessee and 
Cumberland rivers. Grant's army was at 
Cairo, and Buell was at Louisville (Ky.) ; 
and on the 30th of January Grant moved 
out, although the country was much inun- 
dated, and wet weather gave every assurance 
of still greater floods. A small fleet of gun- 
boats made the attack on Fort Henry, under 
the command of Foote. Grant commanded 
the land forces, but when the fort surren- 
dered, it was found that Heiman with the 
bulk of the Confederates had retreated, and 
General Tilghman with a few men had 
remained to work the guns and cover his 
lieutenant's retreat. 

The fort surrendered, and then Grant and 
the allied naval force moved upon Fort 
Donnelson. At first the attack was repulsed, 
but the Confederates fearing the place would 
not hold out, and Floyd, the late Northern 
Secretary, being cowardly in command, it 
was determined to evacuate the fort. The 



sally was made before daybreak, and was at 
first successful'; but Grant came up, and 
rallying his whole line, drove the Confederates 
into their works again. Floyd ran away with 
his brigade, and the remainder of the force 
under Pillow surrendered. Jefferson Davis, 
who was just then appointed permanent 
President of the Confederacy, relieved Floyd 
and Pillow from their respective commands. 
Nashville fell immediately, but the affair at 
Mill Springs already referred to put a better 
colour upon the fortunes of the Union. 

Thus the Southern star was temporarily 
obscured ; and victory followed the Northern 
army still, for General Pope took an island 
in the Mississippi river, and, as will be 
seen, tried to capture Vicksburg, but could 
not succeed in his laudable design. The 
Federal fleet had proceeded down the river, 
and notwithstanding gunboats and batteries,, 
took possession of Memphis on the 9th of 
June, and captured the Confederate fleet 
there, after a warm engagement of gun- 
boats. Then Commodore Davis, leaving Foote 
wounded, sailed down the Mississippi, and 
made his attempt upon Vicksburg. But 
meantime Grant was advancing ; and while 
he was encamped near Pittsburg Landing, he 
was attacked by Johnston and Beauregard, 
who had come forth from Corinth, intending 
to crumble up Grant and roll his men back 
before Halleck could arrive to his assistance. 
This was in April. 

The Great Struggle at Shiloh. 

• Close to Shiloh church, a place whose 
very name indicates Christianity and peace,, 
one of the biggest battles of the Civil War 
was destined to be fought, and between two 
streams or creeks, tributaries of the Tennessee 
river, on a plateau about one hundred feet 
above the level of the surrounding country, 
the engagement took place. The attack by 
the Confederates was doubtless intended as 
a surprise ; for the Southern generals relied 
upon obtaining more accurate information 
concerning their enemy's movements. But 
Ulysses Grant was fairly well aware of the 
intended attack and prepared for it. 

To complete the fitness of things, and to 
coincide with the associations, Sunday was 
chosen for the attack. In the dim morning 
light, on April the 6th, Hardee came quickly 
down through the thin mist ; in silence he 
crossed the ravine, and drove in Grant's 
videttes and the outposts in a few minutes, 
and the Confederates fell heavily on Generals 
Sherman and Prentiss. The latter officer 
was pushed back, but Sherman held his 
ground most tenaciously. Not less obstinate, 
however, was the Confederates' attack. Little 
by little they pounded their way through the 
Federal forces, driving a wedge, as it were. 



330 



FEDERALS AND CONFEDERATES. 



through the National lines, and capturing 
Sherman's camp. Notwithstanding Grant's 
exertions he could not succour the division, 
and had not Sherman determined to hold 
the ground, the day would have been irre- 
trievably lost. As it was, the Confederates 
managed to drive the Unionists nearly into 
the river ; and their position was almost 
untenable, as fugitives were pouring away 
from the main body, five camps had been 
captured, and although very dearly purchased 
the victory of Johnston seemed complete, 
when he was killed by a rifle bullet. 

Beauregard was in another part of the field, 
and when at last he got his men together — 
for they had been much weakened at the loss 
of their general — a bold push was made 
for the Pittsburg Landing. The Union army 
was apparently broken up. Hundreds, deaf 
to the entreaties of their officers, ran away 
and hid themselves. The remains of Grant's 
army hurried to the river and waited for the 
next day. The South had substantially 
gained an important victory, and had cap- 
tured guns, flags, stores, and prisoners in 
abundance. But Grant could not be driven 
from the ravine. 

Night brought counsel and much needed 
assistance. The Confederates bivouacked 
upon the field they had so bravely won ; and 
while they slept Buell and Thomas came up 
with Grant, and brought 30,000 fresh troops 
to his assistance. Even the dark hours were 
not silent. Grant's gunboats shelled the 
woods, with the effect of setting them on fire 
and burning out the wounded who had taken 
refuge there. 

Next morning Grant assumed the offen- 
sive. His men had recovered when the 
reinforcements arrived, and he made his 
advance skilfully. Beauregard had about 
20,000 men to resist him, but was obliged 
to fall back as the enemy's artillery 
advanced upon his flanks. An artillery 
duel ensued, and the Southern army retired 
slowly into Corinth " step by step, from 
tree to tree," disputing every yard, but 
always retiring. When the Confederates 
reached their lines they kept the enemy at 
bay ; Halleck, who had chief command, 
coming along very cautiously feeling his way. 
At length he made for Corinth, and found 
that Beauregard had disappeared completely ; 
he had broken up his camp : he 

" Folded his tents like the Arabs, 
And as silently stole away ! " 

There is no doubt that Grant narrowly 
escaped total defeat; and the ability displayed 
by the Confederate generals is fully acknow- 
ledged by the writers of Northern proclivities 
whom we have consulted. About twenty 
thousand men were killed and wounded in 
the two days' battle, — a fearful "butcher's 



bill " for the consideration of these brothers 
arrayed against each other. 

The Capture of New Orleans. 

While these sanguinary conflicts were 
taking place Admiral Farragut with General 
Butler was making ready for a final attack 
upon New Orleans, at the mouth of the 
Mississippi. Farragut and Captain Porter 
came in and bombarded the forts while 
Butler made ready to advance. But the forts 
held out, so Farragut — "the Salamander," 
as he was named — determined to go through 
the fire and take the city. The effect of 
the bombardment was very great ; hundreds 
of shells were thrown into the forts, which 
were almost disabled, while the fish in the 
river floated stunned and dead upon its 
surface. 

Nevertheless the forts did not surrender, 
and Farragut then executed his bold move. 
Early in the morning of the 24th of April he 
hung out his signal for departure, and sailed 
and steamed boldly up the river, broke the 
chain, and made his fiery way through the 
rams, gunboats, and steamers of the Con- 
federates. The sight is described as awfully 
grand. Shot, shell, grape, and canister were 
all poured upon the Union ships ; many 
rams, and an iron-clad on which the Con- 
federates depended, fire-ships, and a hail of 
iron from the batteries, fell upon the ships 
still steadily advancing. Admiral Farragut, 
leading, brushed aside the swarm of small 
boats, which set his ship on fire and hulled 
her repeatedly. But they were unable to 
stop the determined Salamander in his 
course. Eight and nine-inch shells came 
crashing through the Confederate vessels 
with irresistible force, grape and canister 
drove the gunners from the batteries. Some 
Federal ships were put out of action or blown 
up, but the majority made their way slowly — 
fighting, sinking and destroying, up to New 
Orleans, where, in a furious thunderstorm, 
the roar of earthly artillery was hushed. 

The town was taken by surprise, and the 
citizens burned ships, coal and cotton indis- 
criminately as the conquerors approached. 
The place was in a tumult ; and General 
Butler remarked, with that intelligent hu- 
manity which afterwards so distinguished 
him : " If they will not see the stars on our 
flag they shall feel the stripes ! " How well 
he acted up to his generous words the sequel 
will show. He quickly earned his title ot 
" Butler the Beast " ; for his government of 
New Orleans under martial law was one 
continued outrage to women and men ; and 
although his Government would have de- 
fended him, " they were constrained," says a 
Northern advocate, " to send a commissioner 
to investigate his transactions" — in sugar and 
cotton for his own profit. He was subse- 



331 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



quently superseded by General Banks. By 
the Southern President he was declared an 
outlaw, and he and his officers were held up 
to public execration, to be treated as robbers 
and common enemies of mankind. Farragut 
sailed up the Mississippi, captured Baton 
Rouge and bombarded Vicksburg, and then 
came down again. 

The Merrimac and The Monitor. 

We must go back a little to describe other 
events which took place simultaneously with 
these exciting scenes in the South. In 
January General Burnside sailed from Hamp- 
ton roads, and later captured New Berne, 
and many engagements took place. The 
chief incident, and the one which created a 
great sensation at the time, was the encounter 
between the Virginia (xhQ Merrii7tac) and the 
Monitor. This incident was more particu- 
larly interesting to the English, as it was the 
first engagement in which two iron-clad 
vessels had met. 

The Virginia^ which had been so named 
after her raising and repairing, had been the 
Merrimac, but she was got up and plated 
with railroad iron. Thus defended, she 
attacked the Cumberland and Congress 
steam frigates, and sank them both in a 
very short time ; she also attacked and 
partially disabled other vessels, with but 
trifling loss to her crew, and no injury to 
herself. Next day, intending to clear up 
all outstanding engagements, the iron-clad 
began as before, but was checked by the 
appearance of the turret-ship Monitor upon 
the scene. The latter arrived from New 
York, and interposed between the Virginia 
and her intended prey, the Minnesota. _ 

The Virginia, secure in her shell, did not 
permit herself to be scared by the new 
comer. She " went for " her intended victim , 
while the Monitor went steaming round and 
played upon the invulnerable sides of her 
active foe. The Confederate ram then ran 
away, and was followed by the Monitor. 
This was what the Virginia had counted on, 
and turning she attempted to "ram" her 
antagonist. But she had a different material 
to deal with, and no impression was made. 
Shots were exchanged without much damage 
being occasioned, except that the eyes of the 
commander of the Monitor Avere injured by 
some cement struck from the turret of his 
ship, and the Virginia lost ten men. The 
bow of the Virginia was injured after her 
attempt to ram her foe, and so she sheered 
off and ran for Norfolk, leaving the battle in 
favour of the Monitor. The Merrimac was 
afterwards destroyed by the Confederates, 
and the Monitor foundered off Cape Hat- 
teras. But the days of " wooden walls" were 
numbered. 



The Campaign in the East. 

In the month of April, 1862, General 
McClellan, who had the command of the 
army of the Potomac, commenced a move- 
ment upon Richmond, Va., the headquarters 
of the Confederates. It was quite time for 
him to do something. Nearly a year before 
he had been appointed to the command of 
the army of the Potomac, and by the end of 
that year his force had been increased to 
134,000 men with 200 guns ; and afterwards 
this enormous and inactive force numbered 
nearly 200,000 men fit for duty — but idle in 
camp. McClellan had a comparatively small 
Confederate force in his front, but at length 
he found out that it had disappeared. His 
inaction had created something like a panic 
at Washington, for he had always some 
excuse born of the seasons or the weather 
for his inactivity. He had had unlimited 
credit, and he disappointed public expecta- 
tion. 

When this giant army did begin to move 
and stretch its mighty arms, the Confede- 
rate forces disappeared, as we have said. 
McClellan addressed his soldiers at length, 
and excused his past inaction in the following 
way : — 

"I have held you till now inactive that 
you might give a death-blow to the rebellion. 
Formidable artillery you now have had 
created, and the Potomac army is now a 
real army, magnificent in mate'riel, admirable 
in discipline and construction, and excel- 
lently well armed and equipped. The mo- 
ment for action has arrived. I know I can 
trust in you to save the country. The period 
for inaction is past. I will bring you now 
face to face with the rebels, and only pray 
that God may defend the right !" 

On the 9th of March, therefore, the Federal 
general, with his army, which had been "face 
to face with the rebels" in their entrench- 
ments for many months already, proceeded 
to " save the country." There was no doubt 
about the "reality" of the Potomac army. _ A 
grand total of 222,000 men had been halting 
before a Confederate force of 50,000, not so 
" excellently armed and equipped," as the 
sequel proved, for when the grand army 
moved down to "verify the evacuation" of 
the Confederate army— not to fight it, ap- 
parently, but " to give the troops a few days' 
experience in bivouac and on the march," 
— when these magnificent soldiers came up 
to the deserted Confederate lines they found 
logs of wood cut to resemble guns had been 
planted upon petty earthworks ; and the great 
army of the Potomac had been kept at bay 
for months by a few " Quakers " ! 

After considerable pressure had been 
applied by the President, McClellan's force 
was divided, and he with about 100,000 men 



332 



FEDERALS AND CONFEDERATES. 



proceeded to Fort Monroe. At that time 
the Merrimac was in existence, and frightened 
his flotilla, so the Federals had to land at 
the head of York river. In May McClellan 
began to make his dispositions for the cap- 
ture of Richmond. On his right was the 
Pamunkey, a tributary of the New York 
river, and the Chickahominy crossed the 
peninsula on the left. Fortress Montroe is 
at the extremity of the promontory opposite 
Norfolk, at the mouth of the James river. 

Before McClellan there was now a Con- 
federate force of about ii,ooo men all told ; 
and yet with all his fine army the Federal 
general made no attempt at an assault. He 
did simply nothing, betraying a masterly 
inactivity once more, until the Southern 
troops quietly withdrew, and then a column 
was " sent in pursuit." 

On the Chickahominy. 

From Williamsburg, where the Federals 
had been checked by Magruder's small force, 
up to Richmond is stated to be fifty miles ; 
and on the 8th of May the Federals com- 
menced to cover that distance. 

On the 23rd McClellan's army was close 
to Richmond, and a battle ensued at Han- 
over Court House, while severe encounters 
took place at Seven Pines and Fair Oaks, in 
which the Confedei'ates were prevented from 
driving McClellan back and lost severely in 
the attempt. The Federal chief, however, 
did not make any attempt to clinch the blow 
he had dealt, and the armies retained sub- 
stantially the same positions they had for- 
merly occupied. Again General McClellan's 
army was doomed to inaction. It did nothing ! 
It speaks volumes for the patience of the 
President that he did not interfere at this 
juncture. Within a few miles of Richmond, 
the National army might have easily entered 
it after the fight of Seven Pines, but they 
preferred to remain inactive. 

Robert Lee and "Stonewall" Jackson now 
came upon the field, and General Stuart had 
captured the Union supplies at West Point. 
When McClellan heard that Jackson Avas 
coming, he telegraphed for more men, though 
his own force was more than double Jack- 
son's. 

McClellan now made his dispositions, not 
for an advance, but for a retreat ! Lee 
determined to turn his adversary's right, and 
pushed Hill on the 26th of June to Mechanics- 
ville with that intention. Hill crossed the 
Chickahominy and attacked Porter, who 
retired to a stronger position and resisted 
further attack that day. Gaine's Mill was 
reached, and there Porter was reinforced. 
Longstreet and Hill and Jackson assailed 
the Federal position most gallantly, and were 
bravely met. The reserves were brought up, 
and the Confederate attack became general ; 



the slaughter was terrible, and the Southern 
troops carried the wood. But here they 
were encountered by fresh reinforcements, 
and the Confederates were obliged to halt. 
The Northerners were only just saved from a 
general rout. 

As it was, however, the retreat was con- 
tinued, and at Malvern Hill a most desperate 
battle was fought, the losses being frightful 
on both sides. The Confederates had charged 
upon the Federal guns and sabred the gun- 
ners at Frazier's Farm, and at Malvern their 
energy was sustained. The Federals occu- 
pied a strong and well-fortified position. 
Attack after attack upon the hill was 
defeated with enormous loss to the Con- 
federates. They could not pass the tempest 
of fire and lead. Shot and shell mowed 
them down in the open like grass. At night- 
fall they rested beneath the batteries, and 
were not molested during the storm and 
rain that closed the day. 

Next morning the defences were silent, 
and the Confederates rather in confusion, for 
they had suffered terribly ; but their enemy 
had retreated before them again, — a move- 
ment characterized by General Kearny, a 
Northern commander, as due to "cowardice 
or treason." Had the Confederates made a 
determined pursuit they would have com- 
pleted the destruction of McClellan, for his 
condition is reported by friendly critics as 
desperate. " Nothing but a heavy rain, 
which prevented the enemy from bringing up 
their artillery, saved the army from destruc- 
tion," 

Bragg in Tennessee. 

While these events were taking place in 
the North, the campaign in Tennessee had 
been carried on in a very energetic manner. 
After the battle at Pittsburg Landing, Halleck 
took chief command, and Buell was moved 
forward, threatening Chattanooga. Bragg, 
the Confederate, however, arrived there 
before Buell, and he started boldly north- 
wards, encountering General Manson with 
his advance-guard under Kirby-Smith, and 
routing him at Richmond (Kentucky), and 
Lexington was entered. Bragg tried to 
persuade that state to join the South, and a 
governor was temporarily appointed by him. 
Buell, however, was reinforced and occupied 
Louisville; and then Bragg retired, and battle 
was given at Percyvilie, where he inflicted 
great loss upon his enemy, and then con- 
tinued his retreat, and eventually escaped 
with an enormous quantity of supplies, but 
with no definite success. He was directed 
to go out again and oppose Rosencrans, who 
had superseded Buell. 

Grant had been, with Rosencrans, successful 
in Western Tennessee, and the latternow came 
to try conclusions with Bragg. The armies 



TiZ^ 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



met at Murfreesboro', and a tremendous 
battle ensued. After a very narrow escape 
from defeat, the Northern" generalship gained 
the day, and after two days' fighting Bragg 
retreated. The losses on both sides during 
this campaign were very great. It is said 
that the Confederates lost 14,700 men and 
the Federals 12,000 — in fact, about one-fourth 
of all the forces engaged. After such con- 
flicts the Southern armies were quite unable 
to prosecute their design of crossing the 
Ohio, and the idea was consequently aban- 
doned. 

These operations came to an end about 
the end of the year. The great engagements 
at Murfreesboro' were commenced on the 
31st of December, 1862 ; and after a rest for 
New Year's Day 1863, the conflict was re- 
newed on the 2nd of January, with the general 
results already recorded. Nearly all the 
other affairs of that winter and the following 
spring were merely raids undertaken by 
cavalry ; but Grant was checked in his 
movement against Vicksburg by Van Dorn 
at Holly Springs. 

Lee in Virginia. 

We must briefly notice the march of events 
in Virginia, where General Lee advanced 
with the object of seizing Philadelphia. 
Pope came to stem the Southern's advance, 
and encountered Lee at Cedar Mountain, 
where a very sanguinary affair took place on 
the 9th of August, 1862, in which the Con- 
federates under Jackson • beat the enemy 
under Banks. By a rapid retreat and flank 
march Jackson then got between Pope and 
the capital, while Stuart with his cavalry was 
again to the fore, and captured Pope's bag- 
gage as he had McClellan's. Pope now fell 
back upon the Potomac, and on the 29th 
and 30th August the second battle of Bull 
Run was fought, which ended in the defeat 
of the Federal forces. He appears to have 
been crippled by McClellan, who would send 
neither forage, guns, nor ammunition. In- 
deed, it is difficult to see why McClellan was 
continued in his command, when he declared 
that " Pope should be left to get out of his 
scrape as he best could ! " 

So the Confederates advanced, and while 
Bragg, as already related, was endeavouring 
to annex Kentucky, Lee was trying to induce 
Maryland to join the Southern cause. But 
in this endeavour he was unsuccessful, and 
McClellan in the chief command was desired 
to attack Lee and stop his march on Wash- 
ington. Lee made for Harper's Ferry, and 
sent a portion of his force under Jackson 
to take the place, which he did. Meantime 
McClellan was hammering at Lee, who 
wished Jackson to have time to perform his 
exploit ; and that done he rejoined Lee again 
as soon as he could. McClellan determined 



to conquer the divided force, and attacked 
Lee in position at Antietam, where, however, 
Jackson had united with his commander. 

For ten days the Federals threw them- 
selves upon the Confederates, but could not 
conquer them, and the battle wavered till 
at last McClellan relinquished his attempt, 
having lost nearly 13,000 men. Lee's army 
was about half the Federal strength at first, 
and, though reinforced, it never equalled 
McClellan's. He lost at least as many as 
his adversary. But owing to McClellan's 
tardiness he crossed the Potomac unmolested, 
and Lincoln, disgusted, turned McClellan 
from his com.mand and appointed Burnside. 

General Burnside marched by the Rappa- 
hannock, and made his way to Fredericks- 
burg on the north bank, while Lee proceeded 
on the south side. The opponents arrived 
near the town, and so arranged matters that 
whichever made the attempt to enter would 
be immediately attacked by the other. Guns 
were placed in commanding positions, and 
the armies waited. Lee was strongly in- 
trenched, with Jackson and Longstreet at his 
flanks. 

It was at the close of the year, in Decem- 
ber, that the great battle was fought. The 
day broke in fog, and Longstreet himself 
came up close to the Federals, and actually 
heard their orders given. The attack was 
made as anticipated. On the 13th Burnside 
made the assault, and was fearfully repulsed 
at every point. His men were swept away 
by companies, and when he retreated across 
the river, on the 15th, he left nearly 14,000 
men behind him. This was the closing 
event of the year in the North. The 
balance of gain rested with the Confederates. 

The Struggle in 1863. 

The President issued his proclamation for 
the emancipation of the slaves on the ist 
January, 1863, and a bill for arming negroes 
was passed on the 2nd February. At the 
end of January Burnside surrendered his 
command of the Potomac army, and was 
succeeded by Hooker, who crossed the 
Rappahannock, and in May fought the 
bloody battle of Chancellorsville, where he 
defeated Lee; and here Jackson was mortally 
wounded by his own troops. This cele- 
brated general made a flank movement, and 
came upon General Howard's division un- 
perceived. The game he "flushed" in the 
wood were the only scouts they had, and the 
Unionists were not prepared. Jackson fell 
upon them with two corps, and when dark- 
ness set in he went forward to reconnoitre. 
He was riding back with his staff, when 
Hill's regiment fired at them, mistaking them 
for the Federal horse. The Federals replied 
from the lines, and charged even over Jack- 



334 



FEDERALS AND CONFEDERATES. 



son, who lay wounded. He was brought in, 
but died on the loth. 

Next day, Sunday, May 3rd, the battle was 
resumed, when Chancellorsville was cap- 
tured by the Confederates, and Lee pressing 
on, forced Hooker back. The latter retreated 
rapidly, and these affairs after the Chancel- 
lorsville engagement culminated in disaster. 
Up to this time success had attended nearly 
all the Confederate operations, and the 
attempts of the Federals had been failures. 
Galveston had been captured by the former, 
and the Charleston attack had been aban- 
doned by the latter. The success of the 
South was marked both by land and sea. 
Vicksburg held out, and Bragg was unsub- 
dued. It only remains for. us to give the 
outlines of the several engagements which 
took place during the year 1863, for the sad 
tale of war is only a repetition. We have 
seen in the foregoing pages how brothers in 
arms against each other can fight, and need 
not pursue the mournful detail of wounds 
and death. Let us therefore summarize the 
remaining events. 

In the middle of June the Confederates 
crossed the Potomac, led by Lee ; and 
crossing Maryland, invaded Pennsylvania, 
General Hooker resigned his command to 
Meade, who advanced to meet the Confede- 
rates at Gettysburg, on the ist, 2nd, and 
3rd July, and defeated them. Lee retreated 
across the river followed by Meade, who took 
up a strong position at Gettysburg, where 
he was attacked by Lee against the advice 
of Longstreet. The first day's encounter was 
in favour of the Confederates ; but owing to 
imperfect information, Lee threw his force 
against the concentrated Federal army, and 
was beaten. His loss reached the fearful 
total of 36,000 hors de combat^ while the 
defenders lost 23,000 men. Lee's own de- 
cision was the cause of this butcheiy, and 
the Confederates retreated to the Rappahan- 
nock. In his two invasions Lee is said to 
have lost 90,000 men. 

In the South, meanwhile, a circle of fire 
had surrounded Charleston, and the combat 
raged around the forts. General Gillmore 
and Admiral Dahlgreen made strenuous 
efforts to reduce the defences, but without 
complete success. It was at this time that 
the " Laird rams," which were launched in 
England, gave such offence, and in conse- 
quence of representations they were stopped at 
Liverpool. Confederate or English blockade- 
runners had become veiy numerous, and 
great excitement was caused in America. 
Several were captured. The Confederates, 
however, built iron-clads for themselves; and 
of these " No. 290," or as she was afterwards 
called the Alabama, is the one most likely 
to be remembered by English people, not 
only in consequence of her daring career, 



and her destruction in the Channel by the 
Kearsarge^ but because of the Alabama 
Claims paid into the American Treasury. 
That most dishonest demand bears its own 
condemnation ; for at this moment more than 
one million sterling is lying in the New York 
banks in the utter inability of the American 
Government to find out any claimants even 
to the fifth degree. 

Grant had been busy at Vicksburg ; and 
he had defeated Pemberton and completely 
invested the city, while Porter came up by 
water. The place surrendered, after enduring 
terrible privations, on the 3rd of July — a 
day, both in the North and South, disastrous 
to the Confederate arms. The barbarity of 
the Northern commanders in firing at the 
hospitals in Vicksburg has been loudly con- 
demned. Indecisive operations were carried 
on in Tennessee, where the Confederate 
commander afterwards surrendered to Burn- 
side ; though this was ' atoned for by the 
victory of Bragg over Rosencrans at Chicka- 
manga, and the Federals found themselves 
in a very unpleasant position. 

A battle, lasting two days, was fought at 
Look-out Mountain by Grant against Bragg 
in November 1863. But the Federals could 
make no head against General Hardee, who 
repulsed them with terrific slaughter, not- 
withstanding Sherman's gallantry. But next 
day Grant broke the line, with his masses of 
troops two miles in length, and Bragg then 
retreated. Hardee superseded him in his 
command. General Steele's expedition 
against Little Rock was the only other event 
we can notice here. 

The Campaigns of 1864. 

Until April of this year both parties re- 
mained inactive in the field ; but in April 
the Confederates seized Fort Pillow, and 
Plymouth, and in May General Grant was 
nominated commander-in-chief of the Federal 
armies, and on the 3rcl of that month he moved 
upon Richmond, Va. Lee came forth to 
meet him, and after two days' fighting the 
result was a drawn battle. In the Battles 
of the Wilderness, at North Anna, and Cold 
Harbour, several very sanguinary engage- 
ments were fought for six days, the losses 
being enormous. Grant decided to " fight it 
out on this line if it takes all summer." The 
losses for several days were counted at 
10,000 on each side per diem. 

On the 1st June an attempt was made, 
but Lee repulsed his foes at Cold Harbour. 
Grant here lost 7000 men in one half-hour 
of assault, and though orders were issued to 
resume the attack the soldiers declined to 
stir. And now Grant made a movement. 
He quitted the Chickahominy base of opera- 
tions, crossed the James river, and "went 
for" Petersburg. Here his first attack was 



335 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



defeated, and he concluded to besiege the 
place. His losses during the five weeks had 
been awful. Fifty-four thousand men were 
killed and wounded, besides his generals' 
losses ; while Lee had left more than 30,000 
dead and wounded on the fields of battle. 

When Grant advanced upon Richmond, 
General Sherman took the Mississippi com- 
mand with about 100,000 men, while Johnston, 
his opponent, had scarcely more than half 
that number. Sherman forced his adversary 
back upon Atlanta, where Hood took com- 
mand of the Confederates, but, after a great 
deal of fighting, was compelled to evacuate 
the city. Then came the celebrated " march 
through Georgia" (an episode of the war 
celebrated in prose and verse) by Sherman, 
who occupied Savannah, and the Confede- 
rates were driven from Nashville soon after- 
wards by Thomas, and the year ended 
disastrously for the Southern arms. 

The End of the Civil War. 

When 1865 came into the world it was 
perceived that the South was in a bad way. 
It had made a mighty effort ; but not- 
withstanding devotion and bravery, numbers 
were telling against it. The North was 
drawing a cordon of men around the South, 
and slaying the few thousands who remained 
as they appeared. Sherman began his 
homeward march on the ist February, and 
notwithstanding the efforts of his opponents 
he made his way through all obstacles, and 
passing through Columbia, defeated the Con- 
federates in one or two battles, and entered 
Goldsboro'. General Hardee, outflanked, 
had surrendered Charleston to the Federals 
when Columbia fell, and Johnston was driven 
back. Mobile was occupied, and in Ala- 
bama the Confederates surrendered. Rich- 
mond had already surrendered to Grant, and 
on the 9th April the terms had been agreed 
upon at Appomattox Court House. Thus in 
every direction the Federal arms were vic- 
torious and the Confederacy was conquered. 
Tlie last battle was on the 13th of May, in 



Texas ; and the Confederate army across the 
Mississippi surrendered on May 26th. 

Measures were immediately taken to dis- 
band the Union troops, who, on the ist 
January, 1865, had amounted to more than a 
million of men. The entire force numbered 
2,688,523 men ; and although all these were 
not employed, we may assume that nearly 
two millions of Federal troops were engaged 
in the war, and that certainly 300,000 died 
on the field, or from wounds or sickness. 
The Southern losses must have been nearly 
as many. 

On the assassination of Lincoln, and the 
capture of the assassin, we need not dwell 
here. The sad event is referred to be- 
cause it was stated in proclamation that 
Davis had instigated the crime. President 
Lincoln was shot in the theatre on the 14th 
April, 1865; and on the 2nd May Davis was 
denounced, a reward being offered for his 
capture. Of course the accusation was totally 
unfounded ; but on the loth May Jefferson 
Davis was captured while attempting to escape, 
at Irwinville, Ga. He was imprisoned in 
Fort Monroe, and subsequently brought to 
trial and imprisoned for three years. 

And so the War of Secession ended by 
the subjection of the armies of the slave 
states, which were thenceforward free. The 
United States are now a Nation, having learnt 
a bitter lesson. In May, 1865, provisional 
governors were appointed by Johnson, the 
President, and slavery was abolished, and 
reconstruction was entered upon. The 
enormous national debt is being rapidly 
swept away, and the United States are now 
a really united Republic. A great deal of 
feeling no doubt existed for some time after 
the war had ceased ; but the Americans 
must, as a people, regard the result with 
satisfaction. A nation of free men, it would 
have been a blot upon their humanity to 
tolerate slavery ; and they must all rejoice 
that the blot has been removed, even though 
it has been unhappily cut out with the 
sword, and steeped in the blood of brothers 
and friends. 




336 



/' 






>- 1 . 



f '' _fr- 



I" 

I 
'I ' 



;'tji"- <• * "- ', ^ , a-;-?' - j^:"^- .-^i' 'iC-:--' ^ 







'Ihe Bristol Riots (J'aje 351 ) 



THE REFORM BILL OF 1832. 

THE STORY OF A GREAT NATIONAL VICTORY. 

" It will soon again be necessary to reform, that we may preserve, to save the fundamental principles of the 
Constitution by aJlerations in the subordinate parts. It will then be possible, as it was possible two hundred years ago, 
to protect vested rights, to secure every useful institution, every institution endeared by antiquity and noble associations, 

and at the same time to introduce into the system improvements harmonizing with the original plan." — Lord Macazday 

in 1828. 

Popular Expression of National Feeling — John Gilpin and his Runaway Horse "Reform" — Political Celebrities of 1831— 
Early Reform of the Representation — The Long Parliament — Cromwell — Clarendon's Opinion — Motion for Reform in 
1745 — The Elder Pitt on Reform — Rotten Boroughs and Pocket Boroughs ; Seats held as Family Property — The 
Younger Pitt ; his Efforts for Reform— Opposition of Burke and Others — The Friends of the People and Charles Grey 
— Their Petition in 1793 — Hard Facts temperately put — The French Revolution and its Effects — Long Delayof Reform 
Measures— After the War — Reform agitation ; its Supporters and Opponents — Government Coercion — The Peterloo 
Massacre — Lord John Russell's Reform Proposition in 1819 — Lord Castlereagh— George Canning — The Wellington 
Administration ; Catholic Emancipation ; Changes — Sir Robert Peel and his Influence— A New Reign and a New 
Ministry ; New Prospects of Reform — Lord John Russell introduces the Bill ; its Provisions, Disfranchisement, 
Enfranchisement, and Redistribution — Various Speeches — Second Reading and Explanations- Dissolution and General 
Election — Reintroduction of the Reform Bill — Battle Royal — The Bill passes the Commons — Debate in the Lords^ 
The Bill rejected— General Excitement — Birmingham Meeting — Bristol Riots — The Bill again in the Commons — 
Battle in the Lords — Resignation of the Ministry — Return of Lord Grey — -The Bill passed — Conclusion. 



Popular Expression of National 
Feeling. 
10 WARDS the end of 1831, when 
popular feeling throughout Eng- 
land had risen to a pitch of 
excitement unknown for many 
years, and all minds seemed engrossed 
with one burning question, there appeared 




in the windows of the print-shops a some- 
what remarkable political caricature. It 
was from the facile hand of the elder Doyle, 
the H. B., whose sketches were the pre- 
decessors of the cartoons of Punch, and 
occasioned much laughter from the humour 
and accuracy with which it portrayed the 
situation of the moment. It was entitled 



337 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



"John Gilpin," and represents in the cha- 
racter of that well-known citizen of credit 
and renown, his most gracious Majesty- 
King William the Fourth. That somewhat 
unskilful rider is mounted on the horse 
"Reform," an animal not originally belong- 
ing to him, and with whose habits and 
temper he is quite unacquainted. In a rash 
moment he has determined to make this 
fiery steed his hobby; and in spite of all 
his cries of "fair, and softly," and defying 
curb and rein, the trot at which the good 
horse started has become a gallop ; and 
" Reform " has fairly taken the bit between 
its teeth and run away with its rider. John 
Bull, the keeper of the turnpike, has thrown 
the gate wide open for the headlong career 
of the horse "Reform," and seems mightily 
amused at the predicament of the rider, for 
whom he seems to anticipate no worse 
disaster than a thorough shaking and a 
fright, which will teach him caution for the 
future. That careful soul. Mistress Gilpin, 
with a face unaccountably like that of his 
grace the Duke of Wellington, surrounded 
by a party of friends, in whom the political 
student will recognise the leading Tories of 
the day, is peering out anxiously from the 
window of the Bell Inn, where she expects 
her lord and master to join her. But the 
royal John Gilpin involuntarily pursues his 
wild career towards the residence of the 
owner of "Reform," an aristocratic person- 
age of great experience, named Charles, 
second Earl Grey, to whom he will presently 
be able to say with undoubted truth and 
accuracy, " I came, because your horse 
would come." The historical bottles that 
dangle at his waist are seen, by the in- 
scriptions thereon, to be filled respectively 
with "Rotunda Pop" — the gas-charged 
beverage dispensed most liberally by pur- 
veyors at the Rotunda in the Blackfriars 
Road ; and with Birmingham froth, of 
which a certain orator, Hunt, may be cited 
as the most popular manufacturer at a 
noted shop known as the Birmingham 
Political Union. Four persons, two on 
horseback and two on foot, have joined in 
the chase, and are riding merrily at John's 
heels. They are among those who, in the 
original ballad, expressed their approval of 
the whole proceeding by crying out " Well 
done!" as loud as they could bawl. One 
of them has the long face and aquiline nose 
of Sir Francis Burdett; while in another, 
with his portly form and strong, square face, 
we recognise in a moment the redoubtable 
liberator, the great Daniel O'Connell him- 
self; while the remaining two are evidently 
Mr. Hume and Sir John Cam Hobhouse. 

To make the picture complete, there are 
the geese scattered in terror by John Gilpin 
when he threw the slush about. These 



respectable birds are hissing with out- 
stretched necks, in a paroxysm of mingled 
anger and consternation, as the galloping, 
reckless "Reform" threatens them with 
sudden extinction ; but — oh ! wicked wag of 
a caricaturist, oh ! derider of hereditary 
dignities, and vilifier of the powers that be 
— the head of each terrified goose is sur- 
mounted by a coronet, and H. B. has. 
evidently intended a reference to the alarm 
felt by the House of Peers. Above the- 
turnpike gate sits a gloomy bird immove- 
able as Edgar Poe's raven. The raven him- 
self is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance, 
not of Duncan, but of democracy, under the 
battlements of the British constitution; and 
indeed, there was at that period a certain 
learned and literary Croker, not uncon- 
nected with the Admiralty, who lifted up 
his parable against change and progress in 
a monotonously lugubrious manner. And 
to complete the shockingly profane allegory 
— in the corner lies overthrown and discon- 
solate an old orange woman, whose stall 
has suffered dire wreck in the headlong- 
career of "Reform," who must have " can- 
noned " against her; and the venerable 
dame has the features of that Tory of Tories, 
the man of many doubts, certainly neither 
"swift of despatch " nor "easy of access," 
the Ex-Chancellor Eldon. 

The caricature completely hit the taste of 
the town, and was appreciated accordingly. 
It exactly represented the attitude taken up 
by the various parties with regard to Reform 
— the speed at which one party was hurrying- 
on, voluntarily or involuntarily, the appre- 
hensions of another set of legislators, the 
ignominious overturn of a third. To under- 
stand the position of affairs at the crisis 
that preceded the passing of the Reform 
Bill of 1832, and to appreciate the manner 
in which that remarkable measure, after a 
voyage unparalleled in its dangers and 
vicissitudes, at last arrived safely in the 
harbour of royal appro uation, we must 
glance at the earlier stages of the question 
as they had presented themselves to former 
Parliaments. 

Early Reform of the Representa- 
tion ; The Long Parliament ; Crom- 
well. 

It was a remark of the great Napoleon 
that hunger was to be found at the bottom 
of the majority of political revolutions ; and, 
as in most of the observations of that selfish 
genius, there is much truth in the saying — 
which may, moreover, be applied to many 
bloodless revolutions and political changes. 
The reason is not far to seek. When men 
are tolerably prosperous, their minds are 
occupied with improving or enjoying that 
pro'sperity. It is in times of dearth, dis- 



THE REFORM BILL OF 1832. 



tress, and pressure, on the other hand, that 
they naturally turn to discuss the causes of 
the great social differences and apparent 
anomalies, and dissatisfaction with the 
existing state of things induces them to 
agitate for an alteration and a readjustment 
of the positions of the various classes, with 
the very natural object of bettering their 
own condition and obtaining for themselves 
a fairer share of the necessaries, and even 
the comforts of life. Again, when a great 
change has come, or a great event has 
occurred to shake the foundations of 
authority, the opportunity has been taken 
for altering the details of the constitution in 
the direction of the admission of a greater 
number of persons to power. For a period 
of change or of danger is naturally one in 
which it becomes desirable to secure the 
goodwill of the bulk of the community, 
which is best done by the offer of political 
influence. 

Accordingly, long before the great con- 
test that was fought out in the first year of 
the reign of William IV., the question of 
the better representation of the English 
people in Parliament by an adjustment and 
redistribution of seats, which should bring 
about an equitable proportion between the 
number of members accorded to any part 
of the country and the number of the con- 
stituents and the magnitude of the interests 
they represented, had seriously engaged 
the attention of the government. Thus we 
find that more than two centuries ago the 
Long Parliament, that remarkable assembly 
destined to endure such strange vicissitudes 
of fortune, and to touch the heights and 
depths of honour and disgrace, had its 
attention called to the anomalies that even 
then existed in the representation of the 
nation in the House of Commons, and made 
some practical changes in consequence of 
a measure that may be looked upon as the 
very first of Reform Bills — giving represen- 
tatives to Halifax, Manchester, and Leeds, 
that were becoming important, and taking 
away the members from places which had 
fallen into decay in the course of time — 
while the number of members for London 
and the counties was increased, and the 
right of franchise was bestowed upon all 
owners of land. We are told by Clarendon, 
too, how Cromwell, when he summoned the 
Protectorate Parliament, "though he did not 
observe the old course in sending writs out 
to all the little boroughs throughout England 
which used to send burgesses (in which 
there is so great an inequality that some 
single counties send more members to 
Parliament than six other counties do), he 
seemed to take a more equal way, by ap- 
pointing more knights for every shire to be 
chosen, and fewer burgesses, whereby the 



number was much lessened; and yet, the 
people being left to their own election, it was 
not thought an ill temperament, and was 
then generally looked upon as an alteration 
fit to be more warrantably made, and in a 
better time." Here we have a distinct and 
real reform; in speaking of which, Mr. 
Molesworth, in his exhaustive "History of 
the Reform Bill of 1832," refers us to White- 
lock's Diary, from which he extracts the 
words: "Wednesday, Dec. 6: Debates about 
disfranchisement of certain boroughs, and 
transfer of their franchise to other places," 
and the approving tone of Clarendon's 
remarks seems to indicate that this "altera- 
tion fit to be made" was considered the 
natural and national means of curing an 
evil that had grown up in the course of time 
in the increment of some places and the 
decay of others. 

The projects of Cromwell were not likely 
to be carried out by the sucessors to his 
power, who were not ashamed to tumble 
his corpse out of its grave to satiate their 
sorry vengeance. Nor was the earlier Hano- 
verian period, when bribery and corruption 
were reduced to a science, likely to be pro- 
pitious to measures of reform. It was not 
until 1745 that we find the subject revived 
in the House of Commons. In that year. 
Sir Francis Dashwood, in proposing an 
amendment to the Address on the calling 
together of Parliament, proposed a measure 
of Reform as a means of securing the affec- 
tions of the people to the throne. " It 
should be our speedy care to frame such 
bills as may effectually secure to His 
Majesty's subjects their undoubted right 
to be freely and fairly represented in Par- 
liament, frequently chosen, and exempted 
from undue influence of any kind," said 
Sir Francis, who was indeed a sanguine 
man if he hoped that any such measure 
could be carried out in such an age. 

His motion, indeed, was negatived with- 
out a division, being strenuously opposed 
by the elder Pitt, who declared the time — 
when rebellion was abroad in the land— to 
be utterly unfitted for the consideration of 
such questions. " Shall we employ our- 
selves," he inquired, " in framing bills to 
guard our liberties from corruption when we 
are in danger of losing them and everything 
that is dear to us by the force of arms ? 
Would not this be like a man's amusing 
himself ■^ith making regulations to prevent 
his serN^ants from cheating him at the very 
time that thieves were breaking into his 
house ? ' ' Certainly the year of the '45 
was an unpropitious time for measures of 
home policy ; and that the great commoner 
was not unaware of the anomalies in the 
Parliamentary system which left many 
thousands of people unrepresented, while 



339 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



boroughs were maintained that represented 
no one but the owners, is shown by the 
tenor of his speech on the American Stamp 
Act, in which, speaking of these boroughs, 
he used the remarkable words: "This is 
what is called the rotten part of the Con- 
stitution. It cannot continue a century. 
If it does not drop, it must be amputated." 
The "great commoner" was right. The 
decayed limb of the constitution was 
amputated just sixty-six years after he 
uttered the prediction. 

Rotten Boroughs and Pocket 
Boroughs; Seats Held as Family 
Property. 

There was good and sufficient ground 
for Pitt's denunciation of the " rotten 
part of the Constitution," and he himself 
had only to cite his own method of entrance 
into Parliament as an instance that the 
House of Commons was not an assembly 
that adequately represented the people of 
England. His grandfather. Governor Pitt, 
of Madras, had made a large fortune in 
India at a time when the Pagoda tree 
yielded its golden fruit abundantly to any 
official of the East India Company who 
would be at the trouble to shake it. Among 
the valuable results of his Indian career 
was the celebrated gem known as the Pitt 
diamond, and purchased by the Regent of 
France. On his return to Europe, we 
are told, he "bought estates and rotten 
boroughs ; and two of these peculiar pieces 
of property, in the shape of the seats for Old 
.Sarum and Oakhampton, descended in due 
time to his eldest grandson, Thomas, the 
■elder brother of William Pitt. At the 
general election of 1734, Thomas Pitt being 
returned both for Oakhampton and Old 
Sarum, transferred the seat for the latter 
"borough to his younger brother William ; 
and as the nominee to a "family seat" 
did Pitt first make his appearance on the 
benches at Westminster. In the same 
way Burke entered Parliament as the 
nominee of Lord Rockingham for one of 
his lordship's seats ; and Pitt himself, 
with all his popularity with the nation, was 
unable to establish a permanent ministry, 
until, by his coalition with the Duke of 
Newcastle, his former antagonist, he had 
brought to his side the tremendous borough 
influence the Duke had been enabled to 
array against him. 

Among the accusations brought against 
the unpopular Anglo-Indians, or "nabobs" 
of the last century, not the least significant 
arose from the propensity to employ part of 
their quickly-acquired wealth in the pur- 
chase of Parliamentary as well as of landed 
property. " They raised the price of every- 
thing in their neighbourhoods, from fresh 

340 



eggs to rotten boroughs." In some of the 
places which returned a member, or even 
two members, to Parliament, there were 
only a few persons who had the suffrage, 
and these were entirely in the hands of the 
great landed proprietors, giving their votes 
as unhesitatingly as they paid their rent. 
In others, there were absolutely no voters 
at all. In Cornwall, especially, there were a 
number of wretched boroughs, such as St. 
Michael's and Grampound, in which purity 
of election was not even affected. In others, 
such as Sutton, in Surrey, there was abso- 
lutely no constituency left. The consequence 
of this was that the majority of the members 
of the House of Commons were returned by 
an absurdly small number of electors ; while 
great and populous towns, contributing in a 
large measure to the wealth and prosperity 
of the nation by their manufacture, trade, 
and commerce, were shut out altogether 
from all share in the representation. 

The second William Pitt, in the earlier 
part of his career, made several efforts to 
procure a certain measure of Parliamentary 
reform. In 1782 he moved for a select 
committee ; and in a full house the motion 
was lost by only twenty votes. In the next 
year he made an attempt to get a bill 
passed for disfranchising boroughs con- 
victed of notorious bribery; and in 1785 
brought forward a scheme for purchasing 
from a certain number of small boroughs 
(or rather from their proprietors) their right 
of returning- members, and bestowing the 
seats thus bought upon important towns. 
This scheme failed ; and soon afterwards 
the excesses of the French Revolution 
frightened the Parliamentary leaders from 
any renewal of the attempt. Burke, in par- 
ticular, once the ardent friend of "taxation 
and representation," was uncompromising 
in his opposition to any change in the 
constitution ; and strenuous and vehement 
in all his political views and actions, went 
far beyond the Tories themselves in de- 
nouncing all innovation as fraught with 
danger to the very existence of the British 
monarchy. 

The Friends of the People, and 
Charles Grey; their Petition. 

While the French Revolution, with its 
tremendous changes, its crimes, and its 
audacity, inspired the ruling classes with 
hatred and fear, it produced a very different 
effect upon the community at large, among 
whom it excited hope of gain to be achieved, 
and great alterations to be won by persist- 
ency, firmness, and union. Accordingly 
there was formed the powerful association 
that took the name of the "Friends of the 
People," and had for its great object the 
achievement of Parliamentaiy Reform ; and 



THE REFORM BILL OF 1832. 



the society was fortunate in numbering 
among- its friends a statesman, who, at the 
early age of twenty-three years, had been 
looked upon as one of the leaders of the 
Whig or Liberal party, and had been as- 
sociated with such giants as Fox and Burke, 
and the brilliant Sheridan, and the astute 
Windham in managing the impeachment 
of Warren Hastings. This was Mr., after- 
wards Earl Grey, who continued, from the 
beginning of his long political career to its 
glorious close, to make Parliamentary Re- 
form one of the main objects of his per- 
severing and well-considered exertions. 

In 1793 Mr. Grey presented to the House 
of Commons a petition " signed only by the 
members of the society of the Friends of 
the People, associated for the purpose of 
obtaining a Parliamentary Reform." In this 
document the state of the representation, 
and the grievances arising therefrorn, are 
very fully and temperately set forth. 
"Though the terms in which your peti- 
tioners state their grievance may be looked 
upon as strong," says the document, "yet 
your honourable House is entreated to be- 
lieve that no expression is made use of for 
purpose of offence," — and, indeed, the tone 
of the whole is earnest, quiet, and manly. 

The chief points of which the petitioners 
complain are these : — That the number of 
representatives assigned to different coun- 
ties was grossly disproportionate to their 
comparative extent, population, and trade ; 
that the elective franchise was distributed 
in such a partial manner, and in many in- 
stances the electors were so few, that the 
majority of the House was absolutely chosen 
by fewer than fifteen thousand electors, the 
greater number of the people being ex- 
cluded from the right of voting ; and that 
this right, where possessed, was regulated 
by no uniform or rational principle. 

The petition then called attention, in 
verification of its complaints, to the fact 
that Rutland and Yorlcshire, the smallest 
and the largest county in England, had the 
same amount of representation, and that 
Cornwall had so many borough members 
as to outnumber Yorkshire, Rutland, and 
Middlesex together in the representation ; 
while Cornwall and Wiltshire sent more 
borough members to Parliament than York- 
shire, Lancashire, Warwickshire, Middle- 
sex, Worcestershire, and Somersetshire 
taken together. To substantiate the case 
concerning the restricted number of elec- 
tors, it was shown in thirty-five boroughs the 
elections were a mere matter of form, and 
that for these thirty-five boroughs, where 
the right of free voting was practically non- 
existent, seventy members were returned ; 
that ninety members were returned, in ad- 
dition, by forty-six places having fewer 



than fifty voters in each ; thirty-seven more 
members by nineteen places with fewer than 
a hundred voters each ; fifty-two members 
by places with fewer than two hundred 
voters each ; and twenty more members by 
counties in Scotland with fewer than a hun- 
dred electors ; and ten more for counties 
with fewer than two hundred and fifty elec- 
tors in each ; fifteen Scottish districts of 
boroughs, in addition, none of them con- 
taining a hundred and twenty-five voters, 
sent a member each to Parliament ; and 
after this fashion two hundred and ninety- 
four members, forming a majority of the 
entire House of Commons, as it was then 
constituted, were chosen, and "enabled to 
decide all questions in the name of the 
whole people of England and Scotland." 
Many other grievances were pointed out ; 
such, for instance, as the anomaly that 
prevented Protestant Dissenters from voting 
(by the action of the Test Act), while they 
could still have seats in Parliament, and 
thus might sit in the House of Commons 
as representatives of the very places where 
they were not eligible as electors. 

The case put forward in the petition was 
an exceedingly strong one, and the peti- 
tioners offered to prove every part of it. 
But by this time Mr. Pitt had taken up a 
position hostile to reform ; and after a long 
discussion the question was put aside, 
though supported by Fox, Sheridan, Francis, 
and other influential men ; nor, though Mr. 
Grey brought it forward again in 1795 and 
1797, was he enabled to make way with it. 
The time of the great war with France was 
no convenient season for discussing ques- 
tions of reform. 

After the War ; Reform Agitation ; 
ITS Supporters and Opponents, 

In 1815, after Waterloo, the great struggle 
was ended, and with the return of peace 
came events that speedily turned men's 
minds once more in the direction of the 
reform of the representation. The landed 
proprietors had profited by the war, through 
the monopoly it put into their hands for the 
supply of agricultural produce. Rents had 
consequently risen to the great advantage 
of the landlords, while the farmers found 
high prices exceedingly satisfactory to 
themselves. When the peace put an end 
to all this, an attempt was made to con- 
tinue the period of advantage to the landed 
interest by the system of Protection to the 
agricultural interest by a high duty on 
foreign corn, thus favouring the landed 
interest at the expense of the community 
generally. 

This was sufficient to revive the Reform 
question. The manufacturing prosperity of 
Birmingham and various other towns had 



341 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



been injured by the cessation of the demand 
for different articles of manufacture. Bread 
was dear, and work scarce, and the artisans 
and miners were intelligent enough to 
see where they were at a disadvantage. 
Various Reform associations came into 
being. The miners of Bilston threatened 
to come up to London and lay their case 
before the Prince Regent, each man sleep- 
ing in his blanket as they bivouacked by 
the way — whence they obtained the name 
of Blanketeers. Popular agitators were not 
wanting to fan the flame of popular discon- 
tent ; and a large section of the press lent 
its aid by putting forward, not always 
temperately, but generally with force and 
eloquence, the grievances of partial repre- 
sentation and non- 
representation, and 
insisting on the neces- 
sity of a speedy and 
complete remedy. 

The Government 
adopted a policy of 
coercion and repres- 
sion — sharp ening 
the sword of the law 
against libellers and 
.malcontents gener-ally, 
and seeking to inter- 
fere with the rights of 
public meeting and 

■ discussion. One pub- 
lic agitator, known as 
"Orator Hunt," was 

■ especially obnoxious to 
-Tthem ; and it was in ar- 
resting Hunt at a great 
Reform meeting held 
in St. Peter's Field, 
Manchester, that was 
perpetrated the cruel 
and stupid blunder 
known as the Peterloo 
Massacre. A body of 
yeomanry displayed their zeal in the cause 
►of order by charging repeatedly upon an un- 
armed mob of men, women, and children, 

"^killing some, and wounding between three 
-and four hundred. Inquiry into this affair, 
indignantly demanded by a large number, 
-was refused by the Government, who en- 
'..dorsed the action of the stupid yokels with 
.emphatic approval. A bitter feeling was 
thus engendered, that widened the breach 
between the agricultural and manufacturing 
classes, and the determination to have Re- 
form increased throughout the country. 

There seemed no great hope of change for 
the better so long as George TV. remained 
on the throne. That monarch had durmg 
his earlier days leaned towards the Whigs, 
from among whom he chose his friends. 
But from the day when he became Regent 




Duke of Wellington, 



he had, with indecent haste, cut himself 
adrift from his former associates, and had 
maintained in office the Tories he found 
there. It was thus under very depressing 
circumstances that Lord John Russell, in 
i8ig, introduced into the House of Commons 
the question fof Reform. Lord Castlereagh 
got rid of the question for a time by a 
half-promise that the Government would 
one day take up the matter, and thus 
for some years Reform was successfully 
shelved. 

George Canning, who on many questions 
was far in advance of his colleagues, 
especially ridiculed the fears loudly ex- 
pressed by the Tory majority of that day, 
that every change must necessarily weaken, 
if not destroy, the 
foundations of the 
monarchy. He once 
happily compared the 
British constitution to 
Mother Hubbard's 
dog, who, after being 
considered dead, was 
found laughing when 
his mistress came back 
with his coffin from the 
undertaker's. But he 
had a strong prejudice 
against Reform ; and 
indeed, his tenure of 
power, too quickly 
closedby his lamented 
death, wastoo shortfor 
any attempt in that di- 
rection . For a time his 
colleagues maintained 
themselves in power 
under Lord Goderich, 
to be then succeeded 
by a far stronger ad- 
ministration — that of 
the Duke of Welling- 
ton, and his friend 
and adviser, Sir Robert Peel, both of 
them uncompromising opponents of Re- 
form. 



The Wellington Administration; 
Catholic Emancipation; Changes. 

It may be doubted whether his political 
career, on the whole, increased the great 
Duke's reputation; unmatched in the field, 
he was frequently at a disadvantage in the 
cabinet. His military career had given 
something of acerbity to a character 
imperious by nature. The Duke was, by 
habit and temperament, as he was by 
birth, an aristocrat, and loved to concen- 
trate all power and influence in the hands 
of the higher class. He had snubbed 



342 



THE REFORM BILL OF 1832. 



Canning in a way equally ungracious and 
unfair, refusing to co-operate with him, and 
contributing, it is said, not a little to the 
embarrassments and cares that are sup- 
posed to have shortened that statesman's 
life. After declaring that he should be mad 
to think of being Prime Minister, he within 
;a short period accepted that office at the 
request of the King, and expected to find 
subordinates rather than colleagues in the 
■other members of the cabinet, from whom 
he expected the deference and obedience 
which he had been accustomed to receive 
from his generals in the old Peninsular days. 
Thus he promptly got rid of Mr. Huskisson, 
.a man of great ability and reputation, whom 
.he had taken over from the Canning ad- 
ministration, because 
Huskisson chose to 
vote independently, in 
accordance with a 
pledge previouslygiven 
■on the question of the 
•disposal of the seats 
taken from East Ret- 
ford, disfranchised for 
flagrant corruption. 

He astonished the 
nation and alienated 
some of the high Tory 
party soon afterwards 
by his conduct on the 
great question of the 
admission of the Ro- 
man Catholics to Par- 
liament. Daniel 
O'Connell had made 
''■' Catholic emancipa- 
tion ' ' the lever with 
which he proposed to 
move the Parliamen- 
tary world ; and had 
Tnade use of his won- 
derful abilities as an 
agitator with such 
«ffect, that it became manifest to the Duke 
that concession on this subject or rebellion 
in Ireland were the alternatives he had to 
face. The good sense of the Duke made 
liim choose what he considered the lesser 
evil ; and he determined to carry a measure 
for Catholic emancipation, winning a re- 
luctant consent from the King, who, it is 
said, never entirely forgave him for giving 
way to popular feeling in this matter. 
Among those of the Duke's side who were 
scandalised in this matter was Sir Charles 
Wetherell, the Attorney-General, who re- 
fused to draw the Bill for the Catholic 
•emancipation, and was accordingly dis- 
missed from his office. Indeed, the violence 
of his language on the occasion, when he 
•declared publicly, " he would not defile 
pen or waste paper by such an act of folly, 




Lord Brougham, 



and so forfeit his character for sense and 
honesty," precluded his being retained as 
Attorney-General in the Wellington cabinet. 
Great was the indignation of the Tories, 
and of the greater number of the clerical 
supporters of the Duke, churchmen and 
dissenters alike, at this act of Catholic 
emancipation. Peel thought it right to 
resign his seat for Oxford ; and on pre- 
senting himself for re-election was beaten 
by a true-blue Tory and honest country 
gentleman, Sir Robert Inglis, to whom he 
was, to revive Canning's famous compari- 
son, " like London to Paddington, or Pitt to 
Addington." 

A New Reign and a New Ministry; 
New Prospect of 
Reform. 

Catholic emancipa- 
tion was carried in 
1829. It had cost the 
ministry many sup- 
porters amongst the 
Tories, and had but 
half conciliated the 
Whigs, who wanted 
not only concessions, 
but participation in 
office. There was also 
great distress in the 
country, great dearth 
of food, and want of 
employment. At the 
beginning of 1830, the 
King's speech made 
no allusion, or only in 
a cursory manner, to 
theprevailingdistress; I 
and again the question 
of Reform came to the 
front. Lord John Rus- 
sell and the Marquis 
of Blandford brought 
forward motions on the 
subject. It was evidently one of those 
coming events that cast their shadows 
before. There was no hope, however, that 
the King, who had consented to Catholic 
emancipation with extreme reluctance, 1 
would consent to any further measure likely 
to decrease his power. But in June of that ' 
same year he died, somewhat suddenly, ; 
and his next surviving brother, the Duke ' 
of Clarence, became King William the 
Fourth. 

The new King had not the dislike to 
the Whigs and their measures that had 
characterised George IV., nor was he so , 
entirely opposed to change. A general 
election was approaching, and various signs 
showed that Reform would be a leading 
topic at the hustings. The July revolution 
in France, resulting in the overthrow of the 



343 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



foolish and reactionary Charles X., also ex- 
cited the public mind. As for the Duke, be 
declared his sentiments with perfect frank- 
ness. The trumpet gave no uncertain sound, 
andmenprepared them for the battle accord- 
ingly. Earl Grey had made some remarks 
on the necessity of Reform. The Duke de- 
clared that he saw no necessity for any 
measure of the kind ; that the country had 
never been better governed than it was 
then ; and — what was undeniable — that the 
representation of the people contained a 
large body of the property of the country, 
in which the landed interests had a prepon- 
derating influence. " Under these circum- 
stances," said the sturdy Duke, " I am not 
prepared to bring forward any measure of 
the description alluded to by the noble lord. 
I am not only not prepared to bring forward 
any measure of this nature, but I will at 
once declare that as far as I am concerned, 
as long as I hold any station in the govern- 
ment of the country, I shall always feel 
it my duty to resist such a measure when 
proposed by others." This declaration was 
the death blow of the ministry. 

The unpopularity of the ministry was 
increased when they spread what was 
declared to be a groundless alarm, by which 
the funds were seriously affected. The new 
King was to have dined with the Lord Mayor 
at Guildhall, but was induced at the last 
moment to defer his visit on the representa- 
tion that an attack might be made upon 
him by the crowd. This was stigmatised 
as an attempt on the part of the ministry to 
involve the King, whom the nation regarded 
with affection, in their own unpopularity ; 
and when, soon afterwards, Mr. Brougham, 
then perhaps the most influential of all the 
party pledged to Reform, announced his 
intention of bringing forward a sweeping 
measure, the Wellington government re- 
signed ; whereupon William IV. entrusted 
Earl Grey with the task of forming a 
ministry, and it was felt that the time for 
a great struggle on the Reform question had 
come. 

Lord John Russell Introduces the 
Bill. 

It was necessary to find some place in 
the new arrangement for Mr. Brougham, if 
his support of any Reform measure but one 
introduced by himself was to be counted on. 
His lucrative practice and great personal 
power rendered it most unlikely that he would 
accept any subordinate appointment ; ac- 
cordingly, on the suggestion of the King him- 
self, the Lord Chancellorship was offered to 
and accepted by him. He was raised to 
the peerage as Lord Brougham and Vaux. 
Lord Althorp became Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, Lord Durham, Lord Privy Seal, 



Lord Melbourne, Secretary of 5tate for the 
Home Department, and Lord John Russell 
(without a seat in the cabinet) Paymaster 
of the Forces, while Sir James Grahami 
became First Lord of the Admiralty. 

Some disappointment was felt that the 
new cabinet did not at once introduce- 
measures of retrenchment in view of the 
prevailing distress ; but their predecessors, 
had been sufficiently economical, and the 
King was exceedingly jealous of any 
interference with his prerogatives in the 
matter of the civil list. He was propitiated 
by very liberal arrangements, including an 
annuity of ^100,000 a year to the Queen, if 
she survived him. The task of preparing- 
the great measure of the session, the Reforrrt 
Bill, was entrusted to a committee, including- 
Lord John Russell, Lord Durham, and Sir 
James Graham. 

It was on the ist of March, 1831, that 
Lord John Russell brought up the Bill with 
which his reputation was to be identified ;; 
and from that day until the 5th of June, it 
was the occasion of as hot a wordy strife 
as had ever been waged within the walls, 
of the House of Commons. All the promi- 
nent men of the House had their say — orh 
the side of Reform, Lord John Russell^ 
Joseph Plume, Daniel O'Connell, and many 
others ; on that of its opponents, Sir Charles- 
Wetherell, Sir Robert Inglis, Sir Robert 
Peel, and their followers. 

Lord John Russell was a man peculiarly- 
fitted for the onerous duty he had under- 
taken. As a member of the ducal house of 
Bedford, he could safely be trusted not to^ 
bring forward anything revolutionary or 
subversive of the rights of property ; while 
on the other hand his reputation as a culti- 
vated man, with a mind enlarged by foreign^ 
travel as well as by study, was a guarantee- 
against the narrowness that can see only 
the advantage and interests of a single 
class. He began his speech in a tone of 
studied moderation, declaring that the 
ministry wished to produce a Bill satisfac- 
tory to all moderate men, neither agreeing- 
with the bigotry of those who would reject 
all reform, nor with the fanaticism of men 
wedded to one plan, and one plan onl)^ — - 
hoping to amend abuses on the one hand^^ 
and to avoid convulsion on the other. He; 
painted with considerable strength and 
humour the astonishment of a foreigner, 
anxious to understand the English systemi 
of representation, who should be taken to. 
see a ruined mound and a stone wall, and a. 
park containing no houses, and told that 
each of these — the mound, the park, and 
the wall — returned two members to Parlia- 
ment ; and the still greater surprise of the 
stranger, on finding that great opulent 
manufacturing and commercial towns sent 



344 




345 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



no representatives at all ; his greatest 
astonishment of all on witnessing- the un- 
blushing bribery, the money openly given 
and received as the price of votes, that 
formed a part of many a popular election. 
His plan was to disfranchise sixty-two 
boroughs, in each of which the number of 
inhabitants was less than 2,000 ; to reduce 
forty-seven other boroughs, where the in- 
habitants numbered less than 4,000, to one 
member each ; and to take from Weymouth 
two of its four members. Thus 168 mem- 
bers would be deprived of seats. The right 
of voting was very complicated, including 
burgage holders, capital burgesses, free- 
men, potwallopers, and various other 
voters holding by strange and obscure 
tenures. Of these complicated rights the 
Bill proposed to get rid, and to give the 
vote to householders, rated at ^10 per 
annum and upwards, copyholders to the 
value of ;^io a year to have a vote for the 
county ; and under certain restrictions, 
holders of leases for twenty-one years and 
upwards of the value of ;^5o to have the 
same right. Seven large towns, including- 
Manchester, Leeds, and Sheffield, were to 
send two members each to Parliament. 
Twenty towns, including Blackburn, Halifax, 
Gateshead, Brighton, Kidderminster, and 
Huddersfield, were to send one member 
•each. Eight new members were to be given 
to the metropolis to sit as representative of 
the Lower Hamlets, Holborn, Finsbury, 
and Lambeth. The counties were also to 
receive additional members. There were 
to be two representatives for each of the 
ridings of Yorkshire, and two additional 
members for each of twenty-six counties, 
including Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Kent, 
Leicester, Lincoln, Wilts, etc., in each of 
which the population exceeded 150,000. 
The Bill also contained provisions for lessen- 
ing the ruinous expense of elections — a very 
necessary point ; for in Yorkshire, at that 
time, the expense of bringing voters to the poll 
at an election amounted to nearly ;^i5o,ooo ; 
and in Devonshire many of the voters had 
to travel forty miles from home to record 
their suffrages — no small hardship in those 
pre-railway days. In Scotland, every £\o 
copyholder was to have the suffrage, and 
•every ten-year leaseholder for ;^5o; the 
representation of counties and boroughs 
was there, and in Ireland also, to be read- 
justed ; and in the latter country all ^10 
householders or landholders were to have a 
vote. 

The numbers of the constituencies in some 
of the English boroughs were ludicrously 
small, and the places themselves were so 
entirely under the influence of a proprietor 
that an election in one of them was a mere 
form. Bewdley had thirteen voters ; Droit- 



wich twelve ; Launceston fifteen ; Marl- 
bofough twenty-one ; Buckingham thirteen ; 
Sutton, in Surrey, five ; Bramber twenty. 
Many others had so small a number, that 
the bribing of a whole constituency at a 
given price per vote became a very simple 
matter. 

Lord John Russell sat down amid loud 
cheers, after warmly recommending the 
Bill to the consideration of the House, as 
fraught with good effects, and conducing 
alike to the moral and the political improve- 
ment of the country. 

Speeches For and Against the Bill ; 
The Two Sides of the Question. 

It would seem that Lord John's Bill did 
not contemplate ariy great or sweeping 
change in the constitution, but rather 
sought to clear the ship of the state of the 
barnacles that obstructed its progress ; 
nevertheless, the first gentleman who rose 
to oppose it pronounced it ^^ Revoluiion ; a 
revolution that will overturn all the natural 
influence of rank and property." This 
alarmist was Sir Robert Inglis, the member 
for Oxford, who had replaced Sir Robert 
Peel in that ancient constituency. The gist 
of his argument was, that a member of 
Parliament does not represent a consti- 
tuency, but has to consider the affairs of 
the country and the good of the Church. 
He utterly denied that representation had 
ever been founded on the basis of taxation 
and population, and declared openly that 
most of the small boroughs which it was 
sought to disfranchise had been called into 
existence to please favourites ; for instance. 
Old and New Sarum, by Edward I., and 
Newport, Isle of Wight, by Queen Elizabeth. 
He also urged the argument that Lord 
Chatham, Mr. Burke, Mr. Canning, Mr. 
Fox, and many other eminent men had first 
entered Parliament by being put in, by the 
possessors, for such boroughs as Old 
Sarum, Wendover, and Appleby. He 
declared that the House, as it existed, 
represented all interests and admitted all 
talents. 

Lord Althorp's speech in favour of 
the Bill was not distinguished by any 
special merit, either in manner or matter, 
and, indeed, his lordship shone much more 
as a thoroughly honest and dependable 
working member than in any position where 
readiness and brilliancy were required. 
Mr. Hume, the member who always had 
an eye to economy, and habitually vexed 
the soul of the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
when the yearly estimates appeared, wel- 
comed the Bill cordially, as likely to give 
large satisfaction to all true reformers. He 
called it a manly measure. "Orator" 
Hunt gave the measure a very cold wel- 



346 



THE REFORM BILL OF 1832. 



come, as a tardy instalment of incomplete 
justice ; declaring that everything- he had 
heard said in the house had been said by 
Lancashire weavers twenty years before. 
He waxed indignant at the supercilious 
Whiggism that designated the toiling mil- 
lions as "the rabble," and told the house 
that at Ilchester (where, as he observed 
with a touch of humour, he had been in 
prison for two years and six months), the 
voters made it a point to get into debt to 
the amount of £2,^^ before each election, 
knowing that those debts would be liqui- 
dated for them. "Is that the class of 
men," he asked, "which the House is told 
represents the property of the country?" 
He was very hard on Sir Robert Inglis' 
*' revolution," and sarcastically asked 
■whether rotten boroughs were a part of the 
constitution ? And in spite of all efforts to 
interrupt and put him down, the indomit- 
able orator insisted in making the house 
listen to the miserable story of the Man- 
chester massacre, and reminded honourable 
members that the imprisonment of thirty 
months, about which they made so merry, 
had been suffered by him for advocating the 
cause of Reform which they had now met 
together to discuss. 

Sir Charles Wetherell was somewhat 
heavily facetious against the Bill, describing 
himself as making his last dying speech for 
condemned Boroughbridge, comparing Al- 
thorpe and Co. to Cromwell, Fairfax, 
Lilburne and Co., declaring that the scheme 
"now to be carried out had been introduced 
by the regicides. In allusion to "Colonel 
Pride's purge," in the days of Cromwell, 
he proposed to call the proposed Reform 
measure "Russell's purge," and the joke 
was hugely relished % honourable gentle- 
men at least on one side of the house, who 
received it with vociferous laughter and 
cheers. Sir Charles found the principle of 
the Bill "republican at the basis," and 
^finished with a renewed reference to arbi- 
trary violence, Cromwell and Pride's purge. 
A sensible speech of Lord Palmerston's 
must have contrasted somewhat oddly with 
Sir Charles Wetherell' s impassioned de- 
clamation. It pointed out that concession 
was necessary ; and that with increase of 
delay would come enforced increase of 
concession, and advised honourable gentle- 
men to submit to the inevitable with as 
gooda grace as possible. The otherprincipal 
speakers were Sir Robert Peel, gravely 
and sententiously opposed to the Bill, 
and Mr. Stanley, afterwards Earl of Derby, 
" the Rupert of debate," who spoke strongly 
and trenchantly in its favour, and pointedly 
asked whether such men as Lord John 
Russell, Earl Grey, and Lord Althorp, had 
not a stake in the country, or whether they 



could have any object in advocating revo- 
lutionary or subversive changes. Mr. 
O'Connell showed the same power of mov- 
ing and influencing large audiences that 
he already had exhibited in his own country. 
He asked those gentlemen who persisted 
that this old system had worked well, 
whether they thought the agricultural popu- 
lation would be very ready to give testimony 
in its favour, — whether such a fact was 
reflected from the incendiary fires which 
lately blazed through the counties, and 
whether such would be the statement we 
should receive if we inquired from the un- 
fortunate men who fill our gaols, on 
account of the late disturbances in the 
country ? He made a great impression. 

After more than seventy members had 
spoken, the number of orators for and 
against Reform being nearly equal, leave 
was given to bring in the Bill, which was 
formally read for the first time on the 14th 
of March. 

Troubles and Difficulties; Opposi- 
tion Tactics. 

The Bill was now fairly launched ; and 
the length}'' debates and exhaustive speeches 
that had preceded the first reading had at 
least one advantage, — the attention of the 
country was thoroughly called to the sub- 
ject, and the Reform Bill was the one topic of 
discussion throughout the three kingdoms. 
The whole community was divided into 
two hostile camps of reformers and anti- 
reformers. The Tories looked upon the 
measure with mingled hatred and terror, 
and lugubriously dated the ruin of England 
from the day when it should become law ; 
the Whigs regarded it with complacency, 
as a timely concession to public necessity, 
by which they would avoid a worse thing 
that might come upon them ; while the 
Radicals, though they thought the measure 
did not go far enough — for it gave them 
neither the ballot nor triennial Parliaments — 
were yet glad to welcome it on the principle 
of being thankful for small mercies. 

The opponents of the Bill were many and 
powerful, and, naturally enough, comprised 
those classes who were advantageously 
placed in the existing state of things, and 
accordinglyrecoiled from the idea of change. 
The great landowners saw their territorial 
influence threatened, and opposed the Bill 
tooth and nail. The nobility detected in it, 
moreover, a dangerous levelHng tendency, 
calculated to injure those time-honoured 
institutions under which the labouring 
communit}^ felt " the kindly pressure of the 
social chain " ; the clergy, almost to a man, 
opposed the measure with tongue and pen, 
and with an intemperate vehemence that 
recoiled upon themselves ; even the great 



347 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



middle class engaged in commerce, and 
the more opulent shopkeepers and trades- 
men were opposed to it, as calculated to 
upset established landmarks, and thus to 
injure trade ; while the Army, the Navy, the 
legal profession, and the Universities were 
generally enrolled among its uncom- 
promising foes. 

But against all this opposition was to be 
set the enthusiastic support of the mass of 
the people, who, thoroughly impressed with 
the idea that they were being wronged 
under the existing system, were determined 
to have their rights, and declared that they 
would be satisfied with nothing less than 
"the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but 
the Bill"; and seeing they had thus the 
public opinion of the country with them, 
ministers took heart, and were more hopeful 
of the prospect of ultimate success. 

A large section of the press also took up 
the cause of Reform with unmistakable 
warmth and zeal, headed by the Times, 
whose comments, indeed, far more out- 
spoken than courtly, induced Sir Robert 
Inglis at this time to complain to the House, 
and at a later period caused the publishers 
to be summoned to the bar of the Commons, 
and reprimanded after having been kept 
for a short time in the custody of the ser- 
geant-at-arms. Public meetings and peti- 
tions in abundance testified to the absorbing 
interest of the public in the question. 

When the Bill came on for second read- 
ing, the member for Cornwall, Sir R. Vyvyan, 
endeavoured to get rid of it by the usual 
course of moving that it should be read that 
day six months. In an exceedingly full 
house a division was taken, which resulted 
in 302 votes in favour of the second reading, 
and 301 against it — a majority of one for 
the ministers. This placed the Bill in a 
very critical position, and put its opponents 
in high spirits ; for they saw a good pro- 
spect of weakening- it to such a degree in 
committee as to render it practically ineffec- 
tive ; and accordingly they cheered vehe- 
mently. The Bill was committed to the 14th 
of April, and a couple of days before that 
date Lord John Russell came forward with 
some conciliatory proposals, declaring that 
Buckingham and several other towns had 
proved their populations to have been 
wrongly estimated in the returns of 1821, 
which had been taken as the basis for 
disfranchisement and reduction, and that 
these boroughs and any other boroughs or 
counties that could prove themselves to 
have been inserted under a misapprehension 
in schedules A and B should, on proving 
their case, be reinstated. Shortly after- 
wards. Sir George Gascoigne proposed that 
the number of seats in the House should 
not be diminished, and this was carried by 



a majority of eight, ministers being thus 
defeated and put in a minority. 

A Bold Stroke ; Earl Grey, the 
Chancellor, and the King; Dis- 
solution. 

It now became clear that the present 
House of Commons would not pass the 
Reform Bill, and the opposition hoped (if the 
ministry resigned) the subject could be 
shelved for a period, and that in gaining 
time they would gain everything ; or they 
might perhaps introduce a measure of their 
own, which should contain just enough 
concession to appease popular clamour 
without the disfranchisement and redistri- 
bution insisted on by Lord John. On the 
other hand, there remained the alternative 
of dissolving Parliament and appealing to 
the country. 

But this alternative it was not supposed 
that the ministry would adopt. There 
were various weighty reasons against it. 
The Parliament had only existed for a year, 
and had therefore six years to run before it 
would legally expire. The King would be 
naturally reluctant to dissolve a Parliament 
that had treated him exceptionally well in 
' financial matters ; and the amount of 
pressing business before the -House ap- 
peared in itself to be an argument against 
dissolution at such a moment. But the 
ministry saw that to let in their opponents 
at that moment would be not only to throw 
away all they had gained throughout the 
session, but to put themselves in the cold 
shade of opposition, and they acted with 
equal decision and promptness. A cabinet 
council was at once held, and it was resolved 
that Earl Grey and Lord Brougham, the 
Chancellor, should at once request the King 
to dissolve Parliament. The two lords 
waited upon His Majesty accordingly. 

The King was exceedingly disturbed at 
their proposal, and vehemently objected to 
it, urging that he could not be expected to 
dismiss a Parliament so recently chosen, 
and one, moreover, that had dealt so 
liberally with him in the matter of the 
civil list, and of the Queen's income, in 
case she survived him. To this, the 
ministers, while allowing full weight to 
the King's argument, replied that the pre- 
sent Parliament could not continue to sit 
without grave peril to His Majesty's crown. 
King William saw that their contention was 
reasonable, and felt reluctant to part with 
his ministers ; but he urged that it would be 
impracticable to comply with their desire that 
he should prorogue Parliament that very- 
day with a view to its immediate dissolution. 
Nothing was ready. Who was to carry the 
sword and the cap of maintenance ? To 
this the Chancellor, who, bolder and less 



THE REFORM BILL OF 1832. 



courtly than his aristocratic colleague, 
seems to have been chief spokesman on the 
occasion, replied that, foreseeing the neces- 
sity for immediate action, the officers of 
state had been summoned to hold them- 
selves in readiness. But the Life Guards, 
who were to escort him ? the King urged. 
He had given no orders to call them out, 
and it was now too late. But again the 
imperturbable Chancellor was prepared. In 
the most deprecatory and submissive of 
tones he informed the King that his col- 
league and he must throw themselves on 
His Majesty's indulgence, but that in view 
of the great crisis and imminent danger 
to which the throne was exposed, they had 
taken upon themselves to give the necessary 
orders, and that the Life Guards were ready 
for dut)^ 

The King's face flushed red with indig- 
nation, for no one but himself had the 
right to call out the guards. " Why, this is 
treason, my lords — high treason ! " he hotly 
exclaimed ; "and you, my Lord Chancellor, 
ought to know it." 

But again the Chancellor returned to his 
point, declaring that nothing but the ur- 
gency and magnitude of the peril to the 
King's throne would have induced the 
ministry to take such a step ; and William 
IV., who would have been sorry to part 
with his ministers at such a moment, 
quickly recovered his composure, and even 
his good humour ; and, finding it necessary 
to yield, did so with a good grace, and at 
once prepared to proceed to the House for 
the prorogation. 

Great was the wrath of the opposition in 
both Houses in finding itself thus out- 
manoeuvred. In the House of Lords the 
indignation expressed against the ministers 
was so vehement that an eyewitness de- 
scribes himself as apprehensive that the 
peers would actually come to blows. Lord 
Londonderry especially distinguished him- 
self by violence of speech and gesture, 
declaiming against the profligacy of 
ministers with a vehemence which did 
far more harm to his own side than to 
his opponents, whose game he was uncon- 
sciously playing. In the Commons, the 
dignified Sir Robert Peel, usually sedate, 
■calm, and imperturbable, for once com- 
pletely lost his temper, and passionately 
■denounced the conduct of the ministry. But 
to the undisguised glee of the other side of 
the House, the sound of the park guns an- 
nounced that the King had set out ; and pre- 
sently the announcement of His Majesty's 
arrival and the summon that the Commons 
should attend at the bar of the Lords' house 
to hear the prorogation produced frantic 
cheers that drowned the indignant accents 
of the great Tory leader. 



The King's speech was very brief; merely 
announcing that the prorogation was to be 
followed by an immediate dissolution, that 
the King might take the sense of the nation 
on the state of affairs, with a view of con- 
cluding matters in a manner that should 
uphold at once the dignity and prerogatives 
of the crown and the just rights and 
liberties of the people. The dissolution 
followed in due course next day. 

A New Parliament ; The Conflict 
Renewed ; Progress of the Bill. 

A general illumination testified to the joy 
felt by the citizens of London at the disso- 
lution. The crowd was vociferous in its 
demonstrations of delight, and proceeded 
to wreak its indignation upon the chief 
opponents of the Bill, especially upon the 
Duke of Wellington and Mr. Baring, by 
breaking their windows. Whereupon the 
brave old Duke caused iron shutters to be 
put up over the windows on the side of 
Apsley House facing Hyde Park, and it 
was characteristic of him that those shutters 
were never taken down till the day of his 
death, twenty-one years afterwards. Great 
eiforts were made in the general election 
that followed to return members who would 
uphold Reform, and the one question asked 
of candidates at the hustings \vas whether 
they would support the Bill or not. In 
June the new Parliament met, and the 
Reform Bill was immediately brought for- 
ward. There was no doubt as to the effect 
of the dissolution in promoting the cause of 
the Reformers, for on the motion for the 
second reading of the Bill the division list 
showed, instead of the bare majority oi one 
(and that one vote, too, given by the Hon. 
Mr. Calcraft, a seceder from the Tory camp) 
a triumphant majority of 136. 

The only hope of the opposition was now 
in delay. If they could get to the end of 
the session without passing' the Bill, some 
new subject of interest might arise in the 
recess, or something might occur to turn 
popular excitement in a new direction ; and 
all their efforts were consequently turned 
towards gaining time. French histor}^ in 
Richelieu's time, had its "day of dupes." 
The Reform Bill, in 1831, could show its 
" night of divisions," during which, by con- 
tinual motions for adjournment, when it 
was moved that the Speaker do leave the 
chair, and the house go into committee on 
the Bill, the opponents contrived to keep 
the house going through a series of di- 
visions until seven o'clock in the morning. 
Amendment after amendment was pro- 
posed, while it was fully evident that not 
one of them would be carried. Never had 
honourable members been more intoxicated 



34? 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



with the exuberance of their ov/n verbosity 
than during this memorable session. The 
calculation made by the S;pectator news- 
paper gave some curious statistics of the 
speeches in committee in fifteen days' de- 
bate between July 12th and 27th. Am^ong 
the leading opponents of Reform, it appeared 
that " Sugden had spoken eighteen times, 
Praed twenty-two times, Pelham twenty- 
eight times, Peel fifty-eight times, Croker 
fifty-seven times, and Wetherell fifty-eight 
times." But Lord Althorp declared that 
the ministry would keep Parliament sitting 
till December, or, if necessary, till De- 
cember twelvemonths, rather than abandon 
the Bill at the dictation of the obstructives, 
■ — an announcement which considerably 
vexed the souls of honourable gentlemen 
who had special associations connected 
with the 1 2th of August and the ist of 
September. 

Both those days, however, passed away, 
and the House was still hard at work ; 
honourable members were obliged to give 
the grouse and the partridges a respite in 
1 83 1. At last, on the 22nd of September, 
the last of the interminable divisions on the 
Bill was taken ; and it passed the Com- 
mons, in a house in which 584 members 
voted, by a majority of 106, and was sent 
up to the Lords. 

The Bill in the Lords ; Debated and 
Rejected; Popular Excitement. 

Having been steered safely past the Scylla 
of the Commons, the Bill had now to en- 
counter the dangers of Charybdis in the 
Lords ; and these dangers were the greater 
in propo-rtion to the privileges of the here- 
ditary legislators, and their influence in the 
House of Commons, by the presence of 
nominees and scions of their own families, 
were seriously diminished by its provisions. 
The contest, accordingly, was carried on 
with an acrimony and vehemence almost 
unprecedented in that dignified assembly. 
Earl Grey was more than once assailed 
with invective that amounted to personal 
insult. Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter, at a 
later stage, especially distinguished himself 
by the vehemence . of his denunciation of 
the Bill and everything connected with it, 
declaring that he and his colleagues had 
been vilified and insulted within the last 
year, " and that, too, by men of the highest 
station in His Majesty's councils." This 
ebullition called forth a stem rebuke from 
Lord Grey, who characterised the bishop's 
assertion as the most unprovoked, the most 
intemperate, and the most unfounded in- 
sinuation he had ever heard from any 
member of that House, and indignantly in- 
quired whether any words he had spoken 
could justly bear such a construction. He 



declared that the Bill, so far from being 
revolutionary and subversive of the best 
principles of the constitution, was eminently 
calculated to uphold that constitution, by 
clearing it of the blemishes that had been, 
and still were, its disgrace. "Was it pos- 
sible," he asked, "that the boroughs called 
nomination boroughs could be permitted 
any longer to exist ? Would the people, 
when they saw the corrupt practices un- 
blushingly carried on at every election, and 
turning from such sights, read the lessons 
of their youth, where they found such prac- 
tices stigmatised as illegal and inconsistent 
with the people's rights, be persuaded that 
the privileges which they saw a few in- 
dividuals converting into a means of per- 
sonal profit were privileges conferred for 
the benefit of the nation ?" This gangrene 
of our representative system, he declared, 
bade defiance to all remedies but that ot 
excision. 

Numerous petitions to the House also 
showed the widespread and general 
anxiety that prevailed out of doors on 
the question ; and it was hoped the Peers 
would see, that, where they must necessarily 
give way sooner or later, it would be better 
to make the sacrifice gracefully while there 
was still, at least, an appearance of option. 
But they failed to recognise the gravity of 
the position ; and on October 8th threw out 
the Bill in a House in which 278 pears were 
present, and 79 sent proxies (making a total 
of 357 votes) by a majority of 41 ; — and thus 
for the second time Reform was thrust forth 
by the House of Lords. 

The excitement throughout the country 
was tremendous. In some few towns, 
doomed by the Bill to political extinction, 
and now, as they thought, rescued from that 
fate by its rejection, there was rejoicing and 
congratulation, but the general feeling was 
one of intense anger and disappointment; 
and with a corresponding exasperation 
against the House that was considered to 
have deliberately set itself against the opinion 
of the general community, and to have de- 
fied the plainly-expressed will of the people 
of England. There were many who spoke 
openly of the necessity of abolishing the 
House of Lords; and at Nottingham, Derby, 
and various other places, there were serious 
riots. Nottingham Castle, belonging to the 
Duke of Newcastle, a highly unpopular 
opponent of the Reform Bill, was fired; and 
in various places it was necessary to call 
out the military. The leading reformers, 
on the other hand, strenuously advised the 
people to be calm and patient under this 
temporary disappointment, in the full con- 
sciousness that the cause must speedily 
triumph. " I tell them that Reform is only 
delayed for a short period," cried Lord 



350 



THE REFORM BILL OF 1S32. 



Brougham ; "I tell them that the Bill will 
pass — that the Bill must pass — that a Bill 
founded on exactly similar principles, and 
equally extensive and efficient with the Bill 
which has been thrown out, shall in a very 
short period become part and parcel of the 
law of the land." 

In a more humourous vein, but with equal 
effect, Sydney Smith, an ardent Liberal, 
allayed the fears of thepeople by his speeches 
in the west country. It was at Taunton 
that he introduced the story of Mrs. 
Partington, that, from the aptness of the 
illustrations it furnished, has become pro- 
verbial. Speaking of the resistance of the 
House of Lords and their endeavour to stem 
the tide of the popular will, the worthy 
Canon of St. Paul's told his delighted 
audience how, in the winter of 1824, a great 
flood set in upon the little Devonshire town 
of Sidmouth, and the tide threatened to 
overwhelm the whole place. " In the midst 
of this sublime storm, Dame Partington, 
who lived upon the beach, was seen at the 
door of her house with mop and pattens, 
trundling her mop, and squeezing out the 
sea-water, and vigorously pushing away the 
Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused, 
Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but I need 
not tell you that the contest was unequal. 
The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. 
She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but 
she should nothave meddled with a tempest." 
And so he exhorted his audience to take 
heart and bide their time, for the Atlantic 
Ocean of the British people's will would 
certainly be too strong for the mop of the 
Mrs. Partington of the House of Lords. 

Bristol Riots; The Third Bill; The 
Lords Again ; Resignation and its 
Consequences. 

The gravest public event of that stormy 
autumn was the great riot at Bristol. Sir 
Charles Wetherell, who was Recorder of 
that city, had become especially obnoxious 
by his violent tirades against the Reform 
Bill ; and on his going down to Bristol to 
hold the gaol delivery there, the whole place 
was in an uproar. Sir Charles had been 
strongly urged not to present himself at 
Bristol at this crisis ; but he disregarded 
the warning, believing, most erroneously, 
that a reaction against Reform had set in, 
and that he had nothing to fear. The 
measures taken by the magistrates for pre- 
serving order were half-hearted and vacil- 
lating. Colonel Brereton, who commanded 
the military force, was good-natured and 
unwilling to act ; and an incendiary mob for 
a time got the upper hand of the authorities. 
Since the time of the Gordon riots there 
had not been so dangerous an outbreak; and 



it was not put down until great damage had 
been done and many lives lost. 

The House met again on the 6th of 
December, and once more Reform was the 
subject taken in hand. Some alterations 
had been made by the ministers in their 
second Bill, but its main provisions re- 
appeared in the third measure which was 
now brought before the House. Of its 
acceptance in the Commons there could be 
no doubt. When the House reassembled 
after the Christmas holidays, it was steadily 
pushed forward, and was carried by a tri- 
umphant majority of 116 on the 23rd of 
March, 1832. Once more it went up to the 
peers, and once again, "What will the 
Lords do?" became the question of the 
day. By this time many of the Peers had 
become doubtful of the consequences of 
further opposition ; and some leading men 
among them, such as Lords Harrowby and 
Whamcliffe, recommended that the Bill 
should be allowed to pass the second read- 
ing, as there would be still an opportunity 
to alter its most objectionable features in 
committee. There was the more reason for 
this, as it was announced that in case of 
another adverse majority, a large creation 
of new Peers would take place, to counter- 
balance the non-contents. The second 
reading of the Bill was accordingly carried, 
but only by the narrow majority of g; and 
the fate of the measure was felt to be once 
more in jeopardy. 

The apprehensions of its well-wishers 
were well founded. A motion was brought 
forward that the enfranchising clauses of 
the Bill should be taken before those of 
disfranchisement. This was opposed by 
the ministers, who were left in a minority 
of thirty-five, and at once gave in their 
resignations, and the King's acceptance of 
that resignation was announced to the House 
on the 9th of May. 

The Ministry Recalled ; The Final 
Triumph ; Conclusion. 
For many years the affairs of the nation 
had not been at such a dead lock. The 
Whig ministry had resigned ; a Tory minis- 
try must come in. By Lord Lyndhurst's 
advice the King sent for the Duke of 
Wellington. But the Duke's opposition 
to Reform had been veiy uncompromising 
from the beginning, and it was manifestly 
impossible that any ministry could stand 
that did not pledge itself at once to bring 
forward a measure for Reform. Could the 
Duke bring forward such a measure ? — 
Hardly, after the line he had consistently 
taken, and after his speech declaring that 
from the day of the passing of such a 
measure he should date the downfall of 
the constitution ; and Sir Robert Peel 



351 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the Duke's trusty confederate and adviser, 
whom the Duke advised the King to send 
for, when he himself declined the impossible 
task of forming a government, had shown 
himself as uncompromising an opponent of 
Reform as Wellington himself. By this 
time the vacillating conduct of the King 
had caused the loss of all his popularity. 
He was mercilessly caricatured in the 
character of "Billy Barlow"; while on 
■Queen Adelaide ribald songs were made 
and sung, Her Majesty being represented 
as "a nasty German frow," and as the 
imperious DollaloUa of the burlesque of 
Tom Thumb, in which the King was made 
to figure as the weak monarch Arthur, 
powerless under his imperious wife's in- 
fluence. Even on the omnibuses — then a 
new invention just introduced in London — 
the names "William IV." and "Adelaide" 
were painted out. There was a run on the 
Bank of England. " Go for gold, and stop 
^the Duke," was the advice posted on anony- 
mous placards. There was a general threat 
of "No Reform, no taxes"; and Lord 
Milton set the example of resistance in 
this direction by directing the tax-gatherer 
to call again, and plainly intimating that 
his payment would be dependent on the 
course of public events. Evidently there 
was nothing to be done but to recall Lord 
Grey and his ministry. 

The King received his advisers with a 
■constrained air ; and it was remarked that 
he kept them standing during the inter\dew. 



But they had now the game in their hands 
at last, and stipulated that the King should 
give m writing his consent to the creation 
of new Peers if the resistance in the House 
of Lords were renewed. With a very bad 
grace His Majesty wrote the following 
memorandum, and handed it to Lord 
Brougham : — 

" The King grants permission to Earl Grey 
and to his Chancellor, Lord Brougham, to 
create such a number of Peers as will be 
sufficient to ensure the passing of the Re- 
form Bill, — first calling Peers' eldest sons. 
"(Signed), 

"William R. 
"Windsor, Afay ijth, 1832." 

An intimation from the King was at the 
same time sent round to the chief Lords in 
opposition, "declaring that all difficulties 
would be obviated if a sufficient number of 
Peers would drop further opposition to the 
Reform Bill." This was tantamount to a 
command. Accordingly the Duke of 
Wellington left the House of Peers without 
voting, and did not come back until the 
measure had passed. A number of his fol- 
lowers adopted the same course. The King's 
circular was caricatured by H. B. as "the 
modest request "; but it produced its effect. 
With many bitter complaints the Peers 
acquiesced in the inevitable, and the Reform 
Bill was carried, receiving the Royal assent 
in Tune 1832. 

H. W. D. 




352 




THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 

THE STORY OF A GREAT TIME. 

" It was a time when men were being lifted into nobleness by the new moral energy which seemed suddenly to pulse 
through the whole people, when honour and enthusiasm took colours of poetic beauty and religion became a chivalry." 

Green's " History of the English People." 

"This era has always appeared to us by far the brightest in the history of English literature, or, indeed, of human 
intellect and capacity." Edinhirgh Review. 



Death of Queen Mary — Proclamation in London — Elizabeth, at Hatfield, receives the Intelligence of her Accession to 
the Crown — Political and Doctrinal Protestantism — The Learned Ladies of the Time — " Now all the Youth of 
England are afire " — The Maritime Supremacy and Wealth of Spain — Condition of England — A Poor Aristocracy 
and a Moneyed Middle Class — An Impoverished E.xchequer and Debased Coinage— Cecil and Gresham to the Rescue 
— Ecclesiastical Changes — Papal Bishops lose their Sees — Social Condition of the People— Rogues, Vagabonds, 
and Sturdy Beggars — The Gallows in " JMerry England" — Mercantile Enterprise — Maritime Adventures— Drake 
sails round the World, and brings home Treasure — Seeking a North-West Passage — Trade with India — Shattering 
the Great Armada— Splendid Literary Development— Shakspeare the Mirror " of the Age and Body of the 
Time." 




The Oueen Dead. 
HE gloom of a November morning, 
the 17th of the month, in the year of 
grace 1558, was brooding over the 
royal "house at St. James's," when the 
darker shadow of death shut out all that re- 
mained of life and the outer world to Queen 
Mary of England. Weak, sickly, affection- 
ate and kindly by nature, the victim of a 
terrible bigotry, a neglected, motherless wife, 
with an understanding warped into subtle- 
ness and moral crookedness by the domi- 
nation of more potent wills, Mary Tudor, the 
" Lady Mary" of the two previous reigns, the 



" Bloody Mary " of popular history, was no 
more ; and, as yet wanting a few months of 
completing her forty-fourth year, and having 
reigned about five and a-half years, her 
troubled, wearied life, with its sadness and 
its turmoils, was succeeded — after what soul 
struggles, what remembrances, and what 
prayers, we know not — by the silence of 
death. Before another day had dawned, 
Cardinal Reginald Pole, also of the blood of 
English royalty, the last Papal legate to this 
country, the last Roman Catholic head of 
the Anglican Church, was "among those 
who have been"; and with the death of Mary 



353 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Tudor and Reginald Pole began a new and 
the greatest era of English history. 

The Queen is Dead ! Long Live the 
* Queen ! 

Mary died between five and six o'clock 
in the morning, and several hours elapsed 
before the event was known beyond the im- 
mediate precincts of St. James's ; but shortly 
before noon Archbishop Heath, of York, the 
Lord Chancellor, went down to the House of 
Lords, and summoning the Speaker and the 
faithful Commons to the bar, announced, 
in due form, that " God had called to his 
mercy the late sovereign lady Queen Mary 
— a heavy and grievous woe, but relieved by 
the blessing God had left them in a true, 
loyal, and right inheritress to the crown— 
the Lady Elizabeth, second daughter to the 
late sovereign lord of noble memory. King 
Henry VIII., and sister unto the late said 
Queen." From nobles on the benches, from 
Commons at the bar, rose a shout, "God 
save Queen Elizabeth, and long and happily 
may she reign !" Then the Duke of Norfolk, 
hereditary Earl Marshal of England, the 
Marquis of Winchester, the Earl of Shrews- 
bury, and the Earl of Bedford, accompanied 
by the troop of gorgeously clad heralds, 
appeared on horseback in front of the great 
door of Westminster Hall, in Old Palace 
Yard, and proclaimed with all due forms that 
Mary was dead and that her sister Elizabeth 
•was Queen of England. 

From Palace Yard they rode to Charing 
Cross, and thence eastward along the Strand 
into the City, where, at Cheapside Cross, and 
again at the Tower, the proclamations were 
made. There was an outburst of long sup- 
pressed feeling. No expression of grief for 
the Queen that was lost, no tears prompted 
by the thought that she who, but a few hours 
before, had been the sovereign of England, 
was now a pallid corpse ; but a sense of 
relief from an incubus that had pressed 
heavily on the free spirit and the vital 
energy of the nation. The red fires of Smith- 
field had scarcely cooled, the echoes of the 
shrieks in the torture chamber of the Tower 
had scarcely died away, the whispered prayers 
of those who in secret hiding-places had 
appealed to heaven for strength and deliver- 
ance, still lived in the memories of sympa- 
thetic believers ; and in the prouder and 
stronger natures of the English citizens there 
was the remembrance of foreign domination, 
of foreign wars, of insulted and disgraced 
nationality. In the picturesque language of 
Mr. Froude, "The bells which six years before 
had rung in triumph for Mary's accession now 
pealed as merrily for her death. The voices 
which had shouted themselves hoarse in 
execrations on Northumberland were now as 
loud in ecstasy that the miserable reign was 



at an end. Through the November day 
steeple answered steeple ; the streets were 
spread with tables, and as the twilight closed 
blazed as before with bonfires. The black 
dominion of priests and priestcraft had rolled 
away like night before the coming of the 
dawn. Elizabeth, the people's idol, dear to 
them from her sister's hatred, the morning star 
of England's hope, was Queen." 

Elizabeth was living quietly at the royal 
manor-house at Hatfield, in Hertfordshire, 
where, as a child, she and her young brother 
Edward had been chiefly brought up. In 
the stately mansion which for about three 
centuries has been the home of the Cecils, 
the apartments where the royal children 
dwelt are still shown, and in the gardens the 
paths along which they rambled, the lawns on 
which they played, are still associated with 
the memory of the younger children of " the 
great Harry." It was at Hatfield the Lady 
Elizabeth generally resided during the reign 
of Mary, studying Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, 
playing on the virginals, dancing with her 
few lady attendants. She knew well enough 
that if she outlived her feeble-bodied, morbid- 
minded sister, the great majority of English- 
men would welcome her as successor to the 
throne ; but she knew also that her life was 
not " worth a pin's fee," if she stood in the 
way of Mary's fanaticism or Philip's ambi- 
tion, supposing he had the courage to defy 
the national feeling of England by striking a 
blow at the nation's favourite. Sometimes 
she had been invited to share in procession 
and pageant, and had been once taken to 
London as a state prisoner, knowing pro- 
bably that the warrant for her committal to 
the Tower and execution had been prepared, 
but that at the last moment the fear of con- 
sequences had prevailed, and her sister Mary 
had refused to affix the royal sign-manual. 

Elizabeth Regina. 
Twenty-five years of age, large-brained, in- 
heriting no little of the temper and the strong 
will of her father, and some of the subtlety 
and insincerity of her rnother, Elizabeth 
added to these qualities a little womanly 
vanity mingled with occasional tenderness, 
easily changing into jealousy and animosity 
if the vanity were ungratified or the tender- 
ness misplaced. In after life she showed 
that she could be sometimes prodigally 
generous and sometimes pitifully mean ; but 
such were inconsistencies that grew with age, 
and were but little apparent in the tall, 
graceful, clear- eyed, yellow-haired princess 
who, under the trees at Hatfield, received the 
announcement from Cecil and other kneeling 
courtiers that she was Queen of England. 
She had waited with brave patience for such 
a message, which she guessed would come in 
due time, and she bore the new honour with 



354 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



modest dignity. Kneeling down, she ex- 
claimed, in the words of the Latin Psalter 
then in use, A Domini factum est istiid, et 
est mirabile oculis nostris I " It is the Lord's 
doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes ! " — a 
text afterwards stamped on the gold coin 
issued in her reign. 

She assumed her exalted position with 
dignity and a fitting confidence in herself. 
It may be well believed that she was not 
ignorant of, nor unsympathising with, the 
national temper ; and she had many personal 
qualities fitting her to become the leader of 
the English people. It was a time when a 
fierce and merciless ecclesiastical, rather 
than religious, war had been waged, when 
each of the great parties had in turns pro- 
duced persecutions and martyrs, and when 
the fight was less on behalf of doctrines than 
of the right of Englishmen to be free from 
Papal or other foreign dictation. The Pro- 
testantism, for which so many had suffered 
conscientiously and for truth's sake, was with 
the great mass of the people rather political 
than doctrinal. The London merchant, the 
country gentleman, much more the ordinary 
unlettered townsman or yeoman, was little 
competent to argue about sacramentarian 
questions, or discuss texts not one word of 
which he could read in the Vulgate, probably 
not in the Bishops' translation ; but he was 
willing to attend church, listen respectfully to 
the services, and understand as much as he 
conveniently could of the sermon, and only 
desired to be let alone. It did not seem to 
him right, however agreeable it might be to 
ecclesiastical dignitaries, that the Pope of 
Rome or his legates should not only tell him 
what to believe, and imprison, torture, or 
burn him if he failed to have very definite 
views on subjects about which scholars were 
quarreUing, and had been quarrelling for a 
thousand years, but should also claim the 
right to enjoy or dispose of all the good 
things of the Church. The political and 
ecclesiastical changes of the previous quarter 
of a century had left the plain, practical 
minds of the mass of the English people in 
a somewhat hazy condition. They thought 
that King Henry had acted as an English 
king should act, in defying the Pope ; but 
they were not quite so sure that the suppres- 
sion of the religious houses was an unmixed 
boon. The stately abbeys, the fertile pastures 
where the monks had dwelt and enjoyed 
themselves, not by any means in an exclu- 
sively spiritual manner, had passed into the 
ownership of court favourites or wealthy 
upstarts of the middle classes, and although 
Mary had made an attempt to restore some 
of them to the original owners, it had not 
been possible, except in a very few instances, 
to reunite the scattered communities, and 
the complications and foreign troubles which 



marked her brief reign had not materially 
altered the state of tihe case. Possibly, it 
was felt, the monks were lazy, irreligious, or 
even profligate — but they fed the poor; and 
even if worthless vagrants sometimes received 
good meals which they did not earn, they 
were less likely to be mischievous than when 
hungry. The nuns, too, were kindly women, 
who looked after the sick, and were ready 
with many little helps and comforts. Now 
the abbey and convent gates were closed, 
the beggars were hungry and clamoured for 
bread from door to door. The country roads 
were infested by mendicants who robbed as 
well as begged. The farmer or trader was 
waylaid and maltreated on market-days, the 
goodwife lost the linen she spread out to dry 
on common or hedgerow. The average Eng- 
lishman did not like to be told that he must 
say his prayers in any particular fashion, or 
forfeit his hope of salvation, besides incurring 
the chance of being handed over to the 
tender mercies of some Tony Fire-the- Fagot ; 
but, if allowed to do as he liked in the matter, 
would probably not have troubled himself 
to change the old forms of worship which 
had contented his father and grandfather, or 
made any serious objection to the vicar pray- 
ing in Latin, or duly bowing at the proper 
times. 

Difficult doctrines, subtle hairsplittings, 
did not much trouble his practical Christi- 
anity (so far as he understood what Christi- 
anity meant) ; but to be ordered, under 
penalties, to do what otherwise he was quite 
willing to do, aroused the independent spirit 
of the Englishman. Queen Mary had re- 
presented a spirit of intolerance which had 
become intolerable. Her young sister, at 
Hatfield, was the rising star which it was 
hoped and believed would be the harbinger 
of a beneficent change. 

The Queen's Protestantism. 
" Elizabeth herself," says Mr. Froude 
(whose " History " sheds so much light on 
this eventful period), "had been educated in 
a confused Protestantism, which had evaded 
doctrinal difficulties and had confined itself 
chiefly to anathemas of Rome. She would 
have been contented to accept the formulas 
which had been left by her father, with an 
English ritual and the common service of 
the first Prayer-book of Edward VI. But 
the sacramentarian tendencies of English 
Protestant theology had destroyed Henry's 
standing-ground as a position which the 
Reformers could be brought to accept. It 
was to deny transubstantiation that the mar- 
tyrs had died. It was in the name and in 
defence of the mass that Mary and Pole had 
exercised their savage despotism. Elizabeth 
had borne her share of persecution ; she 
resisted with the whole force of her soul the 



355 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



indignities to which she had been exposed, 
and she sympathised with those who had 
suffered at her side. She was the idol of the 
young, the restless, the enthusiastic. Her 
name had been identified with freedom, and 
she detested more sincerely than any theo- 
logian living the perversity which treated 
opinion as a crime. In her speculative 
theories she was nearer to Rome than to 
Calvinism. In her vital convictions she re- 
presented the free, proud spirit of the Eng- 
lish laity, who would endure no dictation 
from priests of either persuasion, and so far 
as lay in them would permit no clergy any 
more to fetter the thoughts and paralyze the 
energies of England." 

Learned Ladies and Adventurous 
Spirits. 

In another respect Elizabeth was a repre- 
sentative of the spirit of the time. The long 
and bitter ecclesiastical controversies had 
unconsciously aided the revival of learning 
and literature. Familiarity with the classical 
languages had extended from the clergy to 
the laity, and what is somewhat pedantically 
described as '' polite literature " was also ad- 
vancing its limits. The growing intercourse 
with foreign nations improved the national 
taste in art and litei"ature. The hard theolo- 
gical fighting had evoked a vitality and intel- 
lectual energy which had snapped asunder 
the bonds imposed by the subtleties of the 
schoolmenand prepared the way for a new 
and more robust philosophy, as well as a 
new and more robust theology. There was a 
quickened spirit of inquiry, an eagerness on 
the part of the more cultured classes to be- 
come acquainted with the thoughtful and 
imaginative literature of the quick-witted 
nations of southern Europe. Scholarship 
became fashionable, not only with the lords, 
but with the ladies of the time. The daugh- 
ters of the nobility sought the aid, as in- 
structors, of erudite men like Roger Ascham, 
and the acquirements of some of the young 
women of that age were remarkable. Lady 
Jane Grey studying Greek with Ascham, in 
preference to sharing in the pleasures of a 
holiday, is a familiar picture. Even Queen 
Mary, feeble in health, not remarkable for 
great intellectual gifts, read and wrote Latin 
fluently, had some acquaintance with Greek, 
and spoke with ease in French, Spanish, 
and Italian. Elizabeth, blessed with good 
health and possessing great mental activity, 
added Hebrew to other linguistic acquire- 
ments, was a fairly good musician, and 
eagerly mastered so much of foreign and 
English literature as found its way to the 
secluded chambers of Hatfield. 

As yet, perhaps, she had less sympathy, 
because less acquaintance, with one of the 
most potent influences in the struggling 



energy of the time. A shorter period than 
the threescore-and-ten years to which men 
might expect to live had elapsed since 
Christopher Columbus had revealed the 
existence of a new world, since the visions of 
golden cities and other Dorados had dazzled 
the eyes of Europe. The subjugation of 
Mexico by Cortez, the conquest of the Peru- 
vian Incas by Pizarro, were scarcely old 
stories ; and there were in England many 
adventurous spirits, still in the enjoyment 
of lusty manhood, who in their youth had 
thrilled with an ardent desire to share the 
perils of the Atlantic seas and set foot on the 
almost fairyland of the New World; to fol- 
low De Soto in his search for the fountain of 
eternal youth ; to look, as Hernando Cortez 
had looked, upon the waves of the Pacific 
which had washed the shores of far Cathay, 
and which Maghaelan had reached through 
the strait which now bears his name. Portu- 
guese navigators were familiar with the route 
to India by way of the Cape of Good Hope, 
and Portuguese merchants were storing the 
warehouses with the gold and silver, the pre- 
cious stones, the silks and sumptuous fabrics, 
of the East. Only two years before, an Eng- 
lish adventurer had visited the Gold Coast of 
Western Africa, and having discovered that 
the negroes whom he met with were " a 
people of beastly living, without God, law, 
religion, or commonwealth," was convinced 
that he, as a civiHzed and superior being, was 
justified in capturing five of these dusky 
heathens, and bringing to England, for the 
purpose of selling them as slaves. The 
English mind, however, had not as yet ex- 
panded sufficiently to appreciate man- catch- 
ing as a profitable commercial transaction, 
and as no buyers could be found, the cap- 
tives were sent back in another vessel. It 
was reserved for John Hawkins, a few years 
later, to establish the slave-trade as an 
adventure in which English merchants 
could profitably (and therefore, of course, 
conscientiously) engage. At that time the 
English people did not want foreign slaves 
for their own use. There were labourers 
enough, and to spare, at home ; and, indeed, 
a sort of slavery, by which sturdy vagrants 
were made to work and practically sold to 
the highest bidders, was a familiar institution. 
But the ship which brought over the five 
slaves, and other ships, too, which had 
visited the Gold Coast, brought home ru- 
mours of wealth in gold, ivory, and other 
matters, which almost rivalled the glowing 
accounts from the western world. 

The Maritime Supremacy and Wealth 

OF Spain. 

The discovery of America had made 

Spain the wealthiest nation of the world. 

The broad ocean was traversed by her 



3S6 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



ships laden with almost fabulous wealth ; 
her young noblemen and gallant gentlemen 
were adventurers gathering: riches and re- 
nown in the islands to which the name of 
West Indies had been given, or in the aurife- 
rous lands once reigned over by Montezuma 
or governed by the Incas of Peru. Spain 
was the queen of the seas, and Spain was 
hated by England. Philip of Spain had 
been king consort — the encourager, if not 
the prompter, of Mary's bigotry and cruelty ; 
and Philip had already begun the persecu- 
tion, afterwards so terrible, of the Dutch 
Protestants. In an age in which so many 
elements were active, we may expect to find 
mixed motives. The English generally, from 
their own experience, were disgusted with 
persecution, and they consequently disliked 
Philip. Spain was a foreign power which had 
unduly influenced English affairs, and was 
therefore offensive to English patriotism. 
Spain was also the greatest maritime power 
of the day, and enjoyed apparently illimit- 
able wealth, a share of which would have 
greatly gratified the English nobility and 
merchants ; and that fact appealed strongly 
to another phase of patriotism. Thousands 
of brave young Englishmen, younger sons, 
and others of adventurous spirit and little 
wealth, would be delighted to share in 
voyages of discovery and conquest, to meet 
the richly freighted Spanish galleons on the 
high seas and teach the heretics a wholesome 
lesson in morals by capturing their golden 
freights. There is a law of heredity in national 
instincts, which, in peoples as in individuals, 
may be long dormant, but appears at last, 
even stronger after centuries of slumber. 
Englishmen are the descendants of sea- 
rovers, Scandinavian bersekers, Norman ad- 
venturers — it might be beneath the dignity of 
history to say pirates. The people of the 
inland towns might, in those times of difficult 
communication, when few except nobles, 
men-at-arms, and chapmen wandered ten 
miles from their homes, have retained but 
little of the nature of their maritime fore- 
fathers ; but around the coast were hardy 
fishermen and navigators, to whom sea life 
was a second nature, and who would be 
ready enough to enter on any adventure. 
This revival of the national maritime spirit 
was one of the most remarkable develop- 
ments of this remarkable time, and imparted 
a marvellous energy not only to the adven- 
turous, but also to the intellectual and moral 
characteristics of the age. 

If, as we have said, Elizabeth in her youth 
had not much^sympathy with this adventurous 
spirit, she no doubt shared in the dislike to 
Spain, and to Philip, who was an uncomfort- 
able brother-in-law ; and she was astute 
enough to see that, as Spain grew, England 
would become less and less influential. If 



not a very ardent doctrinal Protestant, she 
was a very decided political Protestant, and 
nationally ambitious besides ; therefore little 
disposed to acquiesce in a Catholic monarch 
dominating the destinies of Europe. She 
inherited the temper of her father, and her 
father had no disposition to be second to any 
potentate, be he Pope or be he Emperor. 

Condition of England. 

The regency of Somerset, the wretched 
and ignoble reign of Mary, had reduced 
England to a miserable condition, financially 
and socially. The crown revenues were sadly 
deficient, half of the amount having been 
sacrificed to reimburse the Catholic clergy 
for the loss they had sustained by the confis- 
cation of the abbey lands. Philip had in- 
fluenced Mary to engage in an expensive and 
disastrous war with France ; and she had 
extorted subsidies from her wealthier subjects 
only to encounter shame and defeat. At the 
time when the country was impoverished, and 
smarting under a feeling of national disgrace, 
she had allowed Philip to take ;^6o,ooo from 
the Treasury, and had presented him with 
the valuable crown jewels. The country 
generally was in a dissatisfied condition, in 
a strange state of transition. The nobility, 
with few exceptions, were no longer feudal 
chiefs, but were impoverished and compara- 
tively weak. Many men of high rank, many 
of the young men of the oldfamilies, struggHng 
against the oppression of the new order of 
things, had becoine entangled in conspi- 
racies, had perished on the scaffold, or had 
sought safety in voluntary exile. The mili- 
tary spirit of the yeomen and peasantry had 
decayed, and they were no longer familiar 
with the use of arms. The fortresses through- 
out the country were dismantled or un- 
garrisoned ; some in ruins. There was no 
fleet worthy of the name. Mary Stuart, the 
Scotch princess, had married the Dauphin of 
France, and assumed the title of Queen of 
England, with, as many thought, a better 
legal title to the throne than Elizabeth her- 
self — for Mary was the lineal descendant of 
Henry the Seventh of England, of unques- 
tioned legitimacy, while Elizabeth was the 
daughter of Anne Boleyn, whose marriage 
with Henry the Eighth had been accepted as 
lawful or unlawful according as personal or 
political convenience dictated. 

An address to the Council, preserved 
among the " Domestic Papers," thus describes 
the position of the country in the latter days 
of Oueen Mary : — 

" The Queen poor, the realm exhausted, 
the nobility poor and decayed ; good captains 
and soldiers wanting ; the people out of 
order ; justice not executed ; all things dear; 
excesses in meat, diet, and apparel ; division 
among ourselves ; war with France ; the 



357 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



French king bestriding the realm, having 
one foot in Calais and the other in Scotland ; 
steadfast enemies, but no steadfast friends." 

The general bitterness and distrust en- 
gendered by the persecutions in the name 
of religion, was felt throughout the land. 
The sufferings to which the Protestants had 
been exposed might, the Catholics had some 
reason to fear, induce a reaction, and inspire a 
feeling of revenge when their hour of triumph 
came ; and the fires of Smithfield and Oxford 
might be re-lighted, with believers in the mass 
and the temporal power of the Papacy at the 
stake, in place of Protestant martyrs. In- 
tolerance and persecution were the common 
weapons of both theological parties, and it 
was not unreasonably' feared that Elizabeth 
and the bishops nominated by her would be 
as ready to put down heresy by strong means 
as their predecessors had been. 

Besides this smouldering apprehension of 
theological animosity, there was a powerful 
social animosity at work. The nobility were 
declining in wealth and influence. The middle 
classes were rising into importance. Merchants 
and other commoners had become possessed 
of vast estates by the dissolution of the 
monasteries. The old aristocratic spirit was 
bitter against the mushroom gentility, the 
sudden rise into social importance, of the 
townsmen and traders. The writer of a 
letter addressed to Sir William Cecil, and 
preserved among the " Domestic Manu- 
scripts," suggested that "the wealth of the 
meaner sort must be cured by keeping them 
in awe through the severity of justice, and 
by providing, as it were, some sewers or 
channels to draw and suck from them their 
money by subtle and indirect means." The 
same writer, having proposed this practical 
method of dealing with the wealthy parvenus, 
proceeded to indicate how the nobles might 
be benefited at the expense of the Church. 
In this regard, he probably expressed a 
very general feeling ; for the experience of 
the last few years had not greatly increased 
the respect of the laity for ecclesiastical dig- 
nitaries. He suggested that " it might not 
be amiss to take from the bishops the titles 
of lords, and their places in parliament ; to 
allow the archbishops a thousand pounds and 
the bishops a thousand marks [one-third less] 
yearly, and to give their temporal lands and 
stately houses to noblemen having need of the 
same." Evidently there was little love lost 
between the prelates and the " old nobility." 

Sir William Cecil (the great Lord Burleigh 
of after times) was unquestionably the ablest 
statesman of the time, and Elizabeth, who 
well knew his value, acted wisely in at once 
entrusting him with the office of secretary 
and direction of political affairs. He at once 
grappled with the financial difficulties of the 
situation. On the day following that on 



which Cecil had announced to Elizabeth 
that she was Queen of England, Sir Thomas 
Gresham, the leading merchant of London, 
and the most clear-headed man of the time 
in commercial and monetary matters, ac- 
companied him to Hatfield, and received in- 
structions to set out immediately for Antwerp, 
for the pui-pose of at once raising a loan 
to pay the enormous interest on some of the 
bonds held by Flemish Jews, and to defray 
pressing demands. 

One of the first efforts of Cecil, who en- 
joyed the most perfect confidence of the 
Queen, was to put the coinage into a more 
satisfactory condition. It had been abomi- 
nably depreciated, and private mints had been 
established for the issue of base coin. This 
was remedied by calling in the old coin and 
substituting for it new and genuine money. 
Of course this necessary proceeding involved 
a money loss, but it was well compensated 
by the greater security of all commercial 
transactions. 

Royal Entry into London, 
Six days after her accession, the young 
Queen set out from Hatfield, " with a joyous 
escort of more than a thousand persons," on 
her way to London. At Highgate she was met 
by the bishops, who, kneeling, acknowledged 
their allegiance, not, perhaps, without some 
doubts as to the probability of the tenure of 
their sees. She was in a gracious humour, 
and permitted each bishop to kiss her hand, 
except Bonner, Bishop of London, " whom," 
says Stow, " she omitted for sundry severities 
in the time of his authority." He perhaps 
remembered the slight when he afterwards re- 
fused to take the oath of supremacy — a refusal 
for which he was deprived of his bishopric, 
and remitted to the Marshalsea prison, whei'e 
he died miserably. At the foot of High- 
gate hill the young Queen was met by 
the Lord Mayor and aldermen and chief 
citizens of London, and conducted by them 
in great state, through Islington and Clerken- 
well, to Lord North's mansion, the Charter 
House, adjacent to Smithfield. After a 
week's residence there, she entered the city 
at Cripplegate, and rode ia state along by 
the city wall to the Tower, where she re- 
mained another week, and then went by 
water to Somerset House. One of her first 
acts as Queen was significant. The Arch- 
bishop of York ceased to be Lord Chancellor, 
and Sir Nicholas Bacon, the famous father 
of a more famous son, and brother-in-law of 
Cecil, was appointed Lord Keeper. Since 
that time no ecclesiastic has held the high 
position of " Keeper of the Sovereign's 
conscience." 

N o man could say with certainty that the 
accession of Elizabeth would produce any 
important change in the ecclesiastical con- 

358 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



dition of the country. The majority of the 
peers were CathoUcs, and of course the 
bishops and beneficed clergy belonged to 
the Romish Church. Elizabeth herself, and 
Cecil, her chief adviser, had hitherto avoided 
any direct opposition to that Church, and 
the new Queen retained thirteen avowed and 
devout Catholics in her Privy Council. As 
intimated already, her Protestantism was 
less doctrinal than political, and at present, 
at least, she did not choose to assume the 
character of a doctrinal Reformer. What 
she did intend to do in regard of the national 
Church was manifest a year or two after- 
wards, when she was more firmly settled 
on the throne. The London mob, however, 
jumped to the conclusion that the tables 
were about to be turned, and assaulted priests 
in the open streets ; while Protestant divines 
emerged from their hiding-places, and began, 
without waiting for official permission, to 
read the services in English. 

The Spanish ambassador, noting the 
workings of the popular feeling, wrote to 
Philip that an insurrection was imminent, 
and that his best course would be to invade 
the country at once, to prevent it falling into 
the hands of France — that country being 
willing, he supposed, to support the claims 
of Mary, wife of the Dauphin, to the throne 
of England. " The realm," wrote the am- 
bassador, " is in such a state that we could 
best negotiate sword in hand." Philip, 
accustomed to tortuous courses, declined to 
adopt this advice, and trusted to the effect of 
bribes, promises, and persuasions. He hit 
upon a plan of his own ; and when Elizabeth 
formally notified to him the death of his 
wife Mary, and her accession to the throne, 
he replied by offering to marry Elizabeth, 
his sister-in-law, thinking, perhaps, she 
would be unable to resist so splendid an offer, 
and by that means he might obtain even a 
stronger hold on England than he had en- 
joyed in the reign of Mary. He little under- 
stood either England or England's new 
Queen. She was too independent in spirit 
to be made a political tool, and too womanly 
to receive the advances of her sister's 
widower. Queen Mary was interred in 
Westminster Abbey, with all the solemn 
funeral rites of the Romish Church, and the 
celebration of a mass of requiem ; but the 
day afterwards (Christmas Day) Elizabeth 
withdrew from the service in the private 
chapel before the elevation of the host. She 
did not forbid the Catholic celebration, but 
declined to be present at it. 

Changes in the Church, 

Before a year had elapsed, " the English 
Church was lost for ever to the Papists." 
Probably the Queen was a little influenced 
in her action by the language of Pope Paul 



IV., who, when the ambassador at Rome 
officially notified to him the death of Mary 
and the accession of her sister, replied that 
" he looked upon Elizabeth as illegitimate, 
and that she ought, therefore, to lay down 
the government, and wait for his decision as 
to whether she was lawful Queen." Of all 
women in the world, Elizabeth was the last 
to bow to such a dictum as this ; and of all 
people in the world, the Enghsh were the 
last to accept a Papal allotment of the 
crown. The change must have come in 
course of time, but there can be little doubt 
that it was precipitated by the language of 
the Pope. In the first session of Parliament, 
held immediately after Elizabeth's corona- 
tion, the Lords and Commons enacted that 
the Queen, notwithstanding her sex, was the 
supreme head of the English Church ; that 
the laws made concerning religion in King 
Edward's time should be re-established in 
full force; and that his Book of Common 
Prayer in the mother-tongue should be 
restored, and used to the exclusion of all 
others in all places of worship. The Liturgy, 
however, received certain modifications, 
which made it less objectionable to the 
Catholics, even if it failed to satisfy enthu- 
siastic Protestants. The Pope was deposed 
from the headship of the Church, but the 
prayer for deliverance from him " and all his 
detestable enormities " was struck out. The 
words used in administering the Sacrament 
were so altered that the recipient could take 
it whether he believed in the real presence 
or not, and the rubric directed against the 
doctrine was struck out. 

Doctrinally, there was certainly a con- 
siderable compromise; but politically, the 
Queen and her advisers were decidedly un- 
compromising. Her faithful subjects were 
quite welcome to say of the sacramental 
bread, as she herself is traditionally reported 
to have said — 

' ' Christ's was the hand that brake it, 
Christ's was the word that spake it, 
And what that word did make it 
That I beheve and take it," 

but they must admit, whether they liked 
it or not, that she, Elizabeth, Queen of 
England, was head of the Church. On the 
15th of May, the bishops, deans, and other 
Church dignitaries were summoned before 
the Queen and Privy Council, and ad- 
monished to conform to the new statute. 
Heath, Archbishop of York (the see of 
Canterbury was vacant), had the courage 
to remind the Queen of her promise " not to 
change the religion which she found by law 
established," and said that his conscience 
would not suffer him to obey her present 
commands. The other bishops concurred.and 
it was evident that a crisis was approaching. 



359 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



One after another, the bishops refused to 
take the oath of supremacy ; one only, 
Bishop Kitchen, of Llandaff, who had been 
Papist and Protestant, and Papist again, 



were deprived, and many Church dignitaries 
also suffered the loss of their position in the 
Church ; but the great body of the clergy 
complied, and the vacant bishoprics were 




Attacking a Spanish Treasure Ship. 



and was now willmg to be Protestant once i filled up chiefly from the ranks ot eminent 
more, complied, and was rewarded by being Protestant divines who had fled the country 
allowed to retam his bishopric. The others | to avoid the Marian persecutions, Matthew 

360 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



Parker, who in early life had been chaplain 
to Anne Boleyn, being appointed Archbishop 
of Canterbury. 

The Clergy at Home. 
The work of Church reformation by no 
means ended with the establishment of 
royal supremacy and the deprivation of 
those prelates and priests who declined to 
accept it. Personally, the clergy needed re- 
formation quite as much as the system. In 
the reign just ended, the prelates had cared 
more for doc- 
trine than for 
discipline ; and 
the new comers 
into sees and 
benefices were 
mostly deter- 
mined to make 
the best of their 
opportunities. 
Within two 
years after the 
Church of Eng- 
land was put 
on the new 
basis, we are 
told, the pre- 
lates were gran- 
ting long leases 
(for a consider- 
ation) of the 
estates in which 
they had but 
life interests, 
"caring nothing 
for the future." 
The Queen, it 
was known, ob- 
jected to a mar- 
ried clergy, al- 
though she did 
not press the 
legal enforce- 
ment of celi- 
bacy. Many 
priests who had 
wives in the 
background in 
Mary's reign 

now brought them forward ; and many of the 
new incumbents and dignitaries had wives 
and families. The Oueen had a right, or 
assumed a right, to interfere in the colleges 
and cathedrals, and cleared out the wives 
and little ones, declaring that the rooms 
intended for students were not to be sacri- 
ficed to women and children. The ladies, 
indeed, carried matters with a very high 
hand before the Queen interfered. We read 
that the singing men of the cathedral choirs 
were made to act as private servants to 
the clergy, and that the cathedral plate was 




Francis Drake, 



transferred to private sideboards ; " the 
organ pipes were melted into kitchen dishes, 
the frames being made into bedsteads ; and 
the copes and vestments, valuable for their 
golden embroidery, were cut up into gowns 
for the wives of the clergy. The said wives 
did call and take all things belonging to the 
Church and corporation as their own." The 
national Church was indeed in a bad con- 
dition. In some dioceses at least a third of 
the parishes had no clergymen ; and of 
course the children were unbaptized, there 

were no ser- 
yices, no ad- 
ministration of 
the Sacrament, 
and the dead 
went unblessed 
to the grave. 
Some of these 
vacancies, es- 
pecially in the 
northern and 
western coun- 
ties,werecaused 
by the refusal 
of the occu- 
pants to take 
the oath of al- 
legiance. The 
buildings fell 
into decay, and 
the Queen was 
moved to ad- 
dress an indig- 
nant remon- 
strance toArch- 
bishop Parker 
on the "no 
small offence 
and scandal of 
the neglected 
condition of the 
churches." The 
personal chan- 
ges caused by 
the new settle- 
ment of the 
Church are de- 
scribed by Bur- 
nett, who says 
thatot nine thousand four hundred beneficed 
persons in England,all who chose to resign their 
benefices rather than comply with the new order 
of things were, beside the fourteen bishops 
and three bishops-elect, only six abbots, twelve 
deans, twelve archdeacons, fifteen heads of 
colleges, fifty prebendaries, and eighty rectors. 
This statement confirms the view taken, 
that doctrinal matters were far less in dispute 
than ecclesiastical supremacy. There was 
no national dishke to a national church. As 
Mr. Green remarks, in his " History of the 
English People," " The most advanced Re- 



361 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



formers did not dream of contending for a 
right to stand apart from the national religion. 
What they wanted was to make that national 
religion their own." 

Eliza,beth and her advisers having resolved 
to supersede the Roman Catholic as the 
State religion, resolved also to do their best 
to banish it from the country. The Tudors 
had little of the spirit of toleration in their 
composition ; and, having decided that mass 
should not be celebrated in the national 
churches, proceeded to forbid it also in 
private chapels. Some of the practices of 
the Romish Church were not objectionable 
to the Queen ; and when on one occasion 
Dean Nowell, a hot Reformer, was preach- 
ing before her, and began to vehemently 
denounce the use of images, she shouted 
from the royal closet, " Stick to your text. 
Master Dean ; leave that alone." But she 
would be independent of the Pope, just as 
she would be independent of Philip of Spain, 
and the Parliament shared the feeling. There 
was, in fact, a strong national reaction, and 
little difficulty was experienced in passing 
the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity. By 
the former an oath was imposed acknow- 
ledging " the Queen's highness to be the 
only supreme governor of this realm, as well 
in all spiritual and ecclesiastical things or 
causes as temporal." Members of the Roman 
Church who believed in the supremacy in 
spiritual matters of the Pope, of course 
could not conscientiously take this oath, and 
they suffered accordingly deprivation of civil 
rights, and in some cases were subjected to 
charges of treason. Elizabeth instructed the 
ecclesiastical visitors of the dioceses to deny 
that she meant to '' challenge authority and 
power of ministry of divine service in the 
Church ; " but that the true meaning of the 
Act of Supremacy was that she intended to 
"have the sovereignty and rule over all 
manner of persons born within her realm, 
dominions, and countries, of what estate, 
either ecclesiastical or temporal, soever they 
be, so as no other foreign power shall or 
ought to have any superiority over them." 
This vigorous protest against foreign inter- 
ference was quite in accordance with the pre- 
vailing temper of the people; and scrupulous 
adherents of the Papacy being in the minority, 
they were, with considerable cheerfulness, 
left to their fate. 

Similarly, the Act of Uniformity met with 
general acceptance on account of its political 
significance. It interdicted the celebration 
of Catholic rites, even in private, and the use 
of any liturgy except that of the Church of 
England, under pain of forfeiting goods and 
chattels and imprisonment (for life for a 
third offence). The service was conducted 
in the English language ; and as, therefore, 
there could be no excuse for not listening to 



it, everybody was ordered to attend church 
on Sundays and holidays, or to pay a fine of 
one shiUing for every non-attendance. The 
Protestant clergy, having been themselves 
persecuted, were quite ready to be perse- 
cutors in their turn, and the common people 
who had shouted with delight when Protes- 
tants were burned in Smithfield would have 
been equally pleased to see behevers in 
the Papacy at the stake. The Queen and 
Cecil were not disposed to revive the terrible 
spirit of the times just passed ; but there was 
nevertheless, at the instigation of some of the 
clergy, influencing the agents of the govern- 
ment, "a persecution, not fiery, hot and 
bloody, like that of the late reign, but petty, 
minute, destructive of individual liberty, 
household independence, domestic peace, 
and too often of property." It was a stormy 
and volcanic time, and the national energies 
were in a disturbed condition, and assumed 
divers contorted forms ; but the real meaning 
of " Protestantism against Papacy " was 
" England against the world." 

Political Reforms. 

While the nation was thus the subject ot 
very important changes in spiritual and eccle- 
siastical matters, it was also moving forward 
towards a new political and constitutional 
condition. An alteration took place in the 
representation of boroughs, hitherto limited 
exclusively to burghers of the towns repre- 
sented. Now others were allowed to be 
representatives, the result being that men 
of wealth and connected with the nobility 
and county families sat in the House of 
Commons as representatives of boroughs, 
and their attitude towards the crown was 
bolder and more independent than that 
which the previous representatives had dared, 
or indeed had been disposed, to assume. 

The new Parliament soon contrived to 
intimate to the Queen that it was not disposed 
to be a mere instrument of the royal will and 
pleasure ; and she, finding the position she 
had at first assumed to be untenable, with- 
drew from it with consummate tact, and 
"protested she did not mean to prejudice 
any part of the liberties of the House." 

Social State of the People. 
It is difficult to picture the social condition 
of the lower strata of the people in the Ehza- 
bethan times. When the young Queen came 
to the throne the population of the whole 
realm was about 5,000,000, or but httle more 
than the inhabitants of the "Greater 
London " of the Registrar-General of the 
present day. Wealth was concentrated in 
comparatively few hands ; the townsmen lived 
generally as few labourers would like to live 
now ; the poor were miserably poor indeed. 
We can be easily deceived by figures ; and 



362 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



when we read that an ox could be bought for 
about fifty shiUings, a wether sheep for three 
or four shillings, a milch cow for five-and- 
thirty shillings, and a pound of butter for 
fourpence, we might be disposed to think 
that the workman or country labourer must 
have been poor indeed if he could not feed 
well. But a master mason could only earn 
a shilling a day, a common labourer four- 
pence, and a hedger or ditcher from four- 
pence to sixpence. Wheat was about fifty 
shiUings a quarter, and in some years of 
scarcity roSe to more than a hundred shil- 
lings. From these facts we may guess that 
meat, even at the low prices quoted, did not 
very frequently adorn the poor man's table ; 
and what kind of bread he ate we are left to 
conjecture. 

The land was literally overrun with beg- 
gars. One of the first public measures of 
Elizabeth's reign gave authority to the 
justices in session to assess persons for the 
relief of the poor, and if they refused or 
neglected to pay to commit them to prison. 
The Poor Law was growing into shape, but 
was yet a long way from maturity. Eliza- 
beth had been ten years on the throne when 
the preamble of an Act of Parliament averred 
that " all the parts of England and Wales 
be presently with rogues, vagabonds, and 
sturdy beggars exceedingly pestered." Some 
of the provisions of an Act passed in the 
reign of Edward VI., but subsequently re- 
pealed, were revived, and beggars " who were 
vagabonds " were whipped, burnt through 
the gristle of the right ear with a hot iron, and 
virtually made slaves by being apportioned 
to some employer to work without wages for 
a year, to be imprisoned if they ran away once, 
treated as felons for a second offence of the 
kind, and very summarily hanged if they ran 
away a third time. The really helpless poor 
were to some extent taken care of at the ex- 
pense of the ratepayers ; but for the " rogues, 
vagabonds, and sturdy beggars " there was 
no mercy. The line of demarcation between 
vagabondage and actual crime was not very 
distinctly marked by the local magistracy, 
whose chief object seems to have been to 
make as short work as possible in dealing 
with the prowhng gangs. One historian of 
the period says that the magistrates of 
Somersetshire captured a gang of a hundred 
at one stroke, hanged fifty at once, and then 
complained to the Council of the necessity of 
waiting till the assizes before they could hang 
the remaining fifty. Why, having gone so 
far, they should have had any scruples, is not 
stated, 

Scarcely a year passed without two or 
three hundred malefactors being hanged. 
In some districts the magistrates and county 
gentlemen who attended the sessions were 
intimidated by the threats of the sturdy 



beggars and other rogues ; but generally the 
authorities were ready enough to try the 
effect of the gallows in improving the morals 
of the community. They had precedent for 
the experiment, for in the course of the thirty- 
eight years' reign of Henry VIII. 72,000 
persons had being hanged for the offence ot 
being thieves or vagabonds. So, at least, 
says Harrison, the historian ; and with nearly 
two thousand miserable wretches to dispose 
of every year the hangmen must have had a 
busy time. The Elizabethan officers of 
justice did not act on quite such a colossal 
scale in disposing of offenders ; but they were 
active enough. To quote a modern writer, 
" the ' merry England ' of the days of Eliza- 
beth was in some respects rather a terrible 
country to live in ; and the courtly and 
literary splendour which makes the sunny 
foreground of the picture it has spread before 
the imagination of all of us is set off, when the 
whole is uncovered, by no small force of con- 
trast in the black barbaric gloom of the other 
parts." 

Mercantile Enterprise. 

Let us pass from the shadows into the light. 
After the accession of Elizabeth there was a 
rapid increase in foreign trade. A taste for 
luxuries developed in the upper classes of 
society, side by side with the taste for Htera- 
ture and art ; and in the suddenly enriched 
middle and mercantile classes, with the 
increase of wealth the daily strengthening 
spirit of adventure and enterprise aided the 
more sordid commercial spirit. The credit 
of England with foreign merchants and 
capitalists was re-established, thanks to Cecil, 
Gresham, and others ; and the merchants of 
England began that competition in trading- 
enterprise destined to eclipse the commercial 
glories of Antwerp and Venice. From India, 
Persia, and Turkey, were imported carpets, 
velvets, damasks, cloth of gold, silk, perfumes, 
and spices. English ships visited the ports 
of Russia and the Baltic states, and brought 
back flax, furs, tallow, iron and steel, ropes, 
cables, and masts for ships. Home-staying 
capitalists started factories, and encouraged 
handicrafts, the manufacture of woollen 
fabrics especially receiving a great impulse ; 
and a foreign demand for English goods 
grew with the growth of the foreign trade. 
It is an evidence of the increasing luxury of 
the time that in 1559, the year after the 
accession of Elizabeth, foreign wine to the 
value of ^64,000 was entered at the port of 
London — an enormous quantity, the retail 
price being only on the average sevenpence 
a gallon ! 

Rovers of the Seas. 
There wasavery vigorous element in Enghsh 
society, an element destined to take part in 



363 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



some of the most remarkable achievements of 
that remarkable time — young men of good 
abilities, and belonging to good families, 
resolute and ambitious, with ambition made 
more active by want of money. They met 
with bold seamen who had seen the wonders 
of the New World, who had handled the gold 
and silver and precious stones, tasted its 
luscious fruits, and heard its legends — men 
who had seen the richly freighted galleons 
sail into the Spanish ports, and men, too, who 
were not disposed to diminish the effect of 
their narratives by keeping too scrupulously 
on the safe side of literal truth. With such 
adventurous mariners young Walter Raleigh 
talked, when as a boy he watched the waves 
beating on the desert coast. With such men 
a hundred others, older and ready to take 
part in any daring venture, held converse at 
London, Bristol, and Falmouth. There were 
already " rovers of the seas," young men of 
family driven to what was really little better 
than piracy by the persecutions and political 
changes which had deprived them of their 
heritages ; and they found in the new attitude 
of England towards foreign powers, in the 
imminence of a contest with Spain, new 
opportunities. Some of them had, during 
the war with France, received commissions ; 
and on return of peace they had been formally 
censuredfor their misdeedSjbut not punished; 
for there was no regular navy, and the 
services of the daring, able seamen, who not 
unfrequently boarded a foreign vessel in the 
British Channel, and whose respect for inter- 
national law was extremely slight, might 
be again needed. Among these bold spirits 
were representatives of the Carews, Kilh- 
grews, Tremaynes, Throgmortons, Cob- 
hams, and other families of repute. On 
Elizabeth's accession some had become 
servants of the Crown ; one of the most 
famous. Sir Edward Horsey, was appointed 
governor of the Isle of Wight, and Harry 
Killigrew, of a Cornish family, was employed 
as a confidential agent of the Court. Leaders 
cast in this mould soon found followers 
among the fishermen of the coast, hardy 
fellows whose trade decHned when the 
Catholics, who ordered much fish to be eaten, 
were displaced by Protestants who did not 
observe fast days. They were willing enough 
to follow the fortunes of the dashing young 
fellows who had contrived to raise funds for 
fitting out a ship or two, and ventured into the 
broad Atlantic to look out for Spanish ships 
with treasure on board. Sometimes a rich 
prize was made ; but sometimes the EngUsh 
rovers got the worst of the encounter, and 
were taken prisoners to Spain, where such 
of them as had the courage to stand by their 
Protestantism were handed over to the 
Inquisition and burnt as heretics. 
A writer in the Edinbtirs[h Review de- 



scribes the adventurous spirit which charac- 
terized the age : " Maritime expedition and 
colonization were the favourite undertakings 
and projects of the more enterprising and 
active speculators of that stirring period. 
The ocean and the New World attracted all 
their actions and thoughts. The more daring 
and adventurous fitted out cruisers to inter- 
cept the Spanish ships on their return with 
rich cargoes from the colonies ; while those 
who aimed at plantations and the extension 
of commerce looked to the northern parts of 
America as the appropriate field of their 
nobler exertions." 

Maritime Adventures. 

The expedition to the coast of Africa 
by William Hawkins has been already 
mentioned. Hawkins was accompanied on 
that voyage by his son, the more famous 
John, whose memory bears the disgrace of 
the first systematic slave trading by an 
Englishman. In 1562, four years after the 
accession of Elizabeth, John Hawkins and 
Thomas Hampton fitted out three vessels, 
and with a hundred men sailed for Sierra 
Leone, where they collected three hundred 
negroes (readily enough sold by the native 
chiefs, who probably failed to see why they 
should be more scrupulous about dealing in 
human flesh than were the clever white men 
who offered tempting prices for the dusky 
cargo), and took them to St. Domingo, where 
they were sold as slaves. King Philip, how- 
ever, would not sanction thelransaction. It 
is only charitable to suppose that humanity 
had as much to do with this determination 
as desire to annoy an Englishman ; but the 
negroes were retained, although the hides 
which Hawkins had purchased with the price 
of the slaves, and sent to Cadiz, were con- 
fiscated when they reached that port. 

The seamen of that, day were not easily 
discouraged, and Hawkins was in some re- 
spects a typical man. A second expedition 
was fitted out ; and Elizabeth actually gave 
the leader one of the best ships in the ser- 
vice to be employed in the trade. The name 
of this ship was the Jesics ; but we have no 
record that any of the ardent religionists 
about the Court, any of the zealous Protes- 
tants or eloquent preachers, noticed the unfit- 
ness of the name. It may be that the Queen 
resented the action of Philip, whom she no 
doubt heartily detested ; but it is quite cer- 
tain that she more than once condescended to 
take a share in what might prove a profitable 
venture — and, after all, they were only black 
heathens who were to be stolen. In those days 
men and women of culture were rather hard- 
hearted. Not only did the Queen thus aid 
Hawkins, but she gave another ship to Davis 
Carlet, bound on a similar expedition. Haw- 
kins captured or purchased from Portuguese 



364 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



traders about four hundred slaves, — not, how- 
ever, without escaping many dangers, as, with 
an edifying piety he acknowledged, by " the 
aid of Almighty God, who never suffers His 
elect to perish." 

Achievements of Drake. 

The great sailor of the age was Francis 
Drake, a kinsman of Hawkins. He was the 
eldest of the twelve sons of Edward Drake, 
a sailor, and was born in 1545, near Tavis- 
tock, in Devonshire. Hawkins noticed the 
ability and spirit of the lad, and took him to 
sea with him. At eighteen he was purser of 
a ship, and at twenty-two captain of a vessel 
named the Jiidith. He behaved gallantly in 
an action at St. John d'Ulloa in the Gulf of 
Mexico, and returned to England, as he him- 
self said, " with a great reputation, and with- 
out a groat " — not an uncommon condition 
with the bold, reckless adventurers of the 
time. His ship's company included a chap- 
lain, who probably fitted his divinity to the 
latitudes in which he chanced to be cruising, 
and he had advised Drake on a question of 
casuistry. " The case," he said, " is clear : the 
King of Spain's subjects have undone Mr. 
Drake, and therefore Mr. Drake is at liberty 
to take the best satisfaction he can on the 
subjects of the King of Spain." This doctrine, 
we are told, " how rudely soever preached, 
was very taking in England." In 1570 Drake 
sailed on his first expedition, with two ships, 
the Dragon and the Swan, landed on the 
Isthmus of Darien, which he crossed, and 
then returned to England with a good booty. 
In the following year he made a less success- 
ful voyage in the Swan alone. He started 
on a third expedition from Plymouth on the 
24th of March, 1572 — himself in the Pascha, 
of seventy tons ; and his brother in the Swan, 
only twenty-five tons. With such small 
vessels did the knights-errant of the ocean 
seek adventures in those days of daring. 
The crew consisted of seventy-five men and 
boys. In July he reached the Mexican 
coast, and attacked the town of N ombre de 
Dios, near which were rich silver mines. 
The town was taken by storm ; but Drake 
himself was dangerously wounded, and the 
adventurers were afterwards compelled to 
retreat to their ships, having obtained very 
little booty. The town of Venta Cruz was next 
attacked and captured, and a small amount 
of plunder obtained, but more from a train of 
fifty mules laden with plate which Drake's 
followers met on the way. They carried off 
as much as they could, and buried the rest. 
In these exploits they were assisted by some 
of the native Indians, who hated the Spanish 
with a very intelligible hatred, and as yet 
believed in the superior virtues of the English 
rovers. The chief, or prince, of the Indians 
gave Drake four large wedges of gold in 



exchange for a cutlass. With a seaman's 
generosity Drake gave this treasure to the 
common stock, saying " he thought it but 
just that such as bore the charge of so un- 
certain a voyage on his credit should share 
to the utmost in the advantages that voyage 
produced." On the 9th of August, 1573, the 
weather-beaten sails of the returning ships 
were seen from Plymouth Hoe, and Drake 
and his comrades received the congratulations 
of the townsmen on the success of their ven- 
ture — which some unromantic persons might 
describe as of a piratical character. 

Drake's restless energy would not allow 
him to repose. While awaiting opportunity 
for making another sea venture, he served 
as a soldier in Ireland, where there was 
plenty of fighting, and where, too, there was 
occasionally a little "loot," as it is called 
now-a-days. There he so distinguished him- 
self that on his return Sir Christopher Hatton 
introduced him to the Queen. He was soon 
afterwards at the head of a fleet of five small 
vessels (the largest only of eighty tons), with 
164 men; and in December, 1577, started from 
Falmouth to achieve the great adventure of 
his career. He sailed through the Straits of 
Maghaelan into the Pacific, plundered with 
patriotic (and perhaps a little private) zeal 
the Spanish towns on the coasts of Chili and 
Peru, and then sailing westward touched at 
the East Indies and returned home by way 
of the Cape of Good Hope. He was the 
first Englishman who had sailed round the 
world ; and it is no wonder that when he 
reached Deptford Elizabeth warmly wel- 
comed the bold seaman who had rivalled the 
greatest achievements of the vaunted Spanish 
navigators. She visited his ship, the Golden 
Hind, at Deptford, and knighted Drake, 
who was henceforth in great favour. In 
1585-6 he was busy in the West Indies, doing 
all the damage he could to Spanish ships 
and Spanish towns ; and a year afterwards 
commanded thirty ships in an expedition to 
Cadiz. It was known that Philip was pre- 
paring a great fleet for the invasion of 
England, and Drake's orders were to attack 
and destroy as many ships as he could. 
With amazing daring he entered Cadiz 
roads, passed the batteries, and in one day, 
the 19th of April, 1587, burned a hundred 
vessels and possessed himself of an immense 
booty ; and having quitted the roads before 
the Spaniards had recovered from their 
panic, sailed along the coast burning and 
plundering. Then he steered for the Azores, 
looking out for homeward-bound treasure- 
ships, and encountered and captured an 
enormous " carrack," the richest prize ever 
taken at sea. This he brought in triumph 
to Plymouth, and the heads of his country- 
men were nearly turned b}' the arrival of 
booty worth about a million sterling. 



365 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Seeking a North-West Passage. 

But Francis Drake, although the most 
brilhantly successful seaman of his time, had 
rivals in the spirit of adventure. The pos- 
sibility of a north-western passage to the 
Indies was even then suggested. In July, 
1576, Martin Frobisher left England with two 
small vessels (the largest only of twenty-five 
tons) and a pinnace, reached the coast of 
Greenland, and made an unsuccessful ex- 
ploration of a strait which he supposed would 
afford the desired passage. He returned to 
England and prepared another expedition. 
The coast of Greenland was again reached, 
but few discoveries were made, except of 
stones which " sparkle and glister in the sun 
like gold," and the horn of a "sea-unicorn," 
into which some spiders being put imme- 
diately died, and that was, according to some 
very astute axiom, a sure proof of " great store 
of gold." Two women (Esquimaux probably) 
were also captured, one of whom was so ugly 
that the sailors suspected her to be the devil, 
and would not be convinced to the contrary 
until they had stripped off her boots of skins, 
to see whether she had a cloven foot. In the 
following year the Queen sent Frobisher on 
a third voyage, to take possession of the land 
he had discovered ; and 120 persons accom- 
panied him, intending to establish a colony ; 
but the ice barred the passage, and the ex- 
pedition returned, with no other gain than a 
large quantity of the "glistering stones," 
which were generally believed to indicate the 
presence of gold, but were most probably 
pieces of the beautiful iridescent spar found 
abundantly in Labrador. England was 
hungering for gold, and no simple country 
lad ever tramped to London with greater 
belief in the existence of the golden pavement 
than that with which the adventurers of the 
Ehzabethan age dared the perils of the sea 
in search of Dorados in the western world. 

In 1585, John Davis, of Sandridge, in 
Devonshire, with two ships, reached the 
coast of Greenland, which he called " the 
land of desolation ; " then steering to the 
north-west, he saw a high mountain, "glit- 
tering like gold " (gold again !), to which he 
gave the name Mount Raleigh. For sixty 
leagues Davis sailed up a strait (now known 
as Cumberland Inlet), but was compelled to 
return. He made two other voyages subse- 
quently, but with small practical result. His 
name is still preserved in Davis Straits. 

Then there were the expeditions to the 
American coast by Sir Humphrey Gilbert 
(ending so pathetically), and by captains sent 
out by Walter Raleigh ; the discovery and 
settlement of Virginia ; and afterwards 
Raleigh's own voyage to Guiana, and attempt 
to reach "the golden land," and his marvellous 
narrative, so grandly told, of the beauties 



and natural wealth of the country. About 
the same time, too, Thomas Candish, or 
Cavendish, emulating the achievement of 
Drake, passed through the Maghaelan Strait 
and attacked the Spanish towns on the South 
American coast. He sailed round the world, 
and returned with abundance of wealth, and 
was knighted by the Queen ; but soon spent 
his money, undertook another voyage, met 
with no success, and died broken-hearted on 
his way home. 

Rise of the East India Company. 

While daring men of adventurous minds 
were turning their thoughts to the western 
world, India, the " Cathay," that powerful 
magnet of attraction to the merchants of 
Europe, was the bright particular star to 
which the more sober-minded wealth-seekers 
turned their eyes. The Turkey company sent 
expeditions through Syria to Bagdad, and 
down the Tigris to the Persian Gulf, whence 
India was reached ; and other expeditions 
made their way by sea round the Cape of 
Good Hope. Agents were despatched to the 
court of the Great Mogul ; associations of 
merchants were formed in London for the 
purpose of establishing a trade with India, 
and towards the close of her reign Elizabeth 
granted a charter of incorporation to " the 
governor and company of the merchants of 
London trading with the East Indies." 
What the East India Company grew to, we 
all know, and we all know, too, that Queen 
Victoria is now Empress of India ; but the 
seeds of that greatness were sown in the 
reign of Queen Elizabeth. 

Shattering the Great Armada. 

The time came at last for the supreme 
trial of strength between England, a few years 
before so weak, and Spain, claiming to be the 
mistress of the world, but already toppling 
on the pinnacle of greatness. We need not 
repeat the familiar story of the great Armada. 
The world never saw — unless perhaps when 
the Persians under Xerxes invaded little 
Greece — so great an array as the gigantic 
fleet which, under the command of the Duke 
of Medina-Sidonia, set sail for England in 
1588. All England was afire with excite- 
ment and patriotism when the great news 
came. The nation breathed with a new life. 
Elizabeth marshalled the troops on land, 
ready to repel the invaders, covered her 
golden locks with a steel helmet, enclosed 
her spare figure in an iron corslet, and having 
dubbed as knight " the bold lady of Cheshire, 
Lady Mary Cholmondeley," mounted a 
charger and made a brave speech to the 
army gathered at Tilbury. " I am come 
amongst you," she said, "not for my recrea- 
tion and disport, but being resolved in the 
midst of the heat of the battle to live or die 



366 



THE ELIZABETHAN AGE. 



amongst you all. I know I have the body 
of a weak, feeble woman, but I have the 
heart and stomach of a King, and of a 
King of England too ! " There spoke the 
spirit of England by the mouth of England's 
Oueen. Howard of Effingham, Raleigh, 
Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher, and many other 
heroes of the sea, encountered the great 
Armada in the Channel, and scattered it. 
A violent storm completed the work of de- 
struction ; the naval supremacy of Spain was 
destroyed for ever, and England gained the 
title, so proudly worn for three centuries, of 
"mistress of the seas." 

Splendid Literary Development. 
Contemporaneously with this marvellous 
development of the power of England in its 
external aspects, there was an intellectual 
development even more remarkable. The 
last thirty years of the sixteenth century in 
this country were made illustrious by the 
birth and growth of an imaginative literature 
of almost unrivalled splendour. Thomas 
Campbell — and there could scarcely be found 
a more competent critic — says, in the intro- 
duction to his " Specimens of the British 
Poets " :— 

" In the reign of Elizabeth, the English 
mind put forth its energies in every direction, 
exalted by a purer religion and enlarged by 
new views of truth. This was an age of 
loyalty, adventure, and generous emulation. 
The chivalrous character was softened by 
intellectual pursuits, while the genius of 
chivalry itself still lingered, as if unwilling to 
depart, and paid his last homage to a warlike 
and female reign. A degree of romantic 
fancy remained in the manners and supersti- 
tion of the people ; and allegory might be said 
to parade the streets in their public pageants 
and festivities. Quaint and pedantic as 
these allegorical exhibitions might often be, 
they were nevertheless more expressive of 
erudition, ingenuity, and moral meaning than 
they had been in former times. The philo- 
sophy of the highest minds still partook of a 
visionary character. A political spirit infused 
itself into the practical heroism of the age ; 
and some of the worthies of that period seem 
less like ordinary men than like beings 
called forth out of fiction, and arrayed in the 
brightness of dreams. They had high thoughts 
seated in a heart of courtesy. The life of 
Sir Philip Sidney is poetry put into action." 

The acquaintance with the French and 
Italian languages, possessed by most of the 
cultured class, and the attention given to the 
study of the classic authors of Greece and 
Rome, improved the taste and stimulated 
the imagination of those who possessed 
poetic sympathy. A few years before Eliza- 
beth ascended the throne. Sir Thomas Wyatt 
and the Earl of Surrey had produced many 



charming poems, inspired by genuine senti- 
ment ; and to the latter is due the introduc- 
tion of blank verse into English literature. 
Puttenham, the author of the " Art of English 
Poesy," published in 1589, says, "In the 
latter end of King Henry VIII.'s reign sprang 
up a new company of courtly makers [poets], 
of whom Sir Thomas Wyatt the elder and 
Henry Earl of Surrey were the two chieftains, 
who, having travelled into Italy, and there 
tasted the sweet and stately measures and 
style of the Italian poetry, as novices newly 
crept out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, 
and Petrarch, they greatly polished our rude 
and homely manner of poesy." 

It has been said of Sir Philip Sidney, that 
he " trod from his cradle to his grave amid 
incense and flowers, and died in a dream of 
joy." His verses are graceful and animated ; 
his prose more poetical than most poetry. 
One critic has declared that " Sidney's is a 
wonderful style, always flexible, harmonious, 
and luminous, and on fit occasions rising to 
great stateliness and splendour ; while a 
breath of beauty and noble feeling lives in 
and exhales from the whole of his great work 
like the fragrance from a garden of flowers." 
His "great work" is "The Countess of 
Pembroke's Arcadia," inscribed to his sister. 
A greater poet than Sidney was his friend 
Edmund Spenser, " the poets' poet," as he 
has been styled. Some of Spenser's earlier 
poems are exquisite. He wrote from the 
impulses of a passionate, loving heart, when 
he addressed "the widow's daughter of the 
glen," Rosalind, probably Rose Daniel, a 
sister of another poet ; and when he married 
Miss Nagle, an Irish girl, he wrote the 
" Epithalamium," of which Hallam says, " I 
do not know any other nuptial song, ancient 
or modern, of equal beauty. It is an intoxi- 
cation of extasy, ardent, noble, and pure." 
Spenser was the friend of Raleigh (the " Colin 
Clout" of his poems), with whom he became 
acquainted in Ireland, and by him was intro 
duced to friends of kindred tastes. His 
great poem, " The Fairy Queen," the first 
three books of which appeared in 1 590 and 
the remainder six years afterwards, is beyond 
question one of the great poems of the world. 
It is an allegory, but so interspersed with 
incident that it rivals in personal interest 
the great epic romances of Italy ; and the 
grace and beauty of the language, and the 
command of a difficult metre, are no less 
admirable than the mingled delicacy and 
vigour of description, and the exquisite fancy 
and imaginative power which pervade it. 
It is a succession of pictures, a continuous 
strain of music ; and eye and ear are alike 
gratified, the one by the chivalrous and lovely 
figures which fill the scene, the other by the 
melody, so flexible and so sweet, so spirited 
and so tender, which accompanies the pa- 



367 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



geant, or seems to float in the air above 
" heavenly Una and her milk-white lamb." 

Of lesser poets there were many : Walter 
Raleigh, Samuel Daniel, Michael Drayton, 
Thomas Sackville, and others ; but the poetic 
development was preparing to assume, as we 
shall presently show, another form — the dra- 
matic, and in that form to achieve its highest 
triumph. Prose began to emulate poetry in dig- 
nity and sonorous beauty, and the writings of 
the historians and thinkers of the time exhibit 
a considerable advance on the rugged, if 
vigorous productions of their immediate pre- 
decessors. The period is marked by the 
appearance of the first portion of Hooker's 
" Ecclesiastical Pohty ; " and we are told by 
a critic of great ability that " Hooker's style 
is almost without a rival for its sustained 
dignity of march ; but that which makes it 
most remarkable is its union of all this 
learned gravity and correctness with a flow 
of genuine, racy English, as untinctured with 
pedantry of any kind as anything that came 
from the pen of the most familiar and care- 
less of popular writers." This characteristic, 
indeed, arising from the consciousness of 
strength, and the ease of manner ensuing 
from that knowledge, marks all the best 
productions of the time. There was, indeed, 
a great outbreak of affectation, the " sestheti- 
cism " of the time, the high priest of which 
was John Lyly, a man of genius, with a 
crotchet, who has been ridiculed by Shake- 
speare in Love's Labour Lost, and by 
Scott in " The Monastery ; " but the affecta- 
tion, popular for a time, soon wore away. 
The spirit of the age was too earnest for such 
trifling to affect it permanently. Towards 
the latter part of the period George Chapman 
produced a portion of his noble translation 
of Homer, the perusal of which made John 
Keats (who should have lived in the Eliza- 
bethan, not the Georgian age) feel as he 
imagined Cortez felt when, "silent upon a 
peak in Darien,"he first gazed on the Pacific. 
Philosophy was in the throes of a new birth ; 
but as yet Francis Bacon was only a law 
student of brilliant promise, and his great 
achievements in recasting the philosophical 
method were reserved for the next reign. 

Shakspeare the Symbol of the Age. 

The most remarkable literary feature of 
this illustrious time was the springing into 
existence, by a bound as it were, of the 
Enghsh drama. In twenty years after Eliza- 
beth's accession forty-six regular tragedies 
had been produced, and young men of genius 
were devoting themselves to dramatic poetry. 
There were Peele and Greene, and many 
others; and Marlowe, who except one, the 
greatest of all poets, was the most powerful 
dramatic poet of the time. Then Shakspeare 
appeared on the scene, and the triumph was 



complete. His consummate genius — his in- 
stinctive mastery of the expression of all 
human emotions — his creative power, which 
never mistook words for realities, rhetoric for 
passion or grief — his imagination, fancy, wit, 
and humour, mark him out as the unique 
figure not only of the Elizabethan age, but of 
all ages and all countries. Universal as he 
is in his sympathies, he is in a special sense 
the microcosm of the Elizabethan time. It 
was an age of adventure, and the brave spirit 
of the time echoes in his chivalrous lines. 
It was an age when new worlds were opening 
to the vision of men, and from the "still 
vexed Bermoothes" came the inspiration 
which took shape in the enchanted isle 
where dwelt Prospero and Miranda. It was 
an age when the national spirit was evoked, 
when chains had been broken, and England 
stood free before the world ; and the historic 
plays are the very embodiment of the heroic 
English spirit. Harry of Agincourt exclaims, 
as in effect Elizabeth exclaimed at Tilbury, 
" Our hearts are in the trim ; " Falconbridge 
echoed the national outburst when the shadow 
of the Armada darkened the waves of the 
Channel, in saying " Come the three corners 
of the world in arm^s, and we shall shock 
them ;" and the words of John, "No Italian 
priest shall tithe or toll in my dominions," 
was the key-note of the Reformation. The 
intense nationality which animated English- 
men finds expression in old John of Gaunt's 
descriptive epithets: — 

' ' This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle . . . 
This precious stone set in the silver sea . . . 
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this 
England ! " 

It was a time when the passionate and pic- 
turesque romances and legends of southern 
Europe were acclimatized in England, and 
we have the loves of " Juliet and her Romeo," 
and the grim figure of Shylock. It was a 
time when the dim legends and antique 
chronicles of our own land were coming into 
the light, and there are Lear and Imogen 
and Macbeth. It was a time when classic 
literature and biography were studied ; and 
in Shakspeare's pages Achilles and Hector, 
Andromache and Cassandra, Brutus and 
Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra, live 
again, not as antique statues, but informed 
with the life which creative genius can alone 
impart. 

Ben Jonson, rising into fame as Elizabeth's 
yellow hair turned grey, has paid Shakspeare 
the magnificent compliment that " he was 
not for an age, but for all time." This is 
true in one sense ; but in another sense he 
was for one age, and that the most illustrious 
period in our national annals — " the spacious 
times of great Elizabeth." 

G. R. E 



368 




Frederick the Cheat. 



THE FIGHT AT FONTENOY. 



AND WHAT LED TO IT. 



European Affairs— Maria Theresa- Frederick the Second of Prussia-The Beginning of the War of Succession- Battle of 
Mollwitz— AfiTairs in England-State of Europe-Progress of the War— I'he British Cabinet— The King in Cermany 
~-ru r- D.ettmgen- Defeat of the French— Incidents of the Battle— Marshal Saxe and the Invasion of England 
— 1 he Campaign ot 1744— 1 he English Alliance-The Campaign in Flanders— The Siege of Tournai- Battle of 
l-ontenoy- British Bravery-lhe French Repulsed-English Hard Pressed-Defection of the Dutch 'Irocr.— 
I he Kesult— foreign Opinions of the Fight at Foiitenoy— Conclusion 



Affairs in Europe. 
N the 20th October, 1740, the 
Emperor Charles the Sixth died, 
leaving as the successor to his 
crown his daughter, Maria Theresa. 
The Emperor had died in the hope and 




369 



behef that he had made the succession sure. 
He had endeavoured by all means in his 
power to arrange that his daughter should 
peacefully succeed, and had managed to ob- 
tain the agreement (termed the Pragmatic 
Sanction) to her undisturbed succession, by 

B B 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OE HISTORY. 



parting with various slices of territory to the 
reigning houses. 

Maria Theresa had married Stephen of 
Lorraine, but neither he nor his ministers 
were very resolute in Government. We have 
testimony to their irresolution and despair 
in emergencies. But no sooner had the 
Emperor died, than all the watch-dogs to 
which he had cast bones, in the shape of 
territory, forgot the bones, and came to fight 
over his possessions. They forgot all about 
the Pragmatic Sanction, and feeling assured 
that in this instance might was right, they 
pounced upon the poor little princess en 
masse. Frederick the Great annexed Silesia, 
Charles Albert was elected emperor, while 
Spain followed the example of France, 
although the latter was free to move, having 
made no promises. Prussia made the first 
stir. The old king was dead, and Frederick 
the Second had succeeded. 

Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, sent 
advices to the crowned heads informing them 
of the death of the Emperor ; and when the 
Elector of Bavaria received the news he 
declared that it was impossible to acknow- 
ledge her as Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, 
"because of his pretensions to the Emperor's 
succession, which he was resolved to make 
good." He confirmed this opinion in inter- 
views with the Ambassadors at his Court, 
and claimed the throne, in consequence of 
the will of Ferdinand, whose Austrian estates 
had been left to his daughter, failing male 
issue, and he, the Elector, was descended 
from that daughter. 

Prussia and Saxony, however, promised 
to maintain the Pragmatic Sanction, also, if 
necessary, to send troops, and France was 
particularly energetic ; but on the 14th of 
December, having meanwhile kept up the 
greatest protestations of friendship, Frederick 
of Prussia marched nearly 30,000 men into 
Silesia with speed. 

The Beginning of the War. 

So quietly were the measures of the young 
King taken, that his sudden departure for 
the army one evening from a masked 
ball excited considerable surprise. He had 
arranged with the French Ambassador to 
play the game. " I am going," said the King, 
"to play your game, I think, but if I throw 
doublets we will share the stakes" (Voltaire). 
Frederick the Great declared that he must 
protect Silesia "in the preservation and 
prosperity whereof we have the more inte- 
rested ourselves, as it serves for a defence 
and bulwark to our territories in the empire" ; 
and he proceeded to explain in his manifesto 
that he only took Silesia and carried war 
into it, for fear of somebody else doing the 
same thing so near his own dominions ! 

"We have no intention," he says, "of 



disobliging Her Majesty of Hungary, with 
whom we evidently desire to maintain a 
strict friendship, and to contribute to her 
real interest and preservation"; and he 
concluded by warning the Silesians that if 
any trouble arose they would only have 
themselves to thank for it. No opposition 
was made by the people, and so quickly was 
the seizure made that there were not wanting 
people who declared that the whole arrange- 
ment had been concocted between the King 
of Prussia and Maria Theresa herself. 

Such a sudden step as this naturally 
astonished the other nations of Europe, yet 
Austria was not a power to be defied with 
impunity. Frederick, however, was diplo- 
matic. He sent to Maria Theresa to tell her 
what he intended to do, and suggested that 
she should quietly cede to him Lower Silesia. 
If she would consent he would assist her 
He named his price, but the Queen declined, 
and declared she would never make any 
terms with him; and when the hypocritical 
manifesto was published, as above quoted, it 
only added fuel to the flame of the Queen's 
wrath. The Prussian Minister quittedVienna, 
and on the 22nd of December Frederick 
entered Breslau without bloodshed. 

But at Otmachan a more spirited resist- 
ance was offered, and the drummer who was 
beating the parley was shot dead. An attack 
was immediately made upon the place, and in 
twenty-four hours it surrendered. In one or 
two other places the Austrians made a stout 
resistance, and at the town of Neiss they 
obliged the Prussians to retire and com- 
mence a siege. Frederick then left the 
command of his army to Marshal Schwerin, 
and returned to Berlin to hurry up more 
troops. A good deal of desultory fighting 
went on, and the Prussian forces were greatly 
strengthened in Silesia; and in King 
George's speech at the opening of Parliament 
in London in April 1741, the war then going 
on was alluded to, with other incidents, " as 
events that require the utmost care and at- 
tention, as they may involve all Europe in 
a bloody war. The Queen of Hungary has 
already demanded the 12,000 men expressly 
stipulated by treaty, and thereupon I have 
demanded of the King of Denmark and the 
King of Sweden, as Landgraves of Hesse 
Cassel, their respective bodies of 6,000 men 
each." Both Houses assured His Majesty 
that they would assist him in defending such 
a righteous cause as that of the Queen of 
Hungary. So England was already pre- 
paring for the struggle, and determined to 
uphold her treaties. 

The Battle of Mollwitz. 
Maria Theresa was now thoroughly roused 
to action. She appealed to her people, and 
collected a small army, about 20,000 men. 



370 



THE FIGHT AT FONTENOY. 



At the head of this force she placed Marshal 
Neuperg, who had just been released from 
prison. He advanced to Neiss, where the 
Prussian army was still occu pied, and taking 
Grotkau on his way, fell in with the enemy 
at MoUwitz, and a severe battle ensued. 
The Prussians took the Austrians somewhat 
by surprise, for the snow was deep; but not- 
withstanding this advantage the Austrians 
at first succeeded in driving back their an- 
tagonists, and the Prussian troops took to 
flight, carrying with them Frederick, then 
not the Great, as he was the first to fly. 

It is related of him in this battle that when 
his baggage was captured by the Austrian 
cavalry he mounted his horse and saying to his 
companions, " Farewell, gentlemen, I am 
better mounted than any of you"; he rode 
away leaving his friends to be captured by 
the Austrian hussars. This fact is vouched 
for by one of those thus left by the King to 
the British Ambassador, Things would 
have gone badly with the army but for the 
steady bravery of the Prussian infantry. 
The engagement lasted four hours, and the 
Austrians had almost assured themselves of 
victory when the infantry changed the for- 
tunes of the fight. Marshal Schwerin held 
his ground, and the Austrians were obliged 
to retire with a loss of 5,000 men, although 
the Prussians lost nearly as many. 

Very little can be said for the King of 
Prussia, and he himself confessed that he 
and the Austrians had been trying who could 
make most mistakes ; but there is no doubt 
that Frederick had a lesson he never forgot. 
After this engagement the Austrians crossed 
the river, and fortified themselves opposite, 
while the Prussians pushed on to Brieg, 
and after a short investment the famous 
Piccolomini was obliged to capitulate. 

It was about this time that George II. 
proceeded to Hanover against the advice of 
VValpole, who had a good deal to contend 
against there just then. England had already 
given her adhesion to the Pragmatic Sanction, 
and troops and money had been voted. But 
some idea got into the heads of the com- 
munity that the King was mainly interested 
in defending Maria Theresa, because he was 
afraid of his own Hanoverian possessions, 
Hanover never had been very popular in 
England ; the evident German tendencies 
of the Sovereign Electors " stank in the 
nostrils " of the English people, and Pulteney 
even declared in the House that England 
ought not and could not go to war to preserve 
Hanoverian territory. But Walpole replied, 
explaining that England was bound to pro- 
tect Maria Theresa by treaty, and in support 
of the balance of power in Europe to repress 
the ambition of the French,and to preserve the 
national independence. However, the subsidy 
to the Queen of Hungary was voted to the 



I amount of ^300,000 ; and though the vote 

I had been taken without a division. Lord 

j Carteret took care to inform the Court at 

I Vienna that Walpole had been compelled to 

I bring in the measure against his wishes, and" 

so the young Queen took a decided dislike 

to the Minister, and declined his advice 

when subsequently it was proffered. 

The Plot Thickens. 

It was while things were in this condition 
that Parliament was prorogued, and new 
writs were issued. The King came over to 
Hanover as aforesaid, and got into a state of 
alarm concerning his Electorate. The de- 
feat of the Austrians had been more disastrous 
politically, perhaps, than actually in the field 
of battle. No sooner were the successes of 
the King of Prussia announced than a horde 
of vultures made ready to swoop upon the 
carcase of Austria so soon as Frederick had 
killed the empire. But like those birds, the 
Powers did not wait for the death of the 
victim. Austria was down, and apparently 
helpless in the dust, and so the vultures came 
round clamouring for a share of the prey. 

Spain, Sardinia, and Poland came, and 
France, seeing the great success of the 
Prussians, thought an alliance with' the young 
king would be very advantageous. Frederick 
had already hinted to the French ambas- 
sador (as related above) that he would give 
him a share in the spoils, and Marshal de 
Belleisle was dispatched to conclude a treaty 
upon the following terms : — 

(i) The Elector of Bavaria was to be 
raised to the imperial dignity. 

(2) The dominions of the Queen of Hun- 

gary were to be divided. 

(3) The King of Prussia was to obtain 

Silesia, renouncing the Duchies of 
Julius and Berg, and to vote for 
the Elector of Bavaria as the 
Emperor Charles VII, 

(4) France was to send tw^o armies into 

the Empire to help Bavaria and 
defeat the English, and to keep all 
they could get for themselves — the 
Netherlands if possible. 

These were very nice terms indeed, and — 
to employ the words used in England sub- 
sequently — " sure never was poor princess in 
worse plight than Her Majesty of Hungary"! 
The French emissary appeared, determined 
to despoil her of everything, and judging from 
history he seems to have even exceeded his 
instructions. "He seemed," says Frederick 
himself, " as if he thought that all the terri- 
tories of the Queen of Hungary were already 
on sale to the highest bidder." Walpole was 
most desirous to come to terms, and tried all 
his resources of diplomacy in Prussia and 



571 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Austria, before he would consent to armed 
intervention. He attempted an appeal to 
the feelings of the King of Prussia, and failed. 
The King would have his bond. On the 
other hand, Maria Theresa was advised to 
relinquish a little to save the larger portion 
of her dominions, but she would not hear of 
the Prussian claim; and even when she con- 
sented partly, she expressed a hope that her 
enemy would refuse her terms. He did. 

But while Walpole, through the ambas- 
sadors, was thus negotiating, or attempting 
to negotiate. King George was in a most 
terrible fright concerning his Electorate of 
Hanover. The aUiance of the French filled 
him with fear ; it would never do to have 
Hanover annexed. So we read that he sent 
an envoy to arrange a neutrality treaty for a 
year. Frederick himself relates this as a 
fact. So Hanover was neutral, while Saxony 
gave up the Pragmatic Sanction without 
much pressure ; for while Walpole and King 
George had been talking, Frederick and 
France had concluded the treaty above 
mentioned. 

No time had been lost in France. Cardinal 
Henry was quite put on the shelf; hints 
were thrown out to the Jacobites to worry 
England ; and Marshal Maillebois advanced 
upon Hanover, where he induced King George 
to stipulate for neutrality, and another army 
marched into Bavaria, where they subdued 
Lintz, and pushed forward to Vienna, where 
Maria Theresa then was, and in a condition 
quite unfit to travel. But her enemies gave 
her no choice. She had to fly into Hungary 
with her infant child, and daily expecting 
another. Her husband and his brother 
remained to defend the capital. 

In England, meantime, popular opinion 
had declared itself very firmly against the 
King's action respecting the treaty of Han- 
over. It was freely denounced, and when 
the King returned he was not in the best of 
tempers at what he had agreed to. At the 
opening of Parliament in Detember, he ex- 
pressed a hope that the Continental powers 
would see the error of their ways in attack- 
ing the (2ueen of Hungary, The war with 
Spain had not been fortunate, and there was 
much discontent manifested on this account 
beside. 

The Progress of the War. 
Meanwhile the allies had been making 
way. They had driven the Queen away 
from Vienna, but did not attack the city, they 
marched into Bohemia and attacked Prague ; 
and yet with all their undaunted sagacity, 
the oppressors of the unfortunate young 
Queen had permitted her to escape, which 
was an error, for her personal popularity in 
Hungary was very great. Putting aside her 
personal charms,— and she is described by 



contemporary chroniclers as very beautiful 
and winning as well as dignified, — she had 
much tact, and acquiesced in Hungarian 
customs to please her subjects. She reaped 
her reward. 

When she arrived at Presburg she, carry- 
ing her little son in her arms, addressed 
the assembled " magnates " in Latin in ai 
most effective and affecting manner. They 
could not resist her appeals. She pushed 
the words home, and drove them into their 
hearts with the address — "The kingdom of 
Hungary, our person, our children, our crown 
are at stake. Forsaken by all, we seek 
shelter only in the fidelity, the arms, the 
hereditary valour of the renowned Hun- 
garian States ! " Was it in human nature to 
resist this, emphasized by a Queen — a beauti- 
ful, pleading, unhappy woman, holding up 
her child for protection? — No. All present 
clashed their swords and shouted enthusi- 
astically, " Our lives and our blood for your 
Majesty. We will die for our King — Maria 
Theresa ! " 

The enthusiasm did not end there. Once 
determined, no time was lost. The " fiery 
cross " was sent through the land, and all flew 
to arms for their beautiful Queen. Never 
had monarch such a following : rich and 
poor, town and village aroused themselves and 
each other to succour the distressed woman, 
and to avenge the Sovereign. Far and wide 
went the call to arms ; from near and far 
came the answer ever the same, in old 
Magyar tones, and with all the chivalrous 
accent of the race, "We will die for our 
Queen ! " 

But they were too late to help Prague. 
Notwithstanding the welcome English sub- 
sidy, which reached them, — an immense boon 
to the impoverished country, — the troops 
did not reach Prague before it had fallen, 
and the Bohemians, with the French, had 
elected the Elector of Bavaria Emperor. He 
was subsequently crowned as Charles VII. 
Success had also attended the Prussian 
arms. Breslau was occupied without loss ; 
and at last, after some negotiations not 
altogether free from the suspicion of men- 
dacity, Lower Silesia was abandoned to 
Frederick the Great, who gave his word of 
honour that he would not " attempt any more 
against her Hungarian Majesty." 

So the Austrians remained satisfied, and 
the allies were astonished at the withdrawal 
of the Prussians. But, remarks the Royal 
historian of his own times, "this temptation 
was too great to be resisted, the enemy being 
willing to rest satisfied with a verbal com- 
munication which would acquire provinces 
to Prussia and winter quarters for her army 
fatigued with eleven months of military 
labour." " Put not your trust in princes " 
has been more than once quoted against the 



372 



THE FIGHT AT FONTENOY. 




373 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY, 



anointed of the people ; but seldom has a 
more barefaced instance of duplicity been 
confessed by its author. Frederick returned 
to Berlin, indeed ; but left secret instructions 
to Schwerin to advance at the proper time, 
and these instructions the marshal carried 
out with care. He waited until December 
and its snowstorms had sent the Austrian 
army under shelter, and then he made a dash 
upon Moldavia before the enemy could in 
any way ward off the attack. Olmutz fell ; 
but the Austrians pulled themselves together 
at last, and, in revenge, swooped down upon 
the French armies and obliged them to re- 
treat, thus invading Bohemia, and causing 
the retirement of the Bavarians from Prague. 

The New English Cabinet. 

The year 1742 saw the retirement of Wal- 
pole and a truce concluded between Prussia 
and Austria. Frederick the Great had put 
himself at the head of the armies of Saxony 
and Prussia ; but the contest was evidently 
not relished by the former State. Saxony 
was very lukewarm in the business, and the 
King let them go, winning a victory at 
Chotwitz in May, and thereby impressing 
the Austrians very much. This defeat in- 
duced the Queen to proffer terms ; and aided 
by England, which had been endeavouring 
to cause the enemies to arrange a truce, the 
treaty was signed. The Queen agreed to 
cede Upper and Lower Silesia, the province 
of Glatz, and a district of Moravia ; Frede- 
rick, on his part, engaging to remain neutral 
during that war, and to recall his troops 
within a fortnight. 

Frederick had been rather suspicious con- 
cerning his allies, the French, and now by 
this treaty he compelled them to retire from 
the contest also ; but they had penetrated 
so far that it was a matter of some difficulty 
for them to retreat. They had to suffer im- 
mense loss in the retrograde movement they 
were thus compelled to make ; but Marshal 
Belleisle was equal to the task. He managed 
to withdraw his men — or, more correctly, a 
portion of them — for out of the 3 5, 000 who 
had marched into Austrian territory only 
8,000 remained. The other army still sup- 
ported the Elector of Bavaria, or the 
Emperor, as he preferred to be styled. This 
retreat of Belleisle's was extolled by French 
historians ; but, as a matter of_ fact, the 
people turned it into a jest, and ridiculed it 
as heartily as did Frederick the Great. 

In November 1742, the English Cabinet, 
with Lord Carteret as Secretary of State for 
Foreign Affairs, formed what was termed the 
"Drunken Administration "; for the Secretary 
himself was seldom sober. He seems to 
have had his wits about him occasionally, 
at any rate, combined with a desire to 
serve number one (and the King) for his 



sake. George was very anxious to come 
forth as a commander ; and his Minister, 
although previously opposed to the trans- 
mission of soldiers to the Continent, now 
agreed to it. So troops had been sent during 
the recess ; and Hessian infantry had been 
enrolled to reinforce this British contingent. 
In the King's speech, on the i6th November, 
he announced that he had caused the soldiers 
to be sent, and defended the increase of the 
British force in the low countries as a 
necessary step. The 16,000 of the Electoral 
troops had been despatched with the Hes- 
sians in British pay to support the House of 
Austria. These proceedings met with the 
approval of both houses, and the necessary 
vote was passed for the expenses in Decem- 
ber. Notwithstanding this agreement by 
the Ministry the people did not, as a body, 
approve of these measures ; and the Oppo- 
sition took advantage of the excitement 
against the employment of mercenaries to 
annoy the Ministry. But the money was 
voted, and in April 1743, Parliament having 
been prorogued, the King and his son, the 
Duke of Cumberland, crossed over to Han- 
over. 

Things in Germany now began to look as 
if they were coming to a climax. The French 
seemed scarcely to have appreciated the 
fact that the British were in earnest. But 
when it was discovered that the Earl of Stair 
was advancing, they took steps to intercept 
him, sent 10,000 men across the Rhine, and 
proceeded to raise an additional army of 
40,000 to oppose the advance. 

The King and his son set sail from Green- 
wich, and made little progress owing to a 
contrary wind, so they put back to Sheerness, 
where they remained until the ist of May. 
The wind then being favourable they pro- 
ceeded, and reached Hanover as speedily as 
possible, while more troops were forwarded 
to Flanders to support those who had been 
advancing under Lord Stair's command in 
Germany. Meanwhile the Austrians had 
been by no means idle or unsuccessful. 
Although the French had driven them once 
from Bavaria, the Austrians about this time 
repaid the debt, and advancing to Braunau 
drove their enemies out, and the Due de 
Broglie retired to the Rhine, while the Due 
de Noailles kept Lord Stair in view. 

But the English and their Austrian allies 
did not appear in any hurry. They did not 
reach the Rhine till May, and took up a 
position near Frankfort to await the Hano- 
verians and Hessians. The Emperor had 
retired to Frankfort after the defeat of the 
French army in Bavaria, and so far there 
was no reason why Lord Stair could not 
have seized him. It is a question whether it 
was worth invading a free town for such a 
doubtful advantage. The Dutch had by this 



574 



THE FIGHT AT FONTENOY. 



time passed the resolution to support the 
British with 20,000 men, which were "to 
encamp between Namur and Maestriche." 

The Battle of Dettingen. 

Lord Stair had about 40,000 troops at 
his disposal, and De Noailles, who came 
up on the opposite side of the river Main, 
had about 60,000 men under him. It is 
remarkable that all this time no declaration 
of war had been made by either France or 
England. On the 9th of June, Lord Stair, 
who had apparently made a mistake in 
moving from his position, passed up beside 
the Main, and on the i6th of June (N. S.) 
the King left Hanover and reached Aschaf- 
fenberg on the 19th. He was closely followed 
by the Duke of Cumberland and the English 
Prime Minister, de facto, Lord Carteret. Here 
the army remained encamped, and the King, 
who was in no way deficient in personal cour- 
age, determined to lead the battle. Meantime 
he inspected the troops, and on the 22nd of 
June, the anniversary of his succession, he 
received a royal and loyal salute from the 
army. 

The French General, De Noailles, made 
such good use of his opportunities that the 
British were completely cut off from their 
supplies. The enemy had occupied a very 
strong position, and commanded the fords 
while in possession of the forts. Thus it 
happened that things looked very serious 
when the King made his inspection. The 
English position was between the river and 
a wood, and completely cut off from their base 
of action. There was very little to eat, and 
forage for the horses was getting very low, 
so under the circumstances it appeared to 
the French commander that he had only to 
wait, — well supplied as he was, — and the 
British, with their allies, would fall into his 
hands. 

The English army was encamped along 
the river, and the French position was 
almost exactly opposite, their right supported 
by Great Ostein, and the left by Stockstadt, 
and as the French could not cross and attack, 
they determined to starve them out. The 
allies could not remain in such a perilous 
position, and so they made ready to depart. 
Voltaire says that there was no alternative, 
as the horses must have been killed had the 
army remained two days longer. The French 
commander perceived the intention, and was 
ready to defeat it. He got his men ready in 
the eai-ly morning. He pursued the allies, 
and changing front soon reached a position 
behind them, and sent a strong force across 
the river with orders to occupy the village 
of Dettingen, through which the retreating 
army had to pass on their way to Hanau. 

This march was begun at daybreak, 
and in many instances the officers of the 



opposed armies conversed across the stream ; 
for, says a combatant, " Many of us went 
down to the brink of the river and reviewed 
their troops as they passed ; many of their 
officers conversed with ours." The French 
crossed the river, and a French account says 
that instead of occupying the village of 
Dettingen as directed, when the allies began 
to form, the troops posted themselves in the 
narrow pass, believing that they had to do 
with only a " strong rear-guard beyond it." 

The French artillery began to play upon 
the allies as soon as they could, and sent 
their cavalry across. King George had taken 
the post of danger in the rear, believing that 
the French would attack there ; but when the 
leading files found themselves actually en- 
gaged, the King changed his position, and 
came to the van of the army. When this 
movement of the French was perceived, and 
it was found impossible to advance just then, 
the King called a halt, and drew up his troops 
in battle array. A cannonade had been 
carried on by both, but now the enemy's 
foot had appeared in front between Dettingen 
and Klein Welsheim towards the hills, so 
that they were upon the right flank of the 
British, and about a mile away. 

When the allies perceived that the French 
were actually in force, and crossing the river 
at Sehginstadt, they drew up facing the wood. 
The position the allies had quitted at Aschaf- 
fenberg had meanwhile been seized by the 
French, the river was to the left of them, and 
Grammont occupied the village close by ; the 
hills were to the right, and the enemy again 
in front. So the position of the little army 
was by no means a pleasant one. It did not 
appear to Noailles that his enemy could 
possibly escape from the trap. 

The King made his dispositions immedi- 
ately. He commanded the infantry to shelter 
in the wood from the cannonade, and covered 
them, the left was advanced to the river. 
These dispositions naturally took up a great 
deal of time, and from eight o'clock in the 
morning until midday the French guns kept 
pounding away at the allies within a few 
hundred yards, just across the river. By 
noon, however, all the arrangements were 
made, and then the French advanced, the 
English also moving forward to engage them. 
Generals Clayton and Sommerfelt, with the 
Duke of Cumberland, marched at the head 
of the first line of foot. The King himself 
was at the head of the second line, and the 
battle was suspended to give him time to 
come up, as he was very desirous to join 
in it. 

The English lines halted after a while to 
take breath, and then resumed their rapid 
advance. The King's horse took fright as 
soon as the firing began in earnest, and run- 
ning away almost carried him into the enemy's 



375 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



lines. But the King managed to pull up, and 
the Due d'Aremburg remonstrated with His 
Majesty for running such a risk, and en- 
countering so great danger, for a battery of 
cannon was then playing upon him, but the 
shot flew overhead. " Don't tell me of 
danger," replied George ; " I'll be even with 
them." However he dismounted from his still 
uneasy horse, and took up his post on foot at 
the head of his men ; and when the French 
advanced on the right flank through the wood 
the King himself ordered up the Hanover- 
ian troops, drew them up in line of battle, 
and then ordered six cannon which were 
close by to give the French a few rounds. 
He stood by the guns while his orders were 
obeyed, and noticed how the shot tore 
through the advancing columns, doing great 
execution. He then resumed his place at 
the head of the infantry, and told them on 
no account to fire till the enemy came close. 
The French were then within a short dis- 
tance, and at one hundred yards opened fire 
vigorously, the "bullets flying as thick as 
hail" says an officer. Then the King 
flourished his sword, and said " Now, BOYS ; 

NOW FOR THE HONOUR OF ENGLAND, FIRE ; 
AND BEHAVE BRAVE, AND THE FRENCH WILL 

SOON RUN." These stirring commands were 
well obeyed, and the allies advanced firing as 
they charged upon the enemy. The French 
could not stand the onset, and it would 
probably have succeeded had not the Due 
de Grammont left the shelter of the village, 
and poured down upon the left flank. But 
even here fortune favoured the British, be- 
cause the French cannon which had kept up 
such a disastrous fire for so long, was stopped 
when the French rode into the open range. 

Incidents of the Fight. 

The Black Musketeers then charged, but 
were repulsed by the English, and a standard 
was taken. Then the British and Austrian 
cavalry, passing through the infantry, fell 
upon the household troops of France, and at 
first some allied regiments were repulsed. 
But they speedily recovered themselves, and 
then a French Grenadier regiment gave way, 
while the King, behaving most gallantly, 
rallied the whole Hne of the allies, the Duke 
of Cumberland admirably seconding him with 
other commanders, and the French were 
pushed back. 

De Noailles, who was watching the fight 
from the opposite side of the river, was 
horror-struck when he perceived his men 
driven back. Again and again the struggle 
was renewed, but the sohd infantry of the 
allies defeated all attempts to break its 
ranks, and advanced steadily, rolling back 
the enemy as they advanced. Hanoverians 
and British were equally brave. It is stated 
that but for the King and the Duke of 



Cumberland the result might have been 
different. They led the stout infantry to 
victory, and had narrow escapes. The Duke 
was twice wounded, and once very nearly 
killed by some Austrians who mistook hini 
for a French officer. 

There are a great many letters before us 
written by some of the officers present, some 
of which testify to the personal bravery of 
the King, and describe many interesting 
incidents. There were reports that the 
" Blues " turned tail, and an officer in the 
Fusihers describes their retiring through the 
'regiment. But again an officer of the Blues 
denies this, but confesses that their impetu- 
ous charge carried them too far, and they had 
to retreat in disorder when the French came 
in upon the infantry, who "tore them to 
pieces " with their close fire. " What pre- 
served us," says an officer, "was our keeping 
close order, and advancing near the enemy 
ere we fired." A dreadful slaughter of the 
French ensued. The following account is 
from a Dutch source : — 

"The battle began about ten, between 
28,000 French and about 18,000 British and 
Austrian troops. It lasted with great ob- 
stinacy for better than four hours, during 
which time the French were continually 
reinforced. They had once disordered the 
English troops ; and the Household (troops) 
of France, which composed the front of the 
army, endeavouring to make the best of this 
advantage made a motion to the right, which 
exposed them to a covert battery of Hano- 
verian artillery, which did prodigious execu- 
tion. In the meantime the Due d'Aremberg 
caused the Austrians to advance, and close 
the opening which had been made. This 
entirely changed the scene, and the French 
finding it quite impossible to gain their point, 
began to retire towards the bridges." In 
fact, the retreat became a rout; the French 
were cut down as they retired, and hundreds 
were drowned in the Main. 

The King remained upon the battle-field 
until ten o'clock at night, and it was estimated 
that not less than 6,000 of the French were 
left upon the field. The alhes lost about 
half as many, and the superior commanders 
are by some writers much praised; but the 
King and his son undoubtedly bore off the 
palm. Torrents of rain fell that night, and 
the allies had no food nor tents after all 
their exertions. The army did not pursue 
the French, but quitted the field, leaving the 
wounded to the mercy of the enemy — a confi- 
dence which was not misplaced, as De 
Noailles treated them with the greatest 
kindness and humanity. But this in no way 
exonerated the English commanders, and 
they were greatly blamed for their neglect. 

Lord Stair was decidedly of opinion that 
the enemy ought to have been pursued, and 



376 



THE FIGHT AT FONTENOY. 



more than once asserted the necessity for so 
doing. But the King over-ruled the general, 
for the army was in great want of provisions, 
and a portion of the French troops were 
quite fresh. It is related by Voltaire, that 
he afterwards met Lord Stair in Holland, 
and asked the Scotchman what his opinion 
was concerning the battle of Dettingen. " I 
think," replied the general, " that the French 
made one great mistake, and the English 
made two. Your error was in n®t standing 
still ; our first fault was getting ourselves 
into such a dangerous position ; our second 
in not pursuing your army after the victory." 



Results of the Battle.- 
Saxe. 



-Marshal 



The immediate results of the battle of 
Dettingen were beneficial to Maria Theresa, 
for she had also been victorious, and the 
French were driven into their own country. 
Under these circumstances the Elector of 
Bavaria had no choice but to submit, and he 
accordingly humbled himself and signed a 
treaty of neutrality ; but his territory had 
meantime been overrun by the Queen, and 
she occupied it until such time as seemed to 
her convenient to retire. This she did until 
peace was signed, and King George was 
appointed the mediator at Hanau. Unfor- 
tunately these trumpeted arrangements came 
to nothing after all ; firstly, because Maria 
Theresa Victrix was not altogether moderate 
in her demands; and though, perhaps, she 
might have been induced to forego some- 
what of her request, the Elector of Bavaria 
could not get on at all unless he was paid 
English money ; and under these circum- 
stances Carteret, who was acting as Prime 
Minister, advised His Majesty not to consent 
to the arrangement, which fell through. 

After a time spent in these fruitless nego- 
tiations, a grand invasion of France was 
talked about ; but autumn drew in, and the 
usual rains commenced, so it was determined 
that no further hostilities need be under- 
taken that year, and that the troops must 
go into their winter quarters. When this 
was decided great dissatisfaction was evinced 
by Lords Stair and Marlborough, who were 
present in a subordinate capacity, and 
many other British officers. The result was 
that a great many resigned their commis- 
sions, while the King only remained long 
enough to sign a treaty at Worms with 
Austria and Sardinia, by which the latter, for 
a territorial consideration, agreed to provide 
45,000 men for the assistance of the Queen 
of Hungary, and consented to receive an 
annual subsidy from England. 

It is no part of our object to give an 
account of the Pretender and his son, but in 
1744 the French openly espoused his cause, 
and an army was embarked for England 



under the command of Marshal Saxe. This 
celebrated officer deserves a few lines, for he 
is intimately connected with the events we 
have to chronicle. The French, in the 
matter of the young Pretender, were very 
chary of committing themselves unless they 
could positively see their way to success. 
But when England supported Austria, 
France made up her mind to maintain the 
Scotch, — although, be it remembered, that all 
this time no declaration of war had been 
published by either France or England. It 
was arranged that 15,000 men should be 
sent, 3,000 to Scotland, and the remainder 
should invade London under the command 
of Marshal Saxe. 

This successful general was a natural son 
of Frederick, King of Poland. His mother 
was the Countess Maria of Konigsmark, and 
sister of the Count who had caused Thynne 
to be assassinated in London. He was born 
in 1696, and when quite a youth joined the 
allied armies under Marlborough and Eugene, 
and studied war in a very practical manner. 
He subsequently served in Sweden, and was 
present at the capture of Srraslund. After 
the treaty of Utrecht he went to France, and 
declining the command of the Saxon army 
he threw in with the French then on the 
Rhine, and distinguished himself at Dettin- 
gen and Philipsburg. In 1744 he was 
created a Marshal of France, and prepared 
for the invasion of England at Dunkirk. 

Towards the end of February all was in 
readiness, and the French fleet came up to 
the Isle of Wight, and cast anchor off 
Dungeness to wait the arrival of the troops. 
Sir John Norris, with the channel fleet, 
coming up, but not attacking, the French 
Admiral slipped away during the night 
before a strong breeze, which increased con- 
siderably, and fell upon }*Iarshal Saxe as he 
attempted to weather it near Dunkirk. The 
flotilla was destroyed, and many ships were 
entirely lost with all on board. So the 
demonstration in favour of the young Pre- 
tender came to nothing then, except so far 
as it was the cause of war being formally 
declared by France and England, for this 
perhaps unnecessary formality had been 
dispensed with during the fighting on the 
Main and the descent on the sea coast. 

The Campaign of 1744. 
We must give a sketch of the incidents of 
the war carried on in 1744, so as to lead us 
up to the great encounter in Flanders, which 
resulted so unfortunately for the allies. It 
was already May when Louis proceeded to 
take the field. He and George II. had been 
indulging in a little mutual recrimination, in 
which the French monarch accused the King 
of England of having been the cause of all 
the wars by his support of Maria Theresa. 



377 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



while George retorted by casting the Pragma- 
tic Sanction in the teeth of his royal brother, 
and accused him of aiding and abetting 
Spain and the Pretender in their attacks 
upon England. Thus having made up their 
minds to declare open hostihties, there was 
no want of reasons. 

Marshal Saxe was appointed to the com- 
mand of the French army in Flanders, and 
it amounted to 80,000 men. To this well- 
equipped and well-commanded force the 
allies could only answer with about 50,000 of 
all nations interested — viz., English, Flemish, 
Austrians, and Dutch ; and so Louis XV. 
had every opportunity to indulge in war made 
easy ; for many towns, which, remarks a 
historian, seem specially ordained to be 
taken and retaken in war, were captured 
without much trouble or loss. So it was 
not until the Austrians, in July, dashed into 
Alsace and drove the French army back that 
any real fighting was put before the King as 
a bonne boiiche. 

Louis determined to witness the campaign, 
and hurried into Alsace, but sickness over- 
took him, partly in consequence of fatigue, 
partly because he had eaten too much. The 
King made preparations for the end of his 
life's journey, turned away the lady who just 
then happened to be in favour, and gave 
himself up to the consolations of religion 
and the exclusive society of his priests to see 
how they could prepare him for his inter- 
view with the grim agent who was coming 
to demand an account of the monarch's 
stewardship. And thus, casting up his ac- 
counts, the King " lay between life and death 
for many weeks." 

The Austrians were, however, more alarmed 
at the storm which suddenly burst upon them 
from a clear sky, so to speak. Frederick the 
Great, who had made peaceful arrangements, 
and who ought to have adhered to his treaties, 
suddenly ignored all his engagements, and 
with an army of 60,000 men marched into 
Bohemia and Moravia. Prague capitulated, 
and assisted by the French and the lately 
very impecunious Elector of Bavaria, the 
Austrians were worsted. These successes 
brought Charles of Lorraine, who had been 
successful against the French, into Bohemia, 
and aided by the patriotic Hungarians, 
Frederick of Prussia soon found he had 
ventured into a hornets' nest. In vain he 
appealed to his allies. The Austrians and 
Hungarians showed him no quarter, and his 
friends began to make excuse. The result 
may be imagined. 

After some fighting and several consider- 
ably harassing skirmishes and night attacks, 
Frederick found himself in no pleasant 
position, and retreated, blundering into 
wonderful errors in every direction. It is 
extraordinary how he managed to misdirect 



his troops, and, as he himself confesses, he 
committed more mistakes in this most disas- 
trous campaign than ever he had before. 
His general, Einsiedel, was compelled to 
evacuate Prague and abandon his guns, 
returning into Silesia with a loss of 5,000 
men. Frederick hastened to his capital to 
recruit his army, which were then safe in 
winter quarters. 

Things did not look well for Frederick of 
Prussia just then, nor for his allies. The 
French sent him a mission, consisting of the 
Marquis of Belleisle, a bitter partisan against 
England, and his brother. It so fell out 
that these gentlemen endeavoured to make 
their way through Hanover, and were arrested 
and sent prisoners to England, where they 
arrived on the 13th of February, 1745, and 
landed at Harwich. Here for some days 
they were detained, and then were carried to 
Windsor, via Greenwich. Their arrest gave 
rise to much comment, and was considered 
a violation of the rights of Germany. They 
refused to give their parole as required, but 
after being detained for some months they 
were released.* 

On the death of the Duchess of Marl- 
borough Lord Carteret became Earl Gran- 
ville, and continued high in favour of the 
King because he supported the Hanove- 
rian measures ; and to such a pitch did 
Granville's pride carry him, and so openly 
expressed he his disdain, that the Pelham 
faction threatened to resign. Granville had 
told them that matters could not remain as 
they were. " I will not," he said, "submit 
to be overruled and outvoted upon every 
point by four to one. If you will take the 
Government upon you, you may ; but if you 
cannot, or will not, there must be some 
direction, and I will not do it."t 

These disputes brought things to a climax, 
and it became a question of choice between 
Granville and his opponents. Pelham had 
the Commons at his back, and the King was 
dreadfully perplexed. His adviser (the Earl 
of Oxford), however, suggested the King's 
course; he gave in, and Granville resigned 
in favour of the Earl of Harrington. But it 
is worth noting that scarcely had Granville 
been ousted from office when his opponents 
began to pursue very much the same course, 
and Hanover was still protected. 

The Flanders Campaign. 

When King George replied to the address 

of his faithful Commons in February 1745; 

he made the following remarks : " I have, in 

coniunction with the Queen of Hungary and 



* For details and general treatment of the case see 
Pamphlets and Gentleman s Magazine, etc., for 1745. 
t Coxe's Walpole. 



378 



THE FIGHT AT FONTENOY. 



the States General, concluded a treaty with 
the King of Poland, which I will order to be 
laid before you." This was the Quadruple 
Alliance, and now the European States were 
banded together against each other in the 
manner set forth below. 

France comes first as the power wishing 
to demolish the House of Austria, and the 
conquest of Flanders for the Emperor nomi- 
nally, but really for her own ends, in con- 
sideration for the expenditure of blood and 
treasure she had undergone. 

Spain wanted to carry matters with a high 
hand, and to obtain power in Italy. 

The Emperor Charles (whose days were 
numbered) wished to fix himself more firmly 
upon his tottering throne, and to grasp his 
dominions with an ever-extending arm. 

The King of Prussia wanted more territory, 
and other smaller States were awaiting their 
turn, or anxious to strike a blow for a friend. 

On the other hand, we find an array of 
power to meet this combination. In the 
first place we have, — 

Great Britain, anxious to keep France 
within bounds at sea, and, if possible, on land ; 
and with England Hanover, of course, was 
united. 

Hungary, led by its valiant Queen, who had 
everything at stake in the contest, was cling- 
ing to England and her own Hungarian 
subjects, as much from gratitude as from a 
sense of assistance. 

The Dutch, who would fight for their 
hearths and homes, and, if stirred up, would 
feel inclined to take the field with England. 
The Elector of Saxony, as King of Poland, 
who was bent upon consolidation and his 
allies. Even Sardinia and Russia were ready 
to play a part with Britain, the former be- 
cause of the Treaty of Worms, the latter by 
virtue of her promises. Thus there were all 
the elements of " a very pretty quarrel " as it 
stood. 

When the Emperor died in January 1745, 
the state of affairs was in no way improved. 
He died at Munich, and his successor resigned 
all claims to the Austrian succession, and 
promised to assist the Duke of Lorraine. 
There was now really no excuse for proceed- 
ing with war. But theAustrians and French 
still continued to skirmish, and in these 
encounters both sides appeared to claim the 
advantage. On the Rhine the French were 
in retreat before the Duke of Aremberg, and 
the States General preparing for the inevit- 
able campaign, appointed Prince Waldeck 
to the command of their army in Flanders. 

About the beginning of March the Aus- 
trians advanced across the Inn at Passau 
and other places. They attacked the enemy, 
the Bavarians, and gained some successes. 
The French on the lower Rhine continued 
their retreat, but being reinforced recrossed 



the Main, at which the allies retreated, and 
the French also passed the Rhine in the 
beginning of March, and took " Mentz." 
The Hungarians had held their own against 
the Prussians, and the Austrians were gene- 
rally successful. 

Meanwhile the French were making rapid 
preparations, and on the ist April Marshal 
Saxe was appointed to the command of 
the army in Flanders. On the 5th, the 
Duke of Cumberland set out for the same 
destination, and arrived at Helvetsluys next 
day. The French army under Marshal 
Saxe lost no time in advancing, who made 
up his mind to invest Tournai. The Duke 
of Cumberland proceeded to the Hague, and 
he arrived at Brussels on the loth. After 
some time spent in drilling, the army 
advanced on the 19th to Halle and Tubise, 
and subsequently proceeded to Leuse. 

The English army consisted of about 
28,000 men, and with the Dutch troops the 
whole force at the disposition of the Duke 
did not exceed 50,000. The French had 
76,000 men under Marshal Saxe, and he was 
thus enabled to invest Tournai, and yet spare 
an army to meet the English and their allies. 
Tournai is supposed to be a very ancient 
town, and it is certain that Caesar occupied 
it. Henry VIII. took it from the French, 
and erected the citadel. It was afterwards 
restored to them, but taken and held by the 
Spaniards till 1667, when Louis XIV. got 
possession of it. He made improvements in 
the fortifications. In June 1709, Marlborough 
invested the town, and it surrendered, while 
the enormous French army within fighting 
distance was afraid to come to its relief. 
Lille and Tournai were called by Louis XIV. 
the eyes of France, of so great importance 
were they considered. We now come to the 
memorable battle before Tournai, in which 
Marshal Saxe defeated the aUies. 

The Battle of Fontenoy. 

The French, bent on invading Tournai,. 
opened their trenches on the 30th of April, 
1745, 3.nd worked with skill and rapidity. 
There were only 9,000 Dutch troops in 
the town, and the French assured them- 
selves of victory, particularly as the allied 
commanders were rather divided in their 
councils, and perfect accord did not reign 
concerning the chief command, which the 
Duke of Cumberland nominally possessed, 
but he was under the control of the Austrian 
Marshal Konigsegg, and obliged to defer to 
the suggestions of the Prince of Waldeck. 

It need scarcely be said that upon the 
propriety of raising the siege of Tournai there 
was no question. The allied generals were 
all of that opinion, and it was determined to 
attempt the rehef of the town notwithstanding 
the superior numbers and advantageous posi- 



379 




38? 



THE FIGHT AT FONTENOY. 



tion of the French army. The alhes there- 
fore advanced, and encamped at Bougnies, 
within a measurable distance of the French 
outposts. 

When Marshal Saxe had heard of the 
arrival of the allies at Linze he had no doubt 
as to their intentions, and so the troops 
which had passed the Scheldt were ordered 
to recross. The bad state of the weather 
prevented the allies from advancing on the 
9th May ; but on the loth they made a 
movement by the left, and the Marshal took 
up his position with his right near Antrain, 
and the left on the road to Mons, near Notre 
Dame aux Bois.* 

The English generals proceeded to inspect 
the enemy's posiiion, and Avere enabled to 
ascertain the disposition of the army which 
was separated from their own by underwood 
and hedges. The village of Fontenoy was in 
their front, the wood of Barre was on the 
left. Every precaution was taken by the 
French; and the army, of which some 
15,000 had been left to cover Tournai, 
was enthusiastic at the arrival of the King 
and the Dauphin, who had come from Paris 
to be witnesses of the battle, and as they 
hoped, — and as the event proved, — of the 
defeat of the allies. On the loth an attack 
was made by the English. " Six battalions 
and twelve squadrons, with 500 pioneers 
and guns, were commanded from each wing 
for this service." The allies marched confi- 
dently forward, and without much difficulty 
drove in the French outposts to the very 
top of the hilly ground in front of their camp, 
where they halted, so as to cover the arrange- 
ments Saxe was making for the morrow. 

The Duke of Cumberland and the other 
commanders then proceeded to an inspection 
of the ground, for the battle had still to be 
fought. The troops bivouacked on the ground 
they had won, and orders were issued for the 
final engagement to take place at daybreak 
on the nth. The French troops remained 
in their tents, the King of France returned 
to Calonne, and Marshal Saxe passed the 
night in his carriage with his army around 
him. 

His Royal Highness, says the official 
account of the action, commanded that the 
army should march at two in the morning ; 
and having ascertained that there was an 
unoccupied fort near the village of Vezon, 
he dispatched General Ingoldsby to attack 
that village, while Prince Waldeck advanced 
upon the village of Fontenoy. General 
Campbell was commanded to cover the 
right wing, but owing to his wound this 
order was not carried out, and General 
Ligonier attempted it under an artillery fire. 

All was now apparently ready for the 



* Lettres et Meraoiies des Marechal de Saxe. 



advance, and it was begun. The Duke, with 
the English and Hanoverians, went boldly 
forward to Fontenoy; but General Ingoldsby, 
who had been commanded to carry the 
redoubt in the wood, did not even make 
the attempt, and despite repeated orders 
despatched by his superiors, he continued to- 
hang back, and lacked the courage apparently 
to make a dash at the fort ; there can be- 
little doubt he would have succeeded had 
he made a bold push for it. 

Meanwhile upon the French side the King 
was in the field, and a brisk cannonade was 
kept up and as briskly answered. One long 
line of infantry extended from Fontenoy to 
Rancecroix supported by guns. It was by 
the very first shot of the cannonade that the 
Due de Grammont had his thighs shot away, 
and he died almost immediately. 

The English lines were now in position, 
the cavalry regiments in squadron behind 
them, and seeing that all was ready the 
Duke of Cumberland gave the order to ad- 
vance, while Prince Waldeck made his attack 
upon the village of Fontenoy. Inglodsby, 
as already mentioned, came upon the wood 
which was tenanted by a body of skirmishers^ 
and feeling nervous at the idea sent a mes- 
sage to the Duke for orders, notwithstanding 
his instructions to attack. This delay was 
unpardonable, and caused disaster. 

The Dutch at first advanced bravely and 
attacked Fontenoy, assailed, as they pro- 
ceeded, by a terrible cannonade, which smote 
them fearfully, and compelled them to retire. 
The English and Hanoverians still advanced 
however within thirty paces of the enemy, 
and obliged the French to retreat within their 
lines. But unfortunately the left wing did 
not succeed so well, and as Ingoldsby had 
disobeyed orders and turned tail, the troops 
had no support, and being exposed to a cross 
fire as well as the file firing in front they 
were obliged to retire in their turn. There 
is no doubt that the Duke ought to have 
retreated, '■' for his sole way to the enemy led 
between Fontenoy and the batteries of the 
wood of Barre, to the flank of which he was 
exposed." He proceeded however, as already 
related, and his troops uniting " pressed 
boldly on into a phalanx, which nobody 
seetned able to stop. Meeting the French 
guards, the well-known compliment passed, 
each bidding the other fire first. But the 
rolling fire of the English, imitated from the 
Prussians, prostrated i-ank after rank, and the 
French guards were routed. No regiment 
seemed able to stand before the advancing 
column, and preparations were made for 
retreat, and for the safety of the King, — the 
latter, however, would not budge."* 

Had this gallant attack been supported we 

* Crowe's History of France. 



381 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



should not have had to deplore the loss of 
the battle. The English were mowed down 
by the batteries, and compelled to fall back. 
They were rallied, however, and again formed. 
Again they advanced ; but the Dutch being 
quite paralysed and no assistance forth- 
coming, the attack failed, owing to the 
gallantry of the French charge, and particu- 
larly to an Irish regiment, which was fight- 
ing in the enemy's ranks. But although 
beaten, the English column retired in good 
order, and returned to its former position, 
sadly diminished in numbers. The French 
cavalry endeavoured to break the retreating 
troops, but without success. 

The Dutch had run away, and did not 
appear again in the field. It is related that 
one of their commanders rode away to Ath, 
and wrote a letter to the States General 
informing them that the allies had been cut 
to pieces, and that he, only by his valour, 
had succeeded in bringing off his men in 
safety. When the Duke perceived that his 
orders were not carried out, and that his 
allies were mere spectators of the engage- 
ment, he decided to retreat, and the army, 
protected by its cavalry, withdrew in good 
order. The French did not attempt a pur- 
suit, and there is no doubt they suffered 
severely. 

Foreign Opinion of Fontenoy. 

The testimony of the French to the gal- 
lantry of the British advance is conclusive. 
Voltaire speaks highly of the conduct of the 
English in his impartial account of the 
battle, and extracts from correspondence of 
French officers engaged, leave no room for 
doubt. " The enemy attacked in two 
columns," says a French writer, an eye- 
witness. " The English, in particular, did 
wonders, and fought like furies. Towards 
eleven o'clock, some places ia our line were 
broken, and the allies had passed the village 
of Fontenoy, between two redoubts of which, 
however, they did not make themselves 
master." ..." The sutlers and valets of 
the army," he continues, " took to their heels, 
and carried the alarm to the bridge on the 
upper Schelt. But all things were put in 
order again ; the allies were quickly repulsed, 
and abandoned to us the field of battle in 
disorder at one in the afternoon. 

"We did not think it proper to pursue 
them," they said, " for fear they should form 
again behind the wood." This little sentence 
proves the stubborn fighting qualities of the 
British brigade, which so gloriously dis- 
tinguished itself at Fontenoy. The French 
estimate of the loss of the allies is 3,000 
killed on the spot and 4,000 wounded. Large 
though these figures are, they are nothing in 
comparison with the holocausts of brave men 
who fell in the terrible War of Secession in 



the United States. On the French side they 
confess to have lost 1,200 men killed on the 
spot, and 2,000 wounded. 

" I never knew," writes another French 
officer, " in thirty years' service, either a 
brisker or a more obstinate engagement — no, 
not in Italy, where we had to do with Count 
Merci, who, you know, was reputed the most 
desperate officer of his time, and the general 
who spared men least. Not to hide the 
truth our men were thrice obliged to give 
way, and nothing but the extreme calmness 
and good conduct of Marshal Saxe could 
have brought them to the charge the last 
time, which was about two o'clock, and then 
the allies in their turn gave way. Our 
victory may be said to be complete, but it 
cannot be denied that as the allies behaved 
extremely well in the action, more especially 
the English, so they made a soldierly retreat, 
which. was much favoured by an adjacent 
wood." — " In short, we gained the victory, 
but may I never see such another," sums 
up a third writer. 

We could multiply instances and incidents, 
but it would not add anything to the lament- 
able fact that the allies were beaten ; though, 
but for the disaffections of the Dutch, and 
the inactivity of Ingoldsby, who subsequently 
printed an elaborate excuse for his conduct, 
they would have soon tui-ned it into a victory. 
Horace Walpole was right in his estimate 
that the French were only not beat, and the 
Hon. Philip Yorke in his letter to Walpole, 
ascribes the victory not to the bravery of the 
French troops, but to their advantageous 
situation, and " the number of their batteries ' 
from which they had a hundred pieces of 
cannon playing upon us without intermis- 
sion." The estimate of the French losses in 
the Gazette is put down at from 5,000 to 
10,000 killed and wounded. 

After the Battle. 

An inquiry was set on foot in England 
when the unwelcome news arrived, and the 
disappointment at the result was very general 
in the country ; and it was " of the highest 
importance to the country" that an investi- 
gation should be made into the causes which 
led to the disaster. The inquiry began by 
ascribing the failure of our arms to the cour- 
age and the conduct of our enemies. " I 
know," continues the author of one pamphlet, 
" there are some who think it so absolutely 
an impossibility for a Fi'ench army to beat 
an English one, that, if they cannot find a 
miracle to account for it, they are ready to lay 
a load of infamy upon somebody or other." 

The paper from which we have quoted the 
above lines then proceeds to investigate the 
dispositions and arrangements of the French, 
dwelling upon the admirable way in which 
the Marshal had placed his men and posted 



38: 



THE FIGHT AT FONTENOY. 



his guns, and declaring it was not so much 
he business of the French to gain a com- 
plete victory as to prevent us from approach- 
ing Tournai. The "inquiry" is, in fact, an 
elaborate eulogium upon the army of the 
great Marshal Saxe. 

But historians tell us how grandly the 
British and Hanoverians plunged into the lire 
from the well-served range of guns opposed 
to them. Dragging cannon with them over 
ground in which cavalry was useless, the 
English troops "marched steadily upon a 
position which the best marshals of France 
■deemed impregnable," defended as it was by 
the corps d'elite of the French army. We 
have already followed the Duke of Cumber- 
land in his bold advance which bore down all 
before it. Not even the report of the failure 
of the attack they had counted on damped 
their ardour ; even though they felt them- 
selves abandoned by their supports, they 
pressed on, and the finest troops of France 
failed to check them. 

Marshal Konigsegg had actually congratu- 
lated the Duke upon his victory, and, as 
related. Marshal Saxe counselled retreat, 
which was partly cut off. But the French 
King declined to move, and cheered his 
troops. " If," says Voltaire in his " Siecle de 
Louis XV.," " if the Dutch had now put 
themselves in movement, there would have 
been no resource — nay, no retreat for the 
French army ; nor, in all probability, for the 
King and his. son." Fontenoy has been 
■described as a defeat of the British arms ; it 
was practically a victory till the indefensible 
conduct of the Dutch troops necessitated a 
retreat of the small English column opposed 
to 60,000 men of France. 

The Duke of Cumberland was the last to 
leave the field, as the column broken, indeed, 
but terrible in its fall, carried with it many a 
life, while it retreated slowly with face to the 
foe. The cavalry distinguished itself greatly, 
and thus the whole army, accompanied by 
the dastardly Dutch, and the incompetent 
Ingoldsby, fell back upon Ath. The victory 
was due to the King for his bravery, and to 
the marshal for his keen sight and excellent 
strategy, ailing though he was, and suffering. 
It was with great difficulty that the British 
troops were prevented from "faUing foul" of 
the Dutch, and had no enemy been near there 
is reason to suppose that our inactive allies 
would have suffered very considerably. But 
Dutch cowardice and desertion did not end 
with the battle. Hertsall, a Dutch engineer, 
betrayed Tournai to the French, and it 
surrendered in a fortnight. Ghent, Bruges, 
Oudenarde, and other places followed ; and 
at Ostend a Dutch ofScer was again sus- 
pected of turning traitor. So altogether the 
English had no need to be proud of these 
allies, who in the first place did not bring 



into the field half the men they had agreed 
to produce when the time for action arrived. 

Conclusion. 

There are some English authorities, eye- 
witnesses, whose opinions lead us to a con- 
clusion respecting the battle ; we append 
some of them. 

" I won't describe the cause of our failure,'' 
says Lieutenant Forbes, in " The CoUoden 
Papers," " although I know it ; but sure 
never troops behaved with more intrepi- 
dity than the English, nor never have troops 
suffered so much. In short, there was but 
one way of marching into the ground where 
we were to form our line, which was through 
the village of Vezon. The opening would 
not allow above fourteen or twenty abreast, 
and from thence to the French batteries a 
rising ground like a glacis, and they at half- 
cannon shot distance. General Campbell, 
with twelve squadrons, was ordered through 
the defile first, as a corps to cover the mouth 
of the opening whilst the infantry marched 
in, which, as they marched from the right, 
formed as soon as they went in ; so one 
regiment covered another till they formed all 
the way to the left. You may believe this took 
up a great deal of time, in which the French 
batteries played incessantly on the twelve 
squadrons and on the troops as they formed ; 
but as it is impossible to describe a thing 
unless you had the plan before you, I shall 
only say we formed with all the regularity in 
the world, and we marched up towards the 
enemy, who were all along upon the height 
with their different batteries, the whole length 
of which ran a hollow way that they had 
made a very good entrenchment. Off we 
beat them out of this hollow way, and gained 
the height, whence we had the first view of 
their bodies at about two hundred paces 
distance, an immense number of them and 
numberless cannon still playing upon us. 

" Here we dressed our lines, and began to 
march towards them, when pop they went 
into another entrenchment, extremely well 
provided and flanked with batteries of cannon. 
Nevertheless, on we went, drove them from 
that, which was the first small shot we had 
an opportunity to make use of from the 
beginning, which was now near six hours." 

Respecting the conduct of the Dutch alHes, 
there cannot unfortunately be two opinions. 
Foreign critics, as well as English eye-wit- 
nesses, animadvert in strong terms upon their 
behaviour, and a letter from an officer who 
was with the brigade of Highlanders when 
they were sent to the support of their allies, 
Colonel Munro, says himself: " We were to 
support the Dutch, who in their usual way 
were very dilatory." The Highlanders had 
actually got within musket shot of the 
batteries of Fontenoy, he adds, "when we 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



received their full fires from batteries and 
small arms, which killed us forty men and 
one ensign. Our regiment being in some 
disorder, I wanted to draw them up in rear 
of the Dutch, which their general would 
scarce allow of; but at last I did it, and soon 
marched again to the front. In half an hour 
after the Dutch gave way." 

After this unfortunate retirement, it ap- 
peared to the officer commanding the division 
quite useless to attempt to stem the opposing 
torrent of 5,000 troops supported by their 
guns. This brigade was then withdrawn to 
assist the Hanoverians. Phihp Yorke, who 
wrote an account of the battle to the elder 
Walpole, declared angrily that " it was mon- 
strous for the Dutch not to have brought 
even half the quota which they had agreed 
into the field. When the battle was fought," 
he continues, "the whole Confederate army, 
according to the best accounts I have 
seen, consisted of 46 battalions and 73 
squadrons, making in all 33,000 effective 
men." The French army, it appears from 
the same authorities, consisted of 102 bat- 
talions and 149 squadrons, making 60,000 
i-nen — " a terrible disproportion, seeing how 
advantageously they were posted and lined 
with so many batteries." 

There were many different accounts of 
the action promulgated ; but it would appear 
that for some reason or other many were 
suppressed in Flanders — perhaps because 
the allies did not like the aspersions cast 
upon them. Be this as it may, we think the 
allies were far outnumbered, and in a most 
exposed situation, while the subsequent sur- 
render of the towns (as already mentioned) 



certainly gave some colour to the expressions 
used by the English, that the Dutch had 
behaved very badly. It was said that Prince 
Waldeck pushed the English in this " despe- 
rate attempt." But on the other hand it was 
necessary to raise the siege of Tournai. 

At any rate, whatever the reason of the 
defeat, we cannot altogether blame the Dutch 
for it. General Ingoldsby was in some 
measure responsible. He had distinct orders 
to advance, but he lost time in sending for 
instructions when he had only to go on. 
The British and Hanoverian troops also 
were kept too closely together, and on these 
compact masses the enemy's artillery did 
great execution ; and when the time came for 
the British cavalry to charge, they did not 
do much, owing, it is said, to the nature of 
the ground. If personal bravery could have 
won the day, the English troops would have 
remained the victors. 

This success so emboldened Frederick the 
Great, that he declined any' negotiations of 
peace with Austria, and attacked them 
furiously at Hohen Friedburg, where he 
showed the true abilities of a general. The 
loss of the Austrians in this battle was very 
great. But we cannot here follow the for- 
tunes of Maria Theresa, although they had 
brought her prominently within the scope of 
the events which led directly to the war in 
Flanders and the fight at Fontenoy. 

We need not here pursue the fortunes of 
Maria Theresa. Our task is finished at 
Fontenoy — a story of a defeat, it is true ; 
but a defeat carrying with it all the prestige 
of victory for the British arms. 




Maestrilht. 



384 




Admiral Duncan addressing the Mutineers. 



THE MUTINIES AT SPITHEAD AND 

THE NORE. 



A Woman's Love— Digging up the Body of a Mutineer— The Panics of 1797 — The Glory of the English Fleet — First unheeded 
Murmurs of the Tars— Black Dick, the Sailor's Friend— Outbreak at Spithead — The Yard-ropes— Splendid Temper of 
the Mutineers — Their Tale of Woe — The Jolly Tar a Century ago — The Sweets of Liberty — The Press-gang — The 
Admiralty at Portsmouth— Dangerous higgling of the Commissioners — The Bloody Flag hoisted — The Settlement — 
Fresh Outbreak at St. Helen's— Another Blunder— The first Bloodshed— Triumph of the Seamen and the Sailor's 
Friend— The Rising at the Nore— Frolics of the Delegates— Proposals of the Mutineers— Escape of the Clyde — 
Blockade of the Thames— Piracy of the Mutineers— Some more Barbarities— Hanging Pitt — Parker's Washerwoman — 
Break up of the Mutiny— Terrific Scenes in the Fleet— The Last of " President " Parker. 




A Woman's Love ; At the Scaffold and 
THE Grave. 
N the twenty-ninth day of June, 1797, 
a middle-aged woman, evidently 
suffering from some great sorrow, 
and clad in a black silk gown, a scarf mode- 
cloak, a purple shawl, a black bonnet, and a 
deep gauze veil, might have been seen wait- 
ing with a companion at the palace of St. 
James, in the great city of London. Every 
minute has a weight of agony, and the sound 
of the bells as they strike the slowly passing 
hours seem to her like a death-knell. She 
is only a sailor's wife and a poor woman, but, 
fired with a passionate love, and a determina- 

385 



tion such as possessed the heart of Jeanie 
Deans, she has succeeded, like that heroine 
of romance, in making her way from Scotland 
to the metropolis of England, in order to see 
her husband, and save him, if possible, from 
the sentence of a felon and a dishonourable 
grave. 

Three days before he had been condemned 
to death by court-martial ; and she had a 
petition drawn up in her name, which the 
Earl of Morton, her fellow-countryman, had 
promised to present to Queen Charlotte, 
praying her gracious Majesty to use her 
influence on behalf of her husband — on the 
ground that he was insane, that he had on 

cc 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



that account, at a former time, been dismissed 
from his position in the navy, and that his 
sister was actually in confinement as labour- 
ing under the same disease. This prayer of the 
loving wife has been presented by her noble 
Scottish patron, and as she waits anxiously 
for an answer from the Queen, she talks to 
the pitiful bystanders of her sorrows, and 
assures the attendants in the guard-chamber 
that she would give a thousand guineas if 
she could save her husband's life. At 
last, wearied and hopeless of success, she 
hears the hour of five struck ; the wife of King 
George has not deigned to notice her petition, 
and she drives away with her companion so 
that she may be able to reach Sheerness 
and see her husband for the last time, before 
his execution on the following morning. 

It was close on midnight when the Roches- 
ter coach arrived at its destination, carrying 
among its other passengers the forlorn wife 
of Richard Parker, the notorious mutineer, 
whose name had been in the mouth of every 
man, woman, and child in that district of 
Kent during the past few weeks. In spite of 
this odium, however, she immediately suc- 
ceeded in finding a boatman who was going 
up to Sheerness in the morning with garden 
vegetables, and who agreed to take her with 
him. At the early hour of seven she reached 
the side of the Sandwich, the vessel on which 
her husband was to suffer at the yard-arm ; 
but the stern sentinels, heedless of her 
anxious request to see him, ordered her off, 
and even threatened to fire in case of dis- 
obedience. When this first boatman had 
taken her back to Sheerness on the pretext 
that as the yellow flag had not been hoisted 
no execution would take place that day, she 
engaged a second. As this boat was rowed 
up she discerned the fatal flag ; again she 
begged to see her husband ; but in spite of her 
intense pleading, she v/as once more ordered 
off, and taken back on shore. She hired a 
third boat, and this time, as she approached, 
she saw the fatal procession of her husband, 
with his hands bound, from the quarter-deck 
to the forecastle. " My dear husband ! " she 
exclaimed with a loud shriek, as she fainted 
away ; recovering again, she beheld him 
mount the platform on the cathead and the 
dark-robed chaplain leave his side ; but from 
that moment a pall fell upc^n her sight, and 
she " saw nothing but the sea, which appeared 
covered with blood." An hour had passed 
away before she reached the ship in a fourth 
boat, in time to see her husband's lifeless 
body lowered from the yard-arm. It was 
immediately placed in a shell already pre- 
pared for its reception, and exactly at mid- 
day it was interred in the Naval Burying 
Ground at Sheerness, amid the deep silence 
of a large company of the comrades of the 
unhappy man. 



It was in vain that the sailor's widow made 
an earnest and immediate appeal to one of 
the vice-admirals for the disposal of her hus- 
band's body ; and she formed a resolution for 
securing it, by means that have perhaps no 
parallel even in the wildest of romances. 
When darkness had stolen down upon the 
quiet waters of the Thames, and silence 
reigned over the harbour of Sheerness, this 
faithful wife, accompanied by three other 
women, clambered over the high gateway of 
the graveyard, and by their aid dug up with 
her hands the rude coffin in which her hus- 
band's dishonoured body was enclosed. But 
how, after this first portion of the strange 
undertaking had been accomplished, was the 
dismal freight to be carried off unseen? 
Whatever means were adopted, — and one 
story of the time gives an account, which, 
though perhaps true, reads like a ghastly 
fable, — certain it is that the shell which 
encased the remains of Richard Parker was 
safely lodged in a room hired by his widow 
in the Hoop and Horseshoe public-house^ 
Little Tower Hill ; that immense crowds 
gathered there on the two succeeding days i^ 
that the weeping woman was led before the 
magistrates in Lambert Street police-court ; 
and that the public authorities,' in fear of 
tumults, had the body buried secretly and 
finally, shortly after midnight, in the vault of 
Whitechapel church. 

This last scene in the tragic episode of the 
mutinies at Spithead and the Nore may 
fitly serve as an introduction to a narrative 
of the strange events of the spring of the 
year 1797, when the seamen of the British 
navy rose in rebellion against the cruelties^, 
tyranny, and neglect to which they were sub- 
jected, and in the course of their determined! 
stand imperilled the naval supremacy, and 
perhaps the independence, of their country 

The Shadow of the Sword ; Panics 
OF 1797. 
Never during her whole history was the 
greatness of England so completely staked 
upon the solid fibre of her " wooden walls "■ 
as in the closing years of the eighteenth 
century. The glorious spring of the French 
Revolution was like a mother that devours 
her own children. Paris, the mother of 
freedom, had become the fierce metropolis. 
The "far-famed tree" of liberty, of which 
the peasant bard of Ayrshire had sung exult- 
ingly, had yielded such monstrous fruit as 
Marat, Danton, Robespierre. And now the 
whole of Europe trembled, bled, and crouched 
before Napoleon's invincibles. The first 
months of the year 1797 beheld the sacred 
Head of the Roman Church "taking the 
trouble" to bow before his "dear son," 
ceding to the French Republic the sum of 
thirty million livres in specie and diamonds. 



386 



THE MUTINIES AT SPIT HE AD AND THE NO RE. 



and yielding up for ever Avignon and other 
fair and fertile provinces ; boastful Venice, 
whose republic had stood for many cen- 
turies, furiously butchered Frenchmen in the 
hospitals, and was crushed out of political 
existence ; and the Emperor of Germany was 
driven in the early days of April to sue for 
peace from the great general who had chased 
his armies out of Italy, and was striking 
blow after blow on the triumphant march to 
Vienna. 

England stood alone at last as the unbend- 
ing and unbroken foe of France, her ambition, 
her allies, and her legions. Never was it so 
true as then that she was mistress of the 
seas ; the maritime traffic of the world was 
in her hands ; she had swept the trading 
craft of France and Holland from every 
corner of the main ; 
and amid the deep 
convulsions of Europe, 
the insurance of British 
vessels sailing to India 
and "far Cathay" actu- 
ally sank from fifteen 
guineas to one half of that 
amount. At last the point 
of the lance was held out 
towards our "impregna- 
ble " shores. Ireland was 
filled with discontent and 
insurrection, panting like 
a wild bird that is caged 
in view of the green fields. 
A French expedition of 
25,000 men, under Hoche, 
had attempted in De- 
cember 1796 to land on 
the reckless isle of Erin, 
but had gone back to 
Brest to wait for better 
winds and better luck ; 
and in the month of Feb- 
ruary, a band of 1200 
men, picked veterans and ragged scoundrels, 
provided with seventy cart-loads of powder and 
balls, scrambled on shore among the rocks 
of Pembrokeshire, began to steal clothes, 
and marched into the country. Our fleet 
was to be decimated by the united war-ships 
of the triumvirate of France, Spain, and 
Holland, and a great army was to "march 
to the capital of that mighty nation, seize 
the immense heaps of gold in the Bank 
of London, the prodigious wealth contained 
in their shops, their warehouses, and 
their magazines, the riches contained in their 
gilded palaces and their stately mansions," 
etc., etc. 

The fear of French invasion created a 
panic throughout England in the last ten 
days of February. Millions of solid British 
gold had been spent in lending sinews to the 
feeble arm of Austria. Farmers flew to their 




Admiral Lord Howe, 



country banks and emptied them of specie. 
These again hastened to devour the reserve 
of the Bank of England. The heads of that 
great national institution v/ere at their wits' 
end. Payment in specie was suspended. 
The country, exclaimed Fox, was in the 
gulf of bankruptcy. The governors of the 
Bank immediately assured the nation that it 
was in "the most affluent and flourishing 
condition." 

Britain had little need of domestic trou- 
bles. She required her whole strength. Her 
reliance and her boast were in her " wooden 
walls." Not to travel back to the distant 
times of Alfred, or to those of Richard of the 
Lion Heart, whose strong-fisted men had 
boarded the impregnable Dj-omunda, the 
floating castle of Saladin, or to those of 
Wil lough by, Drake, 
Howard, Essex, Raleigh; 
not to speak of the more 
recent achievements of 
the dauntless dare-devil 
Benbow,of Sir Cloudesley 
Shovel,and of Rooke, who 
in the year 1704 hosted 
the British colours on the 
Rock of Gibraltar, where 
ihey are flying to this 
hour — had we not still 
with us, in the chief com- 
mand of our brave and 
loyal tars, Earl Howe, the 
hero of the " First of 
June," when the French 
were thrashed in the Bay 
of Biscay ; and had not 
Jervis and Commodore 
Nelson, on the 14th day 
of February in this very 
year, thrown a bright 
gleam of sunshine into 
" the wild and darkening 
forest that threatened to 
close around us," by smiting the Spanish fleet 
off Cape St. Vincent, fifteen sail of the line 
against twenty-seven? Neither merchant 
nor statesman permitted himself for one 
moment to dream that the great wave of 
the righteous power of manhood which had 
swept over France would touch the decks 
of our wooden walls, and that the mariners 
who guard our native seas would be found 
swerving in the years of storm and license. 

Black Dick, the Sailor's Friend; 
Unheeded Murmurs. 

Richard, Earl Howe, had grown old and 
worn in the service of his country. The 
veteran admiral, now half a decade beyon-d 
the allotted span of threescore years and ten, 
suffered from the gout in his feet and ankles, 
and had gone down to take the waters at 



387 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Bath in the autumn of 1796. During the 
whole winter he was confined to his room, 
and was not able to throw aside his crutches 
till the end of March. No name, in his own 
special line, was more respected by the 
nation or more trusted by the seamen of the 
navy. To these last the tall and serious 
admiral was familiarly known as " Black 
Dick," from a mezzotint portrait that used to 
hang in his cabin, the sight of which, when 
first presented to the noble tar, threw him 
into a state of ludicrous amazement. They 
also called him the " sailor's friend ; " and 
rightly, for beneath that dark, serious, and 
haughty countenance there lay a heart which 
was not only firm as an oak, and never knew 
what fear was, — to use his own words,— but 
which was at the same time humane and 
tender as a true tar's. Was there a sailor in 
the whole fleet who did not know how, after 
the famous "first of June," a deputation of 
petty officers and seamen came aft to thank 
him for leading them to victory, and how he 
replied with faltering voice and tear-filled 
-eyes : " It is you, my brave lads, it is you, 
not I, that have conquered"? There were 
.stories, too, of his benign condescension, — 
how he was accustomed to go below when a 
bloody action was over, sitting by the cradles 
of.the poor wounded fellows, talking cheerily 
to them ; and how the sick were nursed with 
his live stock and wines. 

In the last days of February and the open- 
ing days of March, the old admiral was dis- 
turbed by the receipt of anonymous petitions 
from four vessels of the Channel Fleet at 
Spithead. One of these complainants had 
been his own flag-ship, the Qiieen Charlotte^ 
which was for ever famous, because of the 
glorious victory of the ist of June, 1794, 
when her 900 men and 100 guns had dealt 
death and havoc among the French. So 
dear was her cabin to him, that the library at 
his mansion near St. Alban's was fitted up 
.as a facsimile of his ocean home. The sea- 
men in these petitions simply asked him to 
request the Board of Admiralty to extend to 
them, whose payment was the petty sum of 
^\d. per day, the same munificence that the 
army had received. 

The earl saw that three of the petitions 
were written in the same hand. This seemed 
to him suspicious. But as these petitions of 
the brave tars dropped in day after day, 
doubtless his memory recalled the serious 
murmurs of bygone years. He would remem- 
ber that in the House of Lords he had 
declared that his own flag-ship was very 
filthy, and that many of the vessels were in a 
wretched state ; how, among the several 
mutinies of 1783, the crews at Portsmouth, 
on a report that the ships just returned were 
to be refitted and unjustly sent to sea again, 
had confined their officers and had rushed 



down with lighted matches ready to fire on 
the appearance of any attack from without, 
and that he had hastened on board the Janus, 
ending the mutiny by a timely and just 
concession ; how, for this same complaint, 
three men had been hanged in that year on 
the yard-arm of the Raisonnable j how eight 
men had been sentenced to death on the 
Cidloden at the close of 1794, and that he 
had cast the blame of this discontent upon 
the captains, who were accustomed to regale 
themselves on shore, while the toiling tars 
were kept on board like prisoners. 

But the old ways were too inveterately 
ingrained in Howe. There was no hurry. He 
intended to take the petitions in his pocket 
to Earl Spencer, the First Lord of the Admi- 
ralty, when he went up to town from the 
waters at Bath ; and in the meantime he 
wrote to two of the chief officers of the 
Channel Fleet, whose inquiries ended in a 
report that there was no perceptible dis- 
affection, and that the smoke was simply 
manufactured by some evilly-disposed person, 
in order to throw scandal on the government 
of William Pitt. Whatever discontent there 
might be would instantly blow off when the 
ships stood out to sea, and the patriotic tars 
were brought face to face with the mortal 
foes of England. He and his correspondents 
were mistaken. They forgot the homely 
proverb that "a stitch in time saves nine." 
Unseen, the neglected embers were nursed 
into a flame, which broke forth weeks after 
into a series of mutinies that threatened the 
ruin of the country. 

Outbreak of the Spithead Mutiny. 
Thus neglected by their friend, the crews 
carried on a secret correspondence, and 
formed a sullen resolution that not an anchor 
should be lifted until their complaints were 
attended to and their grievances redressed. 
The officers remained in strange ignorance 
of the " conspiracy," and the Admiralty had 
no knowledge of its existence until the 12th 
of April, when orders were at once tele- 
graphed to Admiral Bridport, the commander 
of the fleet, to put out to sea. On Saturday 
the 15th he gave the signal to weigh anchor 
and proceed to St. Helen's. Three cheers 
instantly rose from the crew of the Queen 
Charlotte; and instead of mustering obediently 
round the handspikes of the capstan, the 
sailors ran up the shrouds. As if by magical 
contagion, every other crew in the roadstead 
echoed the cheers of the flag-ship, and simi- 
larly manned the fore-shrouds. Not a single 
anchor in the fleet was lifted. The officers 
spent their threats and eloquence in vain. 
The marines were disarmed and the maga- 
zines seized. Within a few minutes the 
authority of the officers was at an end, and 
the common seamen were masters of the fleet. 



388 



THE MUTINIES AT SPITHEAD AND THE NORE. 



It remained to be seen wliether the seamen 
were able to hold down the combatant they 
had surprised and stunned ; in other words, 
whether they possessed sufficient determina- 
tion, cohesion, and administrative capacity. 
Two " delegates " — that " dangerous " word 
which had been employed in 1794 by the 
rebels of the Cullodeii — were appointed by 
each of the sixteen ships. On the following 
day, which was Easter Sunday, these thirty- 
two deputies assembled to deliberate in the 
favourite cabin of Lord Howe ; and on Easter 
Monday they went through the ceremony of 
swearing every sailor upon the Bible, the 
ropes which were run out at the yard-arm of 
each ship hinting grimly to any unwilling tar 
the terrible penalty of disobedience. A list 
of rules prepared by the committee enjoined, 
under severe penalty, the greatest attention 
to the orders of the officers ; that every ship 
should give three cheers both morning and 
evening ; that no private communication 
should be held with the shore ; that no ship 
should lift its anchor until the demands 
of the fleet were satisfied ; that no woman 
should be permitted on shore, but as many 
might come in as pleased ; and that any 
person found drunk or attempting to bring 
liquor into the ship should be rigorously 
punished. These laws were enforced with 
unrelenting severity ; for instance, a sailor 
who had dared to smuggle a pint of spirits 
on board was flogged unmercifully with a 
thief-cat ; and on one occasion the Royal 
William, having declined to join in the 
general cheering of the fleet, was peremptorily 
warned that she would be fired into if she 
repeated this act of disobedience. Even the 
sick seamen who lay in Haslar Hospital 
(opposite Portsmouth) were infected with 
the spirit of enthusiasm, tacked their hand- 
kerchiefs into a flag, and added their daily 
cheers to those on board the fleet. The 
officers whose cruelty had rendered them 
obnoxious, in spite of all their fears, received 
no greater injury than that of being sent 
ashore by the mutineers ; and the terrific 
yard-ropes were called on to perform no 
sterner duties than that of ducking any 
sailors who were found guilty of petty mis- 
demeanourSj^a more amusing and less brutal 
punishment than the lash, from which many 
of the honest tars had suffered for similar 
offences. Altogether the conduct of these 
half-enslaved seamen deserves the eulogy of 
Earl Stanhope, that " perhaps no men raised 
to power by a successful mutiny ever showed 
so much temper and moderation." 

Petitions of the Seamen ; A Tale of 
Long Suffering, State Neglect, and 
Robbery. 

On the 1 8th of April, two petitions, dis- 
tinguished by a most respectful and loyal 



tone, were prepared and signed by the thirty- 
two delegates of the mutinous fleet, in order 
to make plain to the authorities and the 
nation the wrongs ©f sailors, and the only 
terms under which they could be expected 
to remain in the service of their country. 
One of these, addressed to the House of 
Commons, set forth their disappointment 
and surprise at the neglect of Howe, in 
whom they had expected to find an advocate, 
as under his command they had often made 
the British flag ride triumphant over that of 
their enemies ; asked for an increase of the 
Greenwich pensions from seven to thirteen 
pounds per annum, and for an increase of 
their own pay sufficient to enable them and 
their families to live in the same comfortable 
manner as seamen and marines did in the 
time of Charles II. ; for, strange to tell, as 
is pointed out in this address, their wages 
were still as low as they had been fixed by 
Act of Parliament more than a century 
before, "when the necessaries of life and 
slops of every denomination were at least 
thirty per cent, cheaper." 

The address to the Admiralty is more 
emphatic, and presents a fuller tale of wrongs, 
and yet does not even mention the hardships 
of impressment and flogging, which formed 
the leading articles of indictment among 
non-seafaring people and parliamentary 
philanthropists. In addition to the insuffi- 
ciency of pay, the demands therein set forth 
are as follows : — 

"First, That our provisions be raised to the weight 
of sixteen ounces to the pound, and of a better 
quality ; and that our measures may be the same as 
those used in the commercial trade of the country. 

' ' Secondly, . . . There should be no flour served 
while we are in harbour, in any port whatever, under 
the command of the British flag ; and also, that there 
might be granted a sufficient quantity of vegetables 
of such kind as may be the most plentiful in the ports 
to which we go ; which we grievously complain and 
lay under the want of. 

"Thirdly, . . . To look into the state of the sick 
on board H.M. ships, that they may be better 
attended to, and that . . . such necessaries as are 
allowed for them in time of sickness ... be not on 
any account embezzled. 

' ' Foui'thly, . . . That we may in somewise have 
grant and opportunity to taste the sweets of liberty 
on shore, when in any harbour, and when we have 
completed the duty of our ship . . . ; which is a 
natural request, and congenial to the heart of man, 
and certainly to us, that you make the boast of being 
the guardians of the land. 

" Fifthly, That if any man is wounded in action, his 
pay be continued until he is cured and discharged ; 
and if any ship has any real grievances to complain 
of, we hope your Lordships will readily redress them, 
as far as in your power, to prevent any disturbances." 

In the preamble and the epilogue of this 
wail from the sea, care was taken to speak 
with deference, moderation, and patriotism, 
so that no pitiable excuse might be given to 
a dense-hearted and close-fisted government 



389 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



to cover a refusal of these demands with 
charges of disrespect, disloyalty, laziness, 
cowardice, and revolutionary ideas ; and the 
nation at large gave its fullest sympathy to 
the demands of the brave, ill-treated, and 
half-paid tars, — demands or "requests" so 
modestly put forth by the thousands of men 
whom the rulers of England, as the petition 
sarcastically puts it, " make the boast of 
being the guardians of the land." Not only 
would they " suffer double the hardships we 
have hitherto experienced before we would 
suffer the crown of England to be in the 
least imposed upon by that of any other 
Power in the world," but it was also — these 
are the closing words — "unanimously agreed 
by the fleet, that from this day no grievances 
shall be received, in order to convince the 
nation at large that we know when to cease 
to ask as well as to begin, and that we ask 
nothing but what is moderate and may be 
granted without detriment to the nation or 
injury to the service." 

Our Jolly Tars a Century ago. 
There is nothing fabulous or magnified in 
all this tale of woe ; it is not the cry of 
peevish discontent, but a manly-spoken 
claim for justice. The lines of the "jolly 
tars " who manned our wooden walls and 
-won our victories, and slashed right and left 
the fleets of the world, were in nowise fallen 
:in pleasant places. There is nothing over- 
drawn for comic effect in the terrible and 
; scathing exposure of naval life made in 
the career of that rollicking scapegrace, 
" Roderick Randon " ; in fact, we have there 
irevealed a mere sample of the enormities 
'endured by poor Tom Bovvhng so late even 
as the year of grace 1797. The immorality, 
anortality, disease, cursings, floggings, and 
desertions, cannot be inspected closely by a 
modern reader without a feeling of wonder, 
horror, and disgust. A man-of-war was not, 
as now, one of the healthiest places to 
inhabit in the world ; the food, the cruelty, 
the restrictions were so shocking that suffi- 
cient volunteers could not be had to man 
lOur fleet. The men were at the mercy of 
;tyrant officers like Captain Oakum, and an 
: impressed seaman of this very time has left 
on record that there was " starting and 
rflogging all day long," and that on the very 
first night he spent on board he saw seven 
■men flogged because they were not smart 
'enough ; the purser was simply a robber by 
prescription, making;^!, 000 a year online-of- 
battle ships, although he had no pay from 
Government, for he was privileged to retain 
an eighth of all provisions for the seamen, 
on the score of waste or leakage ; and every- 
thing doled out was of the worst description. 
The ration for meat was one pound per day, 
but rarely did more than one-third reach the 



hands of the tar; the salt beef and pork 
were sometimes mixed up by contractors 
with salted horse, and were often flavourless 
and polished like a cornelian, after having 
become indurated with salt in voyaging over 
and over the seas for years ; cheese, butter, 
breakfast cocoa, water, all were often in the 
last stage of rottenness. Of these things 
Roderick Random speaketh truly : " We 
had languished five weeks on the allowance 
of a purser's quart per diem for each man, 
in the torrid zone, where the sun was verti- 
cal, and the expense of bodily fluid so great 
that a gallon of liquor could scarce supply 
the waste of twenty-four hours. . . Our pro- 
vision consisted of putrid salt beef, to which 
the sailors gave the name of "Irish horse" ; 
salt pork of New England, which, though 
neither flesh nor fish, savoured of both ; 
bread from the same country, every biscuit 
whereof, like a piece of clockwork, moved by 
its own internal impulse, occasioned by the 
myriads of insects that dwelt within it ; and 
butter served out by the gill, that tasted like 
train oil, thickened with salt." But as "a 
sorrow's crown of sorrow " lies in remember- 
ing happier things, two-and-a-half gills of 
new rum were daily administered to the tars in 
order to preserve them from that unpleasant 
state of mind. Add to all this the fearful 
ravages of disease, the horrid condition of 
the unfortunate sick (that too has been 
described by Smollett), the embezzlement of 
their medicines and necessaries, the abomi- 
nable associates with whom the true tar was 
forced to mingle, and to lay the copestone 
of hardship, the fact that he was absolutely 
lorded over by " a petty monarch, whose 
slightest caprice was indisputable law," with 
no appeal from any wrong save to a " code 
of jurisdiction so severe that every line 
appears to have been traced in blood, and 
every other penalty is a shameful death." 

What of the "sweets of liberty" when in 
port ? Men who should have gained their 
freedom from the service in three years were 
drafted from ship to ship and sent away into 
distant service, as if they were no freemen, 
but prisoners and slaves, at the pleasure ot 
His Majesty's commanders ; and as the sea- 
men were only allowed a few hours on shore, 
it was impossible for them, in most instances, 
to pay even a flying visit to their homes, their 
mothers, their wives, their children. The 
picture of a man-of-war in port during the 
great war is too degraded for a modern pen 
to trace ; hundreds of the vilest women 
flocked on board whenever she arrived, and 
made the ship a den of pollution, on which 
no decent wife, or mother, or sister could set 
her foot. This immorality was not without 
an effect in spreading the mutinous spirit 
which existed at the Nore. An admiral then 
commanding a fleet on a foreign station 



390 



THE MUTINIES AT SPITHEAD AND THE NO RE. 



found that a large number of the letters 
addressed to his sailors were from this class 
at the British ports, and urged them in the 
strongest terms to join the mutineers. To 
attempt to go on shore without leave was a 
terrible crime. A sailor who had been 
pressed into the service, after many years' 
absence, touched at his native port, but no 
■women were allowed on board, and even his 
aged mother and sister, although they came 
a.longside, did not obtain the privilege. In 
the darkness he swam ashore, remained at 
liome for a few hours, and returned early in 
the morning. He was discovered, however, 
by the captain, tried by court-martial, and 
•sentenced to a severe punishment with that 
sovereign remedy, the cat-o'-nine-tails. 

One-half of the seamen during the great 
war were captured by that odious institution, 
the press-gang, which had its head-quarters 
at the "Royal Naval Rendezvous," on Tower 
Hill, London. In the adjacent public-houses, 
as one writer has described it, there might be 
seen alluring pictures of Jack dancing horn- 
pipes on deck with a lieutenant, or hob- 
nobbing over his grog with an admiral, 
or slaying half-a-dozen Frenchmen before 
breakfast, or lighting his pipe on shore with 
Bank of England notes. When genuine 
volunteers became scarce and deserters 
many, there was no scruple about accepting 
the garbage of society, such as dishonest 
clerks and excisemen of damaged reputation. 
In the urgency of the great war. the very 
gaols were emptied, and thieves and mur- 
derers were thrown into the drag-net of the 
siavy ; and all these means being insuffi- 
cient, the country pressed everybody she 
could lay hands on. We are told that 
apprentices showed their indentures in vain ; 
people would come home from China or 
Honolulu, and fall into the clutches of 
the press-gang five minutes after they set 
their foot on shore ; bags of money would 
l)e found on posts on Tower Hill, left by 
persons who had been kidnapped unawares ; 
anen would leave public-houses for a moment 
to see what kind of a night it was and never 
be heard of again. These are only a few of the 
•evil ways by which our navy was recruited, 
and of the dreadful hardships endured by the 
brave mariners of England, who toiled and 
bled for the munificent figure of ninepence 
three farthings a day ; but they will serve to 
interline the modest and moderate complaints 
presented to the consideration and acceptance 
of the Government of England. The terrible 
articles of war are still read constantly upon 
our men-of-war, but the seamen, better edu- 
cated, better paid, better fed, self-reliant, 
sober, and little given to violence, regard 
them only as a bogie ; and although some 
rough-and-ready officers of the old school 
look upon the times of our wooden walls as 



the golden age of the navy, there are few 
indeed who will not respect the man-of-war's 
man of to-day as a vast improvement on the 
drunken, rollicking tar of a hundred years 
ago. 

Visit of the Admiralty to Portsmouth. 

Those petitions, with the genuine signa- 
tures of Val Joyce, Jack Morris, Pat Glynn, 
Joe Green, Bill Potts, and twenty-seven other 
British seamen, delegates of the Channel 
Fleet, looked like the first rush of a lurid 
storm. The already terrified metropolis was 
panic-stricken as by the sudden shock of an 
earthquake. The mutiny of the English 
mariners, of whose bravery and unstained 
loyalty every Englishman was justly proud, 
and on whose sometimes wayward follies on 
shore he looked with fond indulgence, was 
the theme of anxious conversation at every 
fireside, every street corner, every tavern. It 
was feared that the Channel might become 
an opeji pathway for the ships and privateers 
of France; and, indeed, in' Paris it was almost 
believed that England would sink from being 
queen of the ocean waves into a feeble and 
dependent power, without a voice in the 
councils of Europe. The rumour even flew 
through London that the seamen had refused 
to advance to meet the enemy. 

My Lord Bridport and other great men 
who thought they held in their hands the key 
of Europe's freedom and of England's great- 
ness might not now quietly lay the complaints 
aside, and, hands in pockets, denounce the 
whole affair as a scandal got up by ill-disposed 
persons against the Government of William 
Pitt. A Cabinet Council was summoned in 
hot haste on the 17th, and it was there and 
then determined that Spencer and two 
Junior Lords of the Admiralty should hie to 
Portsmouth ; the idea being indulged that the 
appearance of those great officials would at 
once act as a magical sedative on the fevered 
spirits of the simple-minded men. On their 
arrival, a consultation was held on shore 
with the best admirals, and an immediate 
answer to the petition was despatched 
through Lord Bridport, directing him to take 
the speediest method of communicating to 
the fleet that they would recommend His 
Majesty to propose to Parliament an increase 
of wages, that wounded seamen would enjoy 
full pay until cured, or until, if completely 
invalided, they should be received into 
Greenwich Hospital, or retire with a pension. 
Finally, with a strong "puff'" of the courage, 
loyalty, and "spirit which always so eminently 
distinguished British seamen," they desired 
them to return at once to duty, as it might 
be necessary for the fleet to put immediately 
to sea in order to meet the enemy of the 
country. 

This was too meagre a sop for Cerberus to 



391 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



swallow. The increase offered by my Lords 
was 4J-. per month to petty officers and able 
seamen; 3^. per month to ordinary seamen; 
and IS. per month to landsmen. But there 
was not a word as to the quantity of pro- 
visions of which the pursers robbed them ; not 
a word as to the quality of the abominable 
dog's meat doled out to these patriot martyrs 
whose life was worse than a dog's ; not a 
word as to the fresh vegetables in port ; not 
a word as to the treatment of the sick and 
wounded, so scathingly exposed in the 
familiar tale of "Roderick Random"; not 
a word as to the sweets of liberty on shore. 
Is it to be wondered at that, in their reply 
of the 19th April, these points should be 
insisted on again by the delegates, who had 
not yet succumbed to the magical presence 
of the Lords ; that they should insist still on 
the redress of the grievances of particular 
ships, in other words, the removal of ob- 
noxious officers ; and that they should now, 
remembering the fate of the men of the 
Culloden, who had been hanged by the neck 
two years before in spite of an assurance of 
pardon, express their determination not to 
lift an anchor until an Act of Indemnity 
was passed ? They also, with a tone of 
conscious strength far different from their 
meek first petition, offered some " remarks " 
for the "consideration" of the Board, viz., 
IS. per day for able seamen, and a propor- 
tionate increase to the others ; a similar 
increase for marines when on board ; the 
augmentation of the Greenwich pensions to 
^10, towards which the sailors would give 
one shilling per month ; and that this in- 
crease should be extended to the seamen of 
the East India Company, most of whom 
were obtained from the navy ; for " we have 
seen them," said they, "with our own eyes, 
after sickness or other accident has disabled 
them, without any hope of relief or support, 
but from their former service in the navy." 

Scene on the "Charlotte"; The Red 
Flag hoisted. 
Although a message of the following day 
yielded to the seamen their demands as to 
increase of pay and provisions and the full 
allowance to the wounded, the foolhardy 
Lords closed their gift with an ungracious 
thj-eaf, that every company which did not 
return to duty within an hour would be 
answerable for "the dreadful consequences 
which will necessarily attend their continuing 
to transgress the rules of the service, in open 
violation of the laws of their country." The 
foot of the determined tars was not to be 
raised by leverage like this; and on the 
morning of Friday the 21st, Admirals 
Gardner, Colpoys, and Cole, went off to 
hold a conference with the delegates of the 
fleet, Lord Spencer not being permitted to 



go, as it was urged that he was too tempting 
a prize to be placed in the hands of the 
mutineers. The upshot was disastrous. 
Although the flag-officers were received on 
board the Charlotte with all due honours^ 
and found the delegates respectful in language 
and demeanour, yet these last were deter- 
mined to accept no terms except by Act of 
Parliament, or rest on any promise unless 
given under the King's signature, Gardner,, 
who was a thorough and a popular seaman^ 
but of a very nervous temperament, which 
caused him many a sleepless night, although 
it never suffered him to lack coolness and 
courage in presence of a foe, unfortunately 
lost his temper in the debate. He denounced 
the seamen as cowards, " a set of skulking 
fellows who knew the French were ready for 
sea;" and seizing one of the delegates by the 
collar, he swore that they should all be 
hanged, along with every fifth man in the 
fleet. The crew made a furious rush towards 
the quarter-deck, and the choleric admiral 
might have gone overboard, had he not 
succeeded in extricating himself from the 
grip of his assailants. Jumping into the 
hammock nettings of the ship, and placing 
his neck in the noose of a " yard-rope," he 
called out, " If you will return to your duty^ 
you may hang me at the yard-arm !" This 
heroic speech instantly stopped the onset of 
the sailors, and at once changed their indig- 
nation into cheers for the brave and really 
beloved officer. 

Negotiations, however, were broken off:, 
Bridport struck his flag upon the Charlotte f 
the delegates assembled on the Royal George^, 
in answer to the blood-red flag of war which 
was now hoisted ; watches were set and the 
guns shotted ; the officers were made pri- 
soners ; and on that evening Spencer re- 
turned in ha-ste to town with the dreadful 
news. 

The peop'e on shore were alarmed at the 
sight of the " bloody flag," the signal of a. 
challenge ti' :ombat, which called up in their 
imagination a host of hideous fears ; but the 
good-hearted tars were themselves soon 
struck wiih repentance for the unhappy 
extreme of disrespect to which they had 
been dri/^en, and on the following day the 
delegates, whose storm of indignation had 
by this time fallen into a gentle breeze, 
penned a humble letter to Bridport, their 
commander, in which they affectionately 
termed him their "father and friend." They 
also addressed a letter of gratitude to the 
Admiralty for an order, which Bridport read 
to them that morning, in which some of their 
demands were granted ; but they still insisted 
on an Act of Parliament and other unyielded 
items ; and so little, with all their tender- 
ness, was their determination moved, that 
in the evening particular orders were issued 



39: 



THE MUTINIES AT S PITHEAD AND THE NORE. 




The Outbreak of the Mutinv at Spithead— The Sailors refusing to put to Sea. 

393 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



that on the next morning, which was Sunday, 
ever>' sailor should appear on the rigging with 
clean clothes and give the three customary 
cheers. Accordingly, the shouts sounded 
more lustily than ever on that April morning, 
and the flag of defiance still streamed from 
the Royal George. 

But the fight was won. No sooner had 
Lord Spencer reached the city than a meet- 
ing of the Cabinet was held ; he hurried off 
to Windsor, and on the forenoon of that 
same Sunday Lord Bridport and other 
officers stepped on board the Royal George, 
ihanded a copy of the royal pardon to the 
captain of each vessel, and exhibited the 
original proclamation to the suspicious dele- 
I gates on the Charlotte; the commander's 
'flag was once more hoisted, the terrible red 
flag fell, three hearty cheers arose from every 
icrew, and every man at Spithead declared 
liis readiness to perform the commands of 
his superiors. On Monday afternoon choleric 
old Gardner dropped down to St. Helen's 
,with the first division of the fleet. The 
agreement did not come one moment too 
soon, for the Plymouth squadron also 
mutinied at this juncture, and a week 
,elapsed before they learned from men whom 
they had despatched in a cutter to Spithead 
that the demands of the seamen were finally 
settled, and that the cry of "All's well!" 
might once more be shouted as truly as of 
old. 

The Mutiny at St. Helen's ; One 
More Blunder. 

Bis dat qui cito dat. The niggardly in- 
difference and left-handed generosity with 
which the seamen of the Channel had been 
treated left them in a suspicious and explo- 
sive mood, which the slightest spark would 
start off again into a more desperate rebellion. 
Several of the crews, indeed, hesitated to move 
from Spithead because their demand for the 
removal of certain officers had been refused ; 
nor had the rest of the fleet gained absolute 
confidence in the temper of the Government. 
Apart from the delay — necessary, it was 
alleged, for the preparation of estimates — in 
presenting a Bill to the Commons for increase 
of the seamen's pay, no step could be more 
imprudent than that taken by the Admiralty 
on the 1st of May. An order, of the most 
provoking character alike to officers and 
seamen, was issued to all the commanders 
of the navy, declaring that it had "become 
highly necessary that the strictest attention 
should be paid by all officers . . . not only 
to their own conduct, but to the conduct of 
those who may be under their orders ; " it 
even condescended to intimate that choice 
pieces of beef, or select casks of wine or 
spirits, should not be taken for the officers 
from the stock of the ship's company, etc., — 



good enough advice, indeed ! — and captains 
and commanders were to " see that the arms 
and ammunition belonging to the marines be 
constantly kept in good order and fit for 
immediate service, as well in harbour as at 
sea ; " as if the brave British tars, who had 
crowned the history of England with centuries 
of glory, were no better than the herds of 
Egyptian slaves who in old times dragged 
the obelisks and vast stones of the pyramids, 
to be flogged and shot down like brute beasts ! 
There was very soon a favourable chance 
for showing the wisdom of this precious 
missive. Handbills went round the ships, 
warning the crews of the unwillingness of 
the House of Lords to stand to the promises 
by which the tars had been beguiled ; and 
these, coupled with the threats of bayonets 
and guns, bore fruit on Sunday the yth of 
May. On Bridport's giving orders to weigh 
anchor, the old cheers which prefaced mutiny 
were heard again, the " yard-ropes " were 
once more rove, delegates were again elected, 
and the officers stripped of their command. 

The First Bloodshed ; A Sad 
Procession. 
The delegates, more determined than 
before, proceeded to invite the whole Channel 
Fleet to anchor at St. Helen's : a frigate was 
despatched to the mutinous ships at Ply- 
mouth ; the squadron at Torbay was also to 
be summoned ; and orders were sent for the 
London and the Marlborough, which were 
still lying at Spithead. When the delegates 
approached the former of these two vessels. 
Sir John Colpoys, vice-admiral, whose blue 
flag was flying on that ship, ordered the 
officers and marines to arms. It was in vain 
that the crew, after some hesitation, came aft 
and requested the admission of the delegates ; 
a sailor proceeded to unlash one of the guns 
and point it towards the quarter-deck ; Lieu- 
tenant Bover threatened to shoot him if he 
did not desist ; and when the sailor refused 
to obey, the officer killed him on the spot 
with a pistol. The sailors ran for their arms, 
and the officers were overpowered. Bover 
was hurried towards the fatal yard-arm by 
the indignant comrades of the murdered man, 
and was only saved by the intercession of the 
admiral, who declared that the act was done 
by his own order. Several seamen, however, 
were slain and wounded in the desperate 
scuffle, and their wrathful companions im- 
prisoned Colpoys and the other officers ; the 
bloody flag was hoisted in the place of the 
blue bunting of the admiral ; and with the 
dead and wounded the London and the 
Marlborough sailed down to St. Helen's 
with their tragic tale. Still the hearts of the 
tars were loyal to old England, and when 
some persons were heard talking of surren- 
dering their vessel to the French, she was 



394 



THE MUTINIES AT SPITHEAD AND THE NORE. 



threatened with destruction by the delegates, 
and guard-boats were stationed round her 
night and day. 

On the next Tuesday, Portsmouth wit- 
nessed the melancholy procession which 
followed the bodies of three men who had 
perished by what a coroner's jury had pro- 
nounced "justifiable homicide." They were 
■conveyed from Haslar Hospital in the 
Londotis launch with the colours half-mast 
liigh ; they were landed at the Commons 
Hard, now " neither the most cleanly nor 
the most moral spot in the world ; " guns had 
been planted as if to defend the garrison from 
a siege. But all was peaceful. Before the 
first coffin there were borne two colours, and 
one before each of the others, half-struck ; 
behind walked fifty of the dead men's ship- 
Tnates, two by two ; nearly the same number 
of women followed, dressed in black, and 
six other women on either side of the coffins. 
Amid the silent and immense crowds the 
mournful procession wended its way through 
Portsea aAd other villages, until the remains 
of the first three victims of the year of mu- 
tinies were laid in their last resting-place in 
the churchyard of Kingston. 

Arrival of the Sailors' Friend. 

The very elements seemed to be in wild 
sympathy with men's uncertain minds. A 
fierce storm swept over the ships at St. Helen's 
and in the Channel. In London there were 
•dark fears as to Colpoys and his rash sup- 
porters. The seamen deliberated, quite re- 
spectfully, as to whether the admiral should 
be put to death on the spot. In a work of 
great rarity we read a story that may in part 
account for his escape, and which at the 
same time displays the finer spirit of the 
British tar. " A man was heard to call him 

a ' rascal,' or some such words. 

Notwithstanding the furious irritation which 
at that moment agitated the whole crew, the 
habit of respect and regard for a beloved 
commander prevailed so far as to turn part 
of their resentment against the person who 
dared to use such language to their admiral, 
who was uncommonly regarded, and they 
threatened to punish or throw the offender 
overboard." 

Meanwhile aristocratic London and the 
British Parliament had other great and grave 
affairs to talk of besides the woes of sailors. 
There was "marrying and giving in mar- 
riage," as in the days of Noah. In answer 
to the King's message of the 3rd of May, a 
bridal gift of ^80,000 was granted to his 
eldest daughter on the 4th ; and on that 
same day a loan of _;^2,ooo,ooo to perfidious 
Austria was agreed to, while the business of 
the poor seamen was deferred for considera- 
tion to the 8th. There was need for haste 
when that day came. Pitt rose to move his 



resolution in a state of great agitation ; and 
on that same evening a Cabinet Council 
decided on sending the resohition by express 
to the fleet. On the following day the Bill 
passed through both Houses at a single 
sitting. 

In spite of the triumphant news, the em- 
bittered sailors read with rancorous pleasure 
the fierce attacks of Fox, Sheridan, and 
Whitbread. There had been wild and ran- 
dom cries afloat among the panic-stricken 
citizens of the metropolis, such as that the 
king himself should visit the rebellious fleet ; 
but wise men found the true magician of 
the waves in the venerable Richard Howe. 
When the sailors heard that Black Dick was 
coming among them at last ; when they saw 
their feeble and crippled hero carried from 
a barge on board the Royal George on Wed- 
nesday afternoon ; when they listened to the 
reasonings and chidings of the Napoleon of 
the British navy, who had led many of them 
in many a deadly action, and had wept out 
words of gratitude with all his big heart 
before their eyes after the glorious engage- 
ment of the 1st of June, — then the mutiny 
was simply doomed. He carried with him 
authority, carte blanche, for the final settle- 
ment. It was supremely touching to see the 
worn veteran doing his last service to the 
country he had served so well and so long, 
day after day moving from ship to ship, and 
listening with the patience of a true friend 
to the tales of wrong poured eagerly into his 
ear by the seamen's deputies. The other 
crews refused all intercourse with two ships 
that defiantly nailed the red colours to the 
mast-head until they finally surrendered ; 
they begged forgiveness of Gardner, and 
with three hearty cheers welcomed him 
again on his own quarter-deck ; and they 
yielded to the skilful suggestion of Black Dick 
that they should formally express contrition 
to him for their conduct, and ask his good 
offices. Lastly, each company, by his ad- 
vice, presented its separate petition to him 
for the removal of certain officers ; and these 
in their turn resigned connexion with those 
that entertained for them so little respect. 
By such prudent means the wise old admiral 
granted all demands to the seamen, veiling 
" the dangerous concession so skilfully that 
it assumed the form of a gracious indulgence 
rather than a yielding to mutinous dicta- 
tion." The tars were "jolly" once more, 
and they subjected the "sailors' friend" on 
Sunday and Monday to a true ovation. It 
was a story to be told over and over, how 
Val Joyce, one of the delegates, a Belfast 
tobacconist who had been sent into the 
service on a charge of treason, was invited 
on Sunday into the governor's mansion, and 
joined the old admiral over a glass of wine ! 
The pardon arrived that evening, and early 



395 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



on Monday morning the delegates landed 
at Portsmouth, marched up to the governor's 
to the strains of " Rule, Britannia," and par- 
took of some refreshment. At eight their 
venerable chief embarked amid the cheers 
of the boats' crews, attired in their best 
clothes, and with a salute of ordnance. 
Several ships were visited, and the fervent 
thanks of the seamen received by him ; and 
the Spithead mutineers crowned their return 
to allegiance by bearing him that evening 
on their shoulders to the residence of the 
governor. This was Howe's last great ser- 
vice, which no other man in all England could 
have done so well ; and yet there were 
people so unwise and ungrateful as to de- 
clare that Black Dick was in his dotage. 

The Spreading of the Weed ; The 
Outbreak at the Nore. 

Although the weed had now been cleanly 
rooted out at Portsmouth and Plymouth, the 
hesitating, languid, and ungenerous action 
of the authorities had given ample time for 
the planting of dangerous seeds in other 
portions of the navy. They cropped up in 
turn at the Nore, at Yarmouth, on the coast 
of Spain, and even at the Cape of Good 
Hope. Handbills were being circulated 
that served to stir the embers of discontent ; 
and these were written, it was alleged, not 
in the language of seamen, but in the style 
of the circulating library. Then why not 
keep the car rolling, and trample down 
every wrong from which the seamen suf- 
fered.'' On the I2th of May, 1797, before 
Richard Howe had wound up his Ports- 
mouth triumph, there arose a more ferocious 
mutiny ; indeed, says Earl Stanhope, " no 
crisis so alarming, or nearly so alarming, has 
ever been known in England since the 
Revolution of 1688." 

The sailors of the fleet lying at the mouth 
of the Medway had partaken of breakfast 
that morning as usual, and at half-past nine 
those on board the Sandwich, which carried 
the flag of Admiral Buckner, received orders 
to clear the hawse. At that moment a num- 
ber of the captains were holding a court- 
martial on board the hiflexible. The command 
of Lieutenant Justice on the Sandwich was 
answered by three cheers from the crew ; the 
yard-ropes of this famous ninety-gun ship 
were rove by the sailors, and the forecastle 
guns were brought aft to the quarter-deck. 
Cheers were heard all round, and the whole 
fleet was instantly in possession of the several 
crews. Delegates were chosen, a committee 
was selected from their number, and at the 
head of all was placed a "president." The 
person appointed to this equivocal honour 
was Richard Parker, a man of thirty-five, 
and a native of the town of Exeter, who had 
served in the navy during previous years, 



and had several times been discharged for 
bad conduct or for lunacy. He had received 
a better education than the great mass of his 
comrades, and in the position of a super- 
numerary on the Sandwich- -?i. class of idle 
seamen from whom the petty officers of the 
fleet were chiefly drafted, and of whom there 
were a large number under the command of 
Buckner — he enjoyed sufficient leisure to 
speculate on the great possibilities of dis- 
turbance or reform awakened by the Spit- 
head mutiny. It has been supposed, on no 
sure ground, however, that he and others in 
the fleet were filled with the revolutionary 
ideas that had swept over the Continent, and 
found expression even in the " corresponding 
societies " of steady-going England. 

Not only was the Spithead token of defi- 
ance, in the shape of the bloody flag, hoisted 
by these new mutineers, but from the first a 
more reckless spirit revealed itself in every 
action : in the fact that for days they made no 
statement of their grievances ; in the fact that 
on the morning after the outbreak the Inflexi- 
ble, while passing down to the Nore with the 
red flag flying, fired in the St. Fiorenzo until 
her crew raised the cheer, which they had 
refused on the previous evening ; and in the 
fact that on that same day the crew of the 
Chajnpion, on reaching the destination at the 
Little Nore to which their captain had been 
ordered, seized the command and proceeded 
with the vessel to the Great Nore, declaring 
that that was their destination by order of 
the president and delegates. On the 14th, 
four delegates were despatched to Ports- 
mouth to consult with their " brethren " ; and 
one of these, who deserted by the way, made 
a mysterious confession to his captain that 
Parker held communication with a " man in 
black," and received "plenty of money" for 
the leaders of the mutiny. It may just be 
mentioned that this proved a fruitless mission, 
in spite of the inforrrlation given by the 
president to Admiral Buckner, that a little 
bird had whispered in his ear that the Spit- 
head fleet would join him. 

Deliberations and Frolics of the 
Delegates. 

Every day the inhabitants of Sheerness 
witnessed a formidable line of boats, with 
that of the president at its head, moving from 
the ships to the shore, to the strains of 
" Rule, Britannia," " God save the King," 
" Britons, strike home," or other patriotic 
songs ; this was followed by a procession on 
shore, when a large number of the seamen, 
armed with pistols and cutlasses, walked in 
peaceful order behind the red ensign of the 
"sailors' cause." It was in Sheerness that 
the delegates held their conferences, the 
" Royal Arch " and " Chequers " public- 
houses being the favourite seats of this new 



396 



THE MUTINIES AT SPITHEAD AND THE NORE. 



naval legislature ; and there, when the serious 
deliberations of the day were over, they were 
accustomed to enjoy a "grand dinner," and 
quaff the pint of beer provided for them out 
of a fund collected from the ships' companies. 
These visits occasioned deep alarm among 
the peaceable people of Sheerness, who 
expected every day to be subjected to the 
horrors of a siege ; and many of the inhabi- 
tants, principally women and children, fled 
with their movables to Chatham and other 
places, among the former being the wife of 
the master of the dockyard, who escaped 
with three hundred pounds in gold concealed 
about her person. On one occasion, the dele- 
gates paid a visit to the sick seamen in their 
quarters, and used such menacing language 
that the surgeon fled in terror of his life, 
while his assistant took the more desperate 
course of cutting his own throat. The 
obnoxious boatswain of the Proserpine was 
seized on shore, carried off to the fleet, and 
there condemned to death. As the rope 
was being placed round his neck to run him 
up to the yard-arm, he succeeded in whisper- 
ing in the ear of one who was beside him 
that any offence he might have committed 
was done in obedience to the superior ofticers. 
The grim judges — if after all the affair was 
anything more than a practical joke — were 
moved by this appeal to mitigate the penalty 
of death into one of harmless ridicule. His 
hands were tied behind his back ; a large 
mop was fastened on each shoulder, and a 
rope around his neck ; he was then placed 
with these shackles and decorations in a 
boat, and rowed through the fleet in manner 
of a guy, to the sound of the " Rogue's 
March " beat upon a drum ; thereafter he 
was landed at Sheerness, and finally set 
free, after having been marched through the 
dockyard and garrison under a guard of 
mutineers. 

Proposals of the Mutineers ; Fresh 
Blunders and High Jinks. 

After eight days of this huge and danger- 
ous and insane folly. Admiral Buckner 
arrived on board the Sandwich with a pro- 
clamation of pardon, granted on the same 
terms as had been accepted by the Spithead 
seamen, — terms which Parker and the other 
delegates had previously assured him would 
completely satisfy their wishes. The brave 
commander was not even welcomed with the 
customary honours of his rank. He saw that 
his officers were deprived of their side-arms, 
and had no command on board. Parker, 
who had been on shore engaged in a pro- 
cession, at last arrived, and handed him the 
list of articles, eight in number: (i) Asking 
the same indulgence for the Nore seamen as 
had been granted to the men at Portsmouth ; 



(2) greater liberty for every man, so that he 
might be able to visit his friends ; (3) pay- 
ment of all arrears of wages down to six 
months before the ships proceeded to sea ; 
(4) no dismissed officers to be re-employed 
in the same ship without consent of the ship's 
company ; (5) newly pressed men to receive 
two months' advance to furnish them with 
necessaries; (6) indemnification of deserters; 
(7) a more equal distribution of the prize- 
money ; (8) a mitigation of the articles of war. 

Whatever the justice of these claims — the 
first had really been granted in the Ports- 
mouth settlement, and the others (if we 
except the sixth, which is destructive of all 
order) are perfectly capable of defence — the 
tone of dictation which inspires their expres- 
sion, and especially the closing paragraph, is 
indefensible, and forms an unpleasing con- 
trast to the moderate and courteous requests 
of the Spithead men. Buckner saw that his 
authority upon the fleet was gone ; the sea- 
men paid no heed to his remonstrance 
against those " disgraceful ropes called yard- 
ropes" being always kept hanging; and 
among other insolent talk and conduct 
Parker prevented one man from answering a 
question put to him by the admiral, with the 
remark, " Hold your tongue ; if you don't, 
I'll take care of you." 

It would be tedious and fruitless here to 
track out at length the lingering steps of the 
Admiralty, which had in the Spithead crisis 
committed the same blunder and had also 
condemned itself by want of tact, — a blunder 
of which Parker and his associates were too 
late in seeking to grasp the advantage, for 
had they at once stood down the river be- 
yond the difficulties of the buoys and beacons, 
the mutiny of the Nore would not merely 
have convulsed England, but might have 
weakened the foundations of her empire. As 
it happened, the Board at first (23rd May) 
distinctly refused the terms of the mutineers, 
and expressed their determination not to 
visit Sheerness; and two days later again 
transmitted their reply. The reckless assur- 
ance of the mutineers was not lessened one 
iota by these unyielding missives, and it was 
bolstered up by the belief that the same 
spirit of rebellion was stirring in the army. 
On the very day on which the Board's reply 
first reached the fleet, Parker and several 
other delegates forced themselves into the 
presence of Admiral Buckner, in Sheerness, 
formally demanding the liberation of two 
drunken marines ; the foolish president 
taunted him with being no longer admiral ol 
the fleet, as his flag was now struck, and that 
he (Parker) had now the power in his own 
hands. Captain Cunningham, of the Clyde 
on hearing this insult, was "about to seal the 
fate of Parker," but was held back by a 
brother officer; and in the end the intoxicated 



397 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



men were allowed to be carried off to the 
fleet, as it was " a small matter" ! In further 
defiance, a strong party rowed into Sheerness 
harbour, seized a number of gun-boats, 
scaled the guns, and threatened to fire on 
the garrison. On the morning of the 25th, 
every ship in the fleet proceeded to the Nore, 
bearing on the mast-head the bloody flag, 
and every man and virago wore a red ribbon 
in the hat or cap. At this juncture, Parker 
at last took notice of the letters of the Admi- 
ralty, stating that the mutineers would make 
no " accommodation " until the Lords Com- 
missioners appeared in person at the Nore, 
and redressed their grievances. Far from 
being alarmed by the firm front and the 
commands and threats of the Admiralty, 
they had now taken a step, the aim of which 
was to blockade the commerce of the metro- 
polis by stretching a line of armed " wooden 
walls " across the pathway of the Thames ; 
they had already despatched seventeen de- 
puties to enlist Duncan's fleet at Yarmouth 
in the " sailors' cause " ; and on Saturday a 
cutter proceeded up the river to Long Reach, 
to bring down the turbulent Lancaster, the 
Agincourt, and the Naiad to the station at 
the Nore. 

Parker and the Admiralty; Escape 
OF THE " Clyde." 

In spite of all their protestation, Spencer 
and two other Lords of the Admiralty 
flattered the obstinacy of the mutineers by 
paying a short visit to Sheerness ; held an 
interview with their leaders, Spencer actually 
submitting to hear from the lips of Parker, 
who acted as spokesman for his twelve 
disciples, the insulting remark — " Go and 
consult the ringleaders of your gang!" My 
Lords thereupon returned to town, empty- 
handed as they came, leaving the men "to 
become temperate at their leisure," — the 
sarcastic expression used in a letter of Earl 
Howe, the peacemaker of Spithead, who 
attributes the " seeming reasonable discon- 
tents " to the incompetence of the persons 
who had the immediate superintendence of 
the seamen, to the delays in the Admiralty 
courts, and the chicanery of practitioners and 
prize-agents. 

The proclamation of the royal pardon was 
sent to the fleet, but was suffered to be read 
on only seven of the ships. Two of these, 
the Clyde and St. Fiorenzo, instantly and 
unanimously hauled down the bloody flag, 
hoisting the white one in its place, amid three 
rounds of deafening cheers. On other ships 
a determined struggle was carried on be- 
tween the parties of resistance and sub- 
mission ; the captains made strenuous efforts 
to support the latter ; alternately the red and 
white colours were hoisted and lowered ; but 
in the end the former triumphed. The guns 



of the ruthless Inflexible, the coryphseus of 
the mutiny, were pointed at the loyal Clyde, 
which once more hoisted the bloody flag out 
of respect for this strong pressure. But the 
two submissive ships, which the Inflexible 
offered to go alongside with the object of 
taking vengeance on the officers and every ' 
tenth man, were determined on escape from 
the clutches of the mutinous vessels. A 
little after midnight, on the 30th, the Clyde 
drifted in dead silence up the river with the 
flood-tide, and at sunrise came off Garrison 
Point, near Sheerness, greeted by volleys of 
cheers from the soldiers on the shore. 
Shortly after midday, the St. Fiorenzo took 
the opposite course, and ran through the 
mutinous fleet under fire, with only a slight 
damage to her rigging ; but down the river 
she encountered another danger, in the shape 
of a number of vessels from the North Sea 
Fleet on their way to join the "brethren" 
at the Nore. As she still prudently and 
fortunately kept the bloody flag flying at 
her masthead, the new recruits gave her an 
ovation of mutinous cheers, amid which she 
sped on her way to the harbour of Harwichy 
in order to convey to the Continent the 
book-hunting Prince of Wiirtemberg and 
his happy English bride. 

Arrival of the North Sea Fleet? 
Blockade of the Thames. 

This defection, but for the accession of 
fresh blood from Yarmouth, would probably 
have ended the odious mutiny. Parker had 
learned at last that the soldiers were against 
him. A band of mutineers had met a 
regiment on its arrival at Sheerness gar- 
rison, and one of them, relying on the 
sympathy of the privates, had thrust a red 
flag in the face of the commanding officer ; 
but as his insult was not received as he had 
anticipated, he was compelled to fly for his 
life, seeking safety in a haystack, from which 
he was ignominiously dragged and carried 
off to prison. At the same time that the 
daily arrivals of vessels from the North Sea 
Fleet lent a new courage to the mutineers, 
their departure from the command of Ad- 
miral Duncan was a serious peril to the 
shores of England. It was with a sad heart 
that the brave old Scotsman, in a few months 
to become the hero of Camperdown, awoke 
one morning to find that his whole arma- 
ment had forsaken him, his own flagship 
and another vessel being all that were now 
left him to proceed with to the Texel and hold 
the Dutch fleet at bay. He summoned his 
crew on deck, made a touching speech that 
melted every one of his " brave lads " into 
tears, in the spirit of true British heroism 
proceeded to the Texel, and day after day 
made a show of signalling as if to vessels in 
the offing, so as to keep the Dutch squadron 



398 



THE MUTINIES AT SPITHEAD AND THE NORE. 



under the delusion that the rest of the fleet 
was near. Fortunately for England, this 
ruse was thoroughly successful. 

Conferences, indeed, were still held on 
shore between the delegates and the autho- 
rities, but Parker was now daring enough to 
defy the royal proclamation, which presented 
the alternative of the articles or uncon- 
ditional submission, and to denounce it to 
the Admiral as "foolish and irritating to 
honest men ; " he and his fellow ringleaders, 
knowing that for them at least there was 
no place for repentance, decided on dying 
" game." The commerce of the Thames and 
the Medway was now completely blocked ; 
on either hand of the fleet there was a 
perfect forest of masts, among other vessels 
detained at Gravesend by order of the 
Government being the ships of the Hudson's 
Bay Company, which usually sailed in May; 
the metropolis itself trembled in fear of a 
siege. Fishing-boats, however, were per- 
mitted to ply upon the idle waters of the 
Thames, and a few merchantmen were 
allowed to pass upwards by virtue of an 
order signed by " Richard Parker, Presi- 
dent." 

The wrath of the British lion was at last 
roused. The city and the parliament rose 
in giant anger and strength. On the 3rd 
of June an Act of Parliament declared any 
person liable to the penalty of death who 
should endeavour to seduce sailors or soldiers 
from their duty ; and three days later a still 
more drastic Act forbade every species of 
intercourse with mutinous vessels. The 
Commissioners of the Admiralty instantly 
declared the Sandwich and her comrades in 
a state of mutiny. There could be no mercy 
but by their will to any one of the thousands 
of mutineers. 

The rebels passed in turn from signs of 
loyalty to deeds of barbarous defiance. 
They lowered the bloody flag, hoisted the 
royal flag, and fired a salute of twenty-one 
guns on the 4th'*of June, the King's birth- 
day. After a mock trial for " conspiracy," 
they lashed severely a number of mates and 
other officers on the Monmouth, also shaving 
the head of one offender. They ducked 
officers, with several souses, from the yard- 
arm ; they tarred and feathered them, and 
thus rowed them through the fleet, — bar- 
barities which, recited by the officers when 
set on shore, hastened the day of retribution. 
In sore straits for fresh provisions, the 
mutineers were forced into acts of piracy. 
Not content with rifling the stores of two 
store-ships, the Grampus and Serapis, they 
stole the flour of trading vessels ; seized the 
salmon of Scottish smacks (in one case 
Parker gave the master an order on the 
Admiralty !) ; half-murdered the master of a 
Dutch scoot and his two sons for daring to 



beg a few shillings from the robber-" admiral " 
to keep them from starving in London ; and 
tried their hand at sheep-stealing and cattle- 
lifting on the Isle of Sheppy. The very 
surgeons had deserted them. Fifty or sixty ^ 
sick whom they sent to the Spanker, a' 
hospital ship, were ordered back by the 
Admiral, and these poor fellows carried back 
in their repentant bosoms copies of the 
latest royal proclamation. This helped to 
burst the Parker bubble. 

The treasure-chest had been removed to 
Chatham from timid Sheerness. Strong 
forces of the military were summoned to 
London, and stationed down the river ; the 
naval officers of the East India Company 
who were at home tendered their services \ 
the companies of London sent down volun- 
teers ; vessels were rapidly manned by 
Government, under the direction of Sir 
Erasmus Gower; the Medway and Sheer- 
ness harbours were closed by booms and 
chains ; batteries were planted to command 
the rebels, and furnaces were heated to make 
the balls red-hot for action ; finally, to hinder 
all escape, the buoys and beacons at the 
mouth of the Thames were removed. The 
question was now — starvation or surrender? 

They tried their last mad mission upon 
the 6th. They sent up Lord Northesk with 
their stern ultimatum, to be answered in 
fifty-four hours ; if unanswered, " something 
would happen that would astonish the 
nation," — they would put to sea. The reply 
was, — unconditional submission. 

Hanging Pitt ; Parker's Washer- 
woman. 

Captain Brenton, of the Agamemnojt, one 
of four vessels of Duncan's fleet, that arrived 
upon the 6th of June, describes a freak 
which caused no small alarm on shore. "At 
sunrise I was awoke by the report of great 
guns and musketry, and saw what I supposed 
to be officers and men hanging at the yard- 
arms of some of the ships. They were run 
up in the smoke of the guns, in the manner 
usually practised at naval executions. While 
hanging, ■ volleys of musketry were fired at 
them ; and we concluded we were very soon 
to share the same fate ; nor was it till two 
or three hours afterwards that we were 
undeceived, and informed that the figures 
suspended were only effigies meant to re- 
present the Right Hon. William Pitt and 
Dundas, whom they familiarly termed " Billy 
Pitt," and considered their greatest enemy." 

The Serapis had cut itself free from the 
mutinous leash upon the 6th, suffering some 
damage from the guns. Two days later a 
captain arrived at the fleet with copies of 
the Acts, and the royal proclamation. The 
"admiral" read them to the crews, but 
omitted all mention of a pardon. In this 



399 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY 



procession he made some strange speeches. 
The King had called them rebels. " I say 
we are honest men ; I and my brother 
delegates are all united and acting in 
the cause of Immxnity ; and while life 
animates the heart of Dick Parker, he will 
be true to the cause." In answer to the 
charge of peculating the money contributed 
by the seamen to the delegates, he said: "That 
is false ; I owe my washerwoman eigbteen- 
pence, and I have not even money to pay 
her ; " whereupon a disrespectful tar ex- 
claimed, "Why then, you're a precious 
admiral indeed ! " 

Break-up of the Mutiny ; Seizure and 
Sentence of the President. 
The charm was broken. There arose a 
dearth of water and fresh provisions ; the 
tyranny and the curses of Parker were like 
the scourges of Rehoboam ; the fact of his 
treacherous concealment of the pardon 
leaked out and spread like wildfire. _ The 
terror increased to madness when it was 
known that the merchants of London would 
never admit a mutineer into their service. 
On the 9th, a lieutenant of the Leopard 
unmasked the battery on her main deck; 
sailors ran aloft and loosed the top-sails ; her 
cables were cut, and away she floated up the 
Thames to Gravesend amid a rain of fire. A 
terrific struggle took place on board between 
the loyalists and rebels, during which a 
lieutenant received a mortal wound. The 
Repulse followed on the same day, ran 
aground, and lay for an hour and a half 
under the fire of the whole fleet ; she escaped 
after terrible mutilation. When she had 
almost reached Gravesend, some of the 
mutineers formed a plot to blow her up, but 
this was discovered in time, and the dis- 
affected were thrown in irons. 

On that morning Parker gave the signal 
to put out to sea. The fore top-sail of the 
Sandwich was loosed, a gun was fired, every 
ship answered ; but not one obeyed, for in 
spite of their mutiny the crews remembered 
still that they were Britons. The cries of 
the famishing and thirsty women and chil- 
dren were pitiful. A vote of want of confi- 
dence was passed against the rebel president, 
whose charm was at last broken ; the crews 
were broken up into parties of " Republicans" 
and " Loyahsts " ; flags of truce passed con- 
stantly from the Nore to the Sheerness ; but 



the mutineers, although otherwise casting 
themselves upon the royal clemency, gallantly 
refused to surrender the ringleaders, and in- 
sisted on a general pardon. Utter despair 
had roused the crews to madness, and on the 
evening of Monday the 12th of June, the 
union flag rose and fell by turns on every 
ship ; signals of distress were displayed, and 
during all that night and morning horrid 
scenes of violence and bloodshed occurred 
among the crews, in one case the struggling 
parties firing at each other, the guns being 
placed in opposite parts of the ship. Two 
men — one of whom was a Scotsman with the 
heroic narjie of V/iUiam Wallace — committed 
suicide in order to escape the ignominy of a 
public execution ; and, according to the cus- 
tom of the time, they were buried in a cross- 
road, " with a stake in their inside." It was 
expected that Parker would attempt to 
escape, and a proclamation offered a reward 
oi £^00 for his apprehension. 

By Wednesday afternoon almost every 
vessel had hoisted the white flag in token of 
surrender; and on the following day (15th 
June) the dishonoured Sandwich herself 
floated into port within gunshot of the Sheer- 
ness battery. The flag of her true admiral 
was at once hoisted ; Dick Parker, whilom 
"president " and "' admiral," was fast pinioned 
and landed at the Commissioner's Stairs, 
amid the hisses of the crowd. Altogether 
some 300 prisoners were made by the military 
in the surrendered ships, but of these only 
twenty-three underwent the punishment of 
death. Parker, the arch-rebel, was lodged 
for a few hours in the " black hole " under 
the chapel of Sheerness garrison, was then 
conveyed to Maidstone, and after a three 
days' trial by court-martial on board the 
Neptune, during which he made an able and 
cool defence of his conduct, was sentenced 
to be hanged by the neck till he was dead. 
A gift of five pounds sent to him by his 
brother was received with the pleasant re- 
mark that he would " have roast goose before 
he died." At half-past nine, on the last day 
of the leafy month of June, his body hung 
lifeless on the yard-arm of the Sandwich; 
and in the short space of seven minutes, so 
bright was the atmosphere, the Admiralty 
learned by telegraphic signals that the most 
notorious and dangerous of English mutineers 
was dead. 

M. M. 




400 




BRITISH CHARTERS OF LIBERTY; 

FROM KING JOHN TO QUEEN VICTORIA. 



The Barons and their Dependents— Royalty and the Barons— The early Charter of William and Henry I.— Constitutions 
of Clarendon — The Assize of Northampton — King John and the Barons — The Conference at St. Albans — The 
Meeting in the Temple— The Tryst at Runymede — Magna Charta — Its Clauses explained— Rage of John — The 
Confirmations of the Charter— Parliamentary Influence— Petition of Right— Charles and the Parliament— The 
Revolution— William and Mary— Bill of Rights— Declaration of Rights— The Act of Settlement— Modern Measures 
— The Chartists — The Kennington Scare — Conclusion. 




The Feudal System. 
HEN the eleventh century was draw- 
ing to a close the Feudal System 
was fully developed on the Continent ; 
and though it is not necessary to do more 
than refer to it, we must brieiiy consider the 
relations of the barons and their vassals, to 
arrive at the state of things which led to the 
demands for Magna Charta. William, with 
his Norman knights, had conquered the inde- 
pendent Saxons, and accordingly found it 
very necessary to maintain their feudal 



401 



organization, and to exercise a certain autho- 
rity upon the serfs who were within their 
jurisdiction. The castle dominated the vil- 
lage, and the baron reigned over the "villeins," 
or tillers of the soil. 

In the castle he had built dwelt the Nor- 
man baron with his family ; and here he 
passed his time when not out upon any 
warlike expedition. The people surrounding 
the castle were kept in a state of vassalage 
and degradation, and looked back with regret 
to the mild and beneficent laws of Edward 

DD 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the Confessor, in whose days they were an 
independent and prosperous community. 
This spirit of independence had not been 
crushed by the Norman Conquest ; and when 
William, in 1070, was recalled to England by 
urgent messages in consequence of the dis- 
affection of the people, he promulgated a 
Charter, or body of laws, " being the same 
which his predecessor and cousin observed 
before him," to conciliate his subjects. 

This instrument, the confirmation of the 
laws of Edward the Confessor, formed the 
first stepping-stone to the Great Charter 
wrung from John Lackland in the pastures 
of Runymede. 

But after a time each individual baron 
sought to enrich himself by robbery and 
spoliation. The barons thus became more and 
more isolated in their "fiefs"; and the Norman 
kings took every advantage of these circum- 
stances to aggrandize themselves at the ex- 
pense of the individual baron,when practicable. 
Encroachments by royalty soon became 
distasteful to these paramount lords, and they 
found it desirable to band themselves together 
to resist the too great power wielded by the 
king ; and in these conditions they at one 
time found factious assistance in Stephen 
the usurper, and in others who aspired to 
wield the British sceptre and to wear the 
English crown. We find from history that 
William II., Henry I,, and Stephen all and 
each had to obtain the goodwill and assist- 
ance of the great feudal lords, who were able 
to enforce their demands respecting their 
privileges and liberties. 

Again, if we peruse the history of Eng- 
land during the reign of Richard I., we shall 
see how the various factions arose in Eng- 
land while the regency of John was con- 
tinued. His never-ceasing intrigue gave rise 
to many such divisions, and even before that 
time the regency appointed by Richard had 
been the cause of strife. A struggle for power 
arose between Pudsey, the Chief Justiciary, 
Bishop of Durham, and Longchanip, Bishop 
of Ely, so another regency was decided 
upon, the three additional justiciaries 
being Hugh Bardolf, William Briwere, and 
Longchamp. The lastnamed soon assumed 
chief authority ; and when after a time Prince 
John gave himself all the airs of an heir- 
apparent, his adherents and those of Long- 
champ came into collision; and a disadvan- 
tageous treaty was concluded, by which 
John gained virtual possession of several 
royal castles, to be delivered finally to him 
should Richard die. The Regent was soon 
obliged to yield altogether, and he then fled 
from England. But the barons had had a 
taste of the sweets of power, and fancied 
themselves entitled to a share in the govern- 
ment ; while " Longbeard " stirred up the 
populace to a dangerous pitch. 



Things were so when John mounted the 
throne. The conflict between the races had 
in a great measure died out. The barons 
and the king's adherents were the opposing 
factions. John was not a sovereign to forego 
any of his privileges or rights, unless abso- 
lutely forced to do so ; and the barons, 
believing that they too had certain privileges, 
wished to compel the recognition of them. 
John's barons would not assist him against 
France, and he was universally detested for 
his conduct and crimes. To add to his 
unpopularity he managed to quarrel with the 
Pope, and one consequence of this was the 
interdict, which filled England with "lamen- 
tation, and mourning, and woe." 

The Earlier Charters. 

It may be accepted as a fact, that the 
charter by which William of Normandy 
agreed to follow the laws of Edward the 
Confessor, was the first one granted by the 
Normans. Henry I. also granted a charter, 
in which he promised to redress all the 
grievances of the former reigns, and one 
clause distinctly renews the laws of the 
Confessor, " with those emendations with 
which my father amended them with the 
advice of the barons." This charter of 
Henry I. was a very important one, although 
the various enactments were never carefully 
observed by the King. Its provisions were 
as follows, and it served as a basis for the 
Great Charter wrung from the pusillanimous 
John. 

When Henry I. came to the throne, his first 
act on the very day of his accession was to 
inform his subjects that they would surely 
derive great benefits from his rule. This 
was very politic on his part, as his weak 
claim to the throne required something to 
support it, and by uniting the interests of the 
people with his own, he secured the kingdom. 
His charter ran thus : — 

(i) To the Church : That on the death of 
an archbishop, bishop, or abbot, he would 
neither sell, nor let to farm, nor accept any- 
thing from the possessions of the Church nor 
its tenants during the vacancy of the see or 
benefice. 

(2) He granted to all his barons and 
vassals in chief the remission of various 
exactions to which they had been subjected, 
and declared that they should equally relieve 
their tenants. The king's license for his 
vassals' weddings was still retained, but with- 
out fee, and should not be refused unless the 
intended husband were an enemy. Widows 
were not to be married without their free 
consent, lyiothers of children had the ward- 
ship and custody of them and their lands. 

The right of a vassal to bequeath pro- 
perty by will was admitted, and fines for 
offences were not to be levied as the king 



402 



BRITISH CHARTERS OF LIBERTY. 



might desire, but according to the nature of 
the offence. 

(3) Generally to the nation the King 
granted the laws of Edward the Confessor, 
as altered by William I. He agreed to levy 
no " moneyage " which had not been paid in 
the Sa3ton king's time, and vendors and 
coiners of light money were to be severely 
punished. All military tenants were exempted 
from land taxes and burthens ; all fines due 
and pecuniary mulcts for murder before his 
accession were remitted. Henry also ordered 
the fullest reparation to be made for all his 
brother's former injustice. 

Such were the chief provisions of the 
charter of Henry I., which gave general satis- 
faction, except in the matter of the preserva- 
tion of the hunting forests, which the King 
determined 'to retain for his own use and 
indulgence. The marriage of Henry with 
Matilda of Scotland crowned the edifice of 
concession. 

But the barons did not approve of these 
concessions of the King and of the clauses 
directed against their irresponsibility. When 
Robert of Normandy landed to claim the 
English crown they held aloof; but the 
people thronged to the King's standard, and 
presented so formidable an array that the 
Normans feared to attack. When peace had 
been concluded, Henry revenged himself on 
his barons, and despoiled many of them, 
seizing all their possessions. By these and 
other means Henry gained the goodwill of the 
people, while he crushed the feudal barons 
and raised up another class of knights upon 
whom the ancient barons looked in scorn. 

Stephen and Henry II. confirmed the 
"" Scholar's " charter, and we find that the 
usurper particularly favoured the Church, to 
which he owed his exaltation; but Henry II., 
while transacting all the chief business of the 
nation with the help of a legislative council, 
took care to retain his own authority. The 
Constitutions of Clarendon (sixteen in all) 
were the outcome of the controversy between 
Becket and the King respecting the treatment 
•of offending clerics, and the latter made great 
complaint of the extortions of the Ecclesias- 
tical Courts. The Constitutions " concern 
questions of advowson and presentation to 
churches in the King's gift, the trial of clerks, 
the security to be taken of the excommu- 
nicated, the trial of laymen for spiritual 
offences, the excommunication of tenants in 
chief, the license of the clergy to go abroad, 
ecclesiastical appeals, which were not to go 
farther than the archbishop without the 
consent of the king, questions of title to 
ecclesiastical estates, baronial duties of 
prelates, the election to bishoprics, the right 
of the king to the goods of felons deposited 
under the protection of the Church." These 
provisions led to the exile of Becket. The 



Assize of Clarendon, which has been regarded 
as a re-enactment of the " Constitutions," was 
afterwards arranged. 

The Assize contained twenty-two articles 
respecting the presentment of criminals and 
the mode of trial by jury. "Twelve lawful 
men from each hundred, and four from each 
township, were sworn to present those who 
were known as criminals within their district 
for trial by ordeal." Another article enacted 
that " no stranger might abide in any place 
save a borough, and only there for a single 
night, unless sureties were given for his good 
behaviour." 

The Assize of Northampton, issued in 1 176, 
was intended as a code of instructions for 
the itinerant justices, as the Assize of Claren- 
don had been. It referred to the infliction 
of punishments on felons and rebels, and the 
demolishment of certain forfeited strong- 
holds. The country was divided into six 
circuits for the purpose. 

These various charters or enactments were 
all very important, not only to the English 
constitution, but as the beginning of the legal 
forms and usages now so beneficial. Judicial 
and financial progress was steadily made, 
for Henry II. was certainly a legislator of 
much talent, and one of the greatest politi- 
cians of the time. 

King John and the Barons. 

We have already briefly noticed the steps 
by which John made himself so thoroughly 
obnoxious to the English people, who had, 
during the preceding reign, acknowledged 
the law of the land. All classes, from the 
barons downwards, had become accustomed 
to regard the law, instead of the dictates of 
the King, who was so long absent ; and thus 
a respect for the constitutional enactments 
superseded the doctrine of might. Normans 
and English were already becoming an 
united people when John ascended the 
British throne. 

Lord Chatham once said that the " Bible 
of the EngHsh Constitution" might be 
summed up in Magna Charta, the Petition 
of Right, and the Bill of Rights, and it is 
with the first of these three chapters that we 
have now to do. " The Great Charter," says 
Stubbs in his Constitutional History, "is 
the first great public act of the nation after 
it has realized its own identity, the consum- 
mation of the work for which, unconsciously, 
kings, prelates, and lawyers have been 
labouring for a century. . . . It is in one 
view the summing up of a period of national 
life ; in another, the starting-point of a new 
and not less eventful period than that which 
it closes." 

John's manners and scandalous irregulari- 
ties in every way had completely disgusted 
the English people; and when he surrendered 



403 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



himself as the vassal of the Pope, public 
opinion condemned him, althougti he was 
certainly supported by some of the barons. 
The King was a vassal, and when the barons 
failed to gain their demands from him, they 
appealed to the Pope, on the ground that 
had it not been for their influence, the King 
would never have consented to become 
Innocent's vassal. They refused to go 
abroad when summoned by the King, for 
he hadmade himself so thoroughly despicable 
and despotic that they dechned his authority. 

The northern barons openly defied the 
King ; and these were the families who had, 
as already remarked, been raised up to 
baronial dignity by Henry. They were not 
all Normans ; many were English, and 
men who had close sympathies with their 
adherents, not feudal lords who cared only 
for their own aggrandizement. " They had 
been trained under the eye of Glanville and 
Richard de Lucy, and had been uniformly 
faithful to the King against the greater 
feudatories. . . . They were the forefathers of 
the great north-country party which fought 
the battle of the constitution during the 
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries." * 

John had ascended the English throne 
monarch of a mighty empire. Within a 
few years he had been stripped of all his 
foreign possessions, and Normandy was lost, 
and then he was obliged to turn all his 
attention to his limited realm. So with the 
barons, who "gradually came to regard 
England as their country, and Englishmen 
as their countrymen. The two races, so long 
hostile, soon found they had common in- 
terests and common enemies. The great- 
grandsons of those who had fought under 
William, and the great-grandsons of those 
who had fought under Harold, began to 
draw near each other in friendship, and 
the first pledge of reconciliation was the 
(Jreat Charter." t 

Conference of the Barons. 

While John was sailing to Jersey, the 
barons, under the presidency of FitzPeter 
the Justiciary, met at St. Alban's on the 4th 
of August, 12 1 3. This meeting had for its 
object an inquiry into the amount due to the 
plundered spiritual lords, and was attended 
by representatives from the townships as 
well as by the prelates. The discussion of 
the compensation, however, was not the 
only one introduced ; indeed, it was only 
the ostensible cause of the council or con- 
ference. FitzPeter and Archbishop Langton 
took a speedy occasion to put before the 
assembly the results of the misrule to which 
they had been subjected. 



Stubbs. 



f Macaulay. 



The resolutions at which the conference 
arrived were soon put forth by the Justiciary 
as a royal proclamation, by which the 
charter of Henry I. was ordered to be 
obeyed ; and pronounced capital punish- 
ment upon those who should exceed their 
duty, "whether sheriff's, foresters, or officers 
of the king." Here we have Henry's charter 
brought forward as the basis of English 
liberties; and the composition of the council, 
containing as it did the representatives of 
the people, seems to point to that occasion 
as the first recorded instance of a national 
assembl}-. If any ignorance existed in the 
minds of individuals as to the specific con- 
ditions of Henry's charter, Langton quickly 
supplied the information. 

On the 25th of August another council 
was summoned at St. Paul's in London ; and 
on this occasion the charter of Henry I. was 
actually produced, and comments were made 
upon it. The enthusiasm of the barons was 
aroused, and an oath was administered to 
them by which they agreed to die, if neces- 
sary, in defence of their liberties. John had 
meantime arrived in England ; and hearing 
what had occurred at St. Alban's, he swore 
to punish the "traitors." He advanced to 
Northampton with his usual headlong im- 
petuosity ; but there the Archbishop over- 
took him, and begged him to reconsider his 
determination, and to proceed in a more 
judicial fashion. This was in September 
1213. 

In October the Justiciary laid the claims 
of the barons before the King ; and soon 
afterwards was taken ill and died. " Now," 
exclaimed John, "I am for the first time 
king and lord of England," — a most un- 
gracious speech ; for had it not been for 
FitzPeter, the violence of the people would 
have broken out against the King, who was 
only shielded by his trusty justiciary. The 
Pope finally was appealed to, and he sup- 
ported John his vassal, and nothing of any 
great importance succeeded during the re- 
mainder of the year 12 13, except the fore- 
shadowing of parliament by the assembling 
by the King's writ of the council at Oxford. 
In 1 2 14, John went abroad. The barons as- 
sembled at Bury St. Edmunds under pretext 
of pilgrimage ; and there they entered into 
a league, and made a solemn oath that if the 
King would not relieve their grievances, they 
would withdraw their fealty and allegiance, 
and make war upon him until by sealed 
charter he should confirm the privileges 
they sought,* — the laws and liberties of the 
people. 

* " Ipsi ei guerram tamdiu moverent ut ab ejus 
fidelitate se subtraherent donee eis per cartam 
sigillo suo munitam confirmarcnt omnia qasg pete- 
bant." — Paris. 



404 



BRITISH CHARTERS OF LIBERTY. 



Holingshed calls this a '■ cloked pilgrim- 
age/'' in which, "at the abbey of Burie, they 
uttered their complaint of the King's tyran- 
nical manners." "The chief cause that 
moved the lords to this conspiracy," con- 
tinues our old chronicler, " rose by reason 
the King demanded scutage of them that 
refused to go with him to Poictou ; and they, 
on the other hand, maintained that they 
were not bound to pay it. . . . Finally, it was 
determined that shortly after Christmas they 
should go to the King, and require of him 
that they might have those laws restored 
which he had promised to them." 

The King did not return until October, 
when he concluded an ignominious peace 
with Philip of France. At Christmas-time 
he went to Worcester, but eventually hur- 
ried to London, and shut himself up in the 
Temple, where, on the 6th of January, on the 
Feast of the Epiphany, the barons assembled 
to present to him their demands. The King 
at first attempted to "ride the high horse," 
and endeavoured to insist upon the barons 
withdrawing their claims, and one or two 
even consented. But the majority decidedly 
refused ; and then John temporized, pro- 
mising to give an answer at Easter ; and he 
used this interval to the greatest advantage 
in endeavouring to explode the conspiracy 
by concessions, and to break up the con- 
federation of the barons. " You must grant 
me time till Easter, that with due delibera- 
tion I may be able to do justice to myself, 
and satisfy the dignity of the crown." 

Many of the barons knew quite well from 
experience the use which the perfidious and 
crafty King would make of the time allotted 
to him ; but when Langton and the Earl of 
Pembroke consented to be surety that the 
King would redeem his promises, the barons 
agreed to the respite, and retired until the 
great festival time should call them forth 
again. The King immediately cast about to 
revenge himself, and adopted a measure 
which he believed would serve his turn. His 
first efforts were directed to the conciliation 
of the Church, in whose favour he at once 
renounced certain privileges, one of which he 
had formerly strongly insisted upon, viz., the 
election of bishops and abbots. By this 
concession he fancied he could win the 
clergy to his side ; and then he turned to the 
populace. 

If he could only succeed in gaining the 
people and the clergy, the barons would have 
no chance with him, so the subtle monarch 
ordered his sheriff to assemble the freemen, 
and tender them a new oath of allegiance ; 
and then as a checkmate he complained to 
the Pope of the conduct of his vassals the 
barons, who also sent a messenger to Inno- 
cent ; but the Pope soon made it evident in 
his reply to Archbishop Langton that he 



considered John was right ; and Innocent 
hoped by these means to stifle the agitation. 
But the thunders ofthe Church were unnoticed 
under the circumstances. Langton took no 
heed of the Pope's letter; and then John^ 
putting himself under the protection of the 
Cross, fancied his person and possessions 
were secure under its shadow. 

Easter arrived, and the barons assembled 
in great array at Stamford. The King was 
at Oxford. From Stamiford the malcontents 
marched to Brackley, near the University 
city, where they met a deputation from King 
John, Langton being at the head of it. 
The barons at once handed to the deputa- 
tion the parchment containing the details of 
the privileges they desired. " These are our 
claims," they said, "and if they are not 
instantly granted our arms shall do us 
justice." 

Langton with the others withdrew, and put 
the proposal of the barons before the King. 
John flew into a terrible rage when he had 
perused the conditions, and swore his favourite 
oath that he would not grant them. " And why 
do not they demand my crown also?" he 'cried 
in a fury. " I will not grant them liberties 
which will make me a slave." But he imme- 
diately endeavoured to win the opposite side 
by vague concessions and evasive offers, 
while Pandulph, the legate or nuncio, wished 
the barons to be excommunicated eii masse. 
But this friendly suggestion Cardinal Lang- 
ton declined to carry out ; and the barons 
appealed to arms, proclaiming themselves 
" the army of God and ofthe Holy Church." 
They disclaimed all allegiance to the King 
at Wallingford, and were absolved from their 
allegiance. 

Robert FitzWalter was chosen as their 
commander, and the discontented bands 
marched to attack Northampton castle. 
Robert FitzWalter was a very powerful noble, 
and lord of Baynard's castle. His daughter 
had been wooed dishonourably by the King, 
whose advances the maiden, called Maude the 
Fair, had contemptuously repelled. When 
the lady died — which she did soon after her 
refusal of the King's attentions — there were 
not wanting reports to the effect that John 
had caused her to be poisoned for the rejec- 
tion of his suit. Under such circumstances 
did the King stir up the wrath and indigna- 
tion of the nobles. His despotism and lust 
were unbridled. Yet with all this he had " a 
strange gift of attracting friends and of win- 
ning the love of women." 

The barons met with no success at Nor- 
thampton, and after a vain attempt to subdue 
the castle they quitted it for Bedford, where 
the governor was one of their own order. 
Here they were received; and as they were in 
consultation, a deputation was received from 
' London. The malconients immediately set 



403 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



out ; and continuing their march all through 
the summer night, the barons reached 
London early on the morning of Sunday the 
24th of May, when they found the gates open 
and a majority of the inhabitants at church. 
Everything had gone well. The barons 
entered London by Aldgate unmolested and 
quite unknown to the royalists. The incomers 
at once took possession of the gates before 
the Court in the Tower were aware of their 
coming ; and when they had full possession 
of the city they began to massacre the Jews. 
John was in the Tower of London and greatly 



chosen by the barons not because it was so 
convenient for the King at Windsor, but 
because it was an usual place for conferences 
to be holden. The spot is now familiar to 
all who travel on the Thames, and Magna 
Charta Island is an extremely picturesque 
bit of scenery viewed from the Berkshire 
shore. On that day, the 15th of June, 121 5, 
it wore a very different aspect. From 
Windsor came the King with his sadly re- 
duced retinue across the royal park to the 
Thames bank, and opposite could be per- 
ceived a great crowd of knights in chain 




Magna Charta Island. 



alarmed. The Earl of Pembroke offered to 
go as mediator, and the King sent a message 
saying he was prepared to grant all their 
demands. Let them appoint a time and 
place for a conference. 

The nobles went, and Fitz Walter's reply 
was concise and to the point : " We appoint 
the 15th of June and for the place Runy- 
mede." 

The Tryst at Runymede. 
Runymede * on the Thames was the spot 



* The Runing or Running Mede, as some say. 
Races were once held there, and meetings were 



armour, accompanied by pages bearing their 
shields. Mitred bishops and holy abbots, 
crowned king and regal state mingled with 
helm and spear and shield to keep the tryst 
at Runymede on the 15th of June. 

Beyond the intervening trees stood Windsor 
Castle on its height, while Cooper Hill rose 
close by, and the chalk downs of Bucks in the 
distance over the forest. Boats and barges, 
citizens and soldiers, men, women, and 
children, came out from Staines and London 
to behold the sisjht — a memorable one indeed 



frequently appointed at the spot, hence the Anglo- 
Saxon Rune-Mead. 



406 



BRITISH CHARTERS OF LIBERTY, 



— which was to be seen on the Rune-Mead or 
Council Meadow, bounded by the silver i 
Thames. 

"Here was that Charter sealed, wherein the Crown I 
All marks of arbitrary power laid down ; i 

Tyrant and slave, those names of hate and fear, 
The happier style of king and subject bear ; 
Happy when both to the same centre move. 
When kings give Uberty and subjects love." 

Tuesday in Whitsun week, the 9th of June, 
had been the day originally suggested by the 
King for the meeting with the barons. He 
came up fromOdiham to Merton for the pur- 
pose, and granted " sure conduct " to the re- 
bellious vassals. But circumstances deferred 
the assembly until the following Monday, the 
15th, when John had proceeded to Windsor. 
This was "Trinity Monday;" and on that 
day the barons with their attendants, and 
accompanied by a numerous concourse of 
citizens, arrived at the Council Meadow. 

The opposing bands encamped separately ; 
and, according to Sir William Blackstone, the 
conference lasted several days. The con- 
trast between the retinue of the King and 
the numbers of his enemies must have been 
sufficient to prove to John that his despotic 
power had come to an end. These were no 
mere suppliants ; they had come to demand 
concessions, and were, moreover, in a position 
to enforce their demands. On one bank of 
the Thames the small array of force — about 
seventy adherents — surrounded the King. 
In the meadows opposite, on the Surrey side, 
were the armed host of the disaffected. 
Between them lay a small island or islet, 
which was destined to be known for all time 
as the Magna Charta eyot. 

Preliminaries were entered into, and the 
serious business of the hour was gradually 
led up to by unmeaning discussion. The 
King knew he had no escape ; the barons, 
with the populace, were equally aware of it ; 
and after some fencing the articles were 
drawn up, to be afterwards embodied in the 
form of a charter. To these articles the 
King affixed his signature, the Royal Seal ; 
and Magna Charta, the Great Charter of 
English liberties, was an accomplished fact. 

During all the transactions the wily 
monarch had fully borne out his character 
for dissimulation. His manner, always good, 
was studiously polite and even cheerful. He 
conversed freely with the barons ; he made 
voluntary promises, and agreed to the pro- 
mulgation of the articles with apparent good- 
will and readiness. But when he returned { 
to Windsor and the assembly had dissolved, • 
when the deed had been done, and only the j 
remembrance of his unlimited power re- i 
mained to him, he behaved like a madman. 
His rage is described as awful. He cursed 
the day he was born, rolled about wildly, 



gnashed his teeth, tore sticks in his mouth, 
and really appeared for the time possessed 
with an evil spirit. 

But his few friends begged him to keep 
quiet, and rather to seek his revenge than to 
indulge in such useless passions. He took 
their advice, and sent to secure mercenaries 
and the interposition of the Pope. The 
barons left Runymede triumphantly, and 
proceeded to Stamford, where they learnt 
that the King had eluded the restoration of 
their lands, and after some interviews and 
protestations war was declared between the 
King and his barons. 

The Great Charter. 

The original of Magna Charta, though in 
a mutilated condition, is still in existence in 
the National Museum. It will be sufficient 
for us to comment upon the principal clauses, 
with passing reference to the state of things 
at the time which gave rise to the articles in 
the charter, and which called so loudly for 
remedy. The privileges were granted by the 
King on the understanding that he thereby 
secured the adherence of all estates in the 
realm. The articles were "written upon 
parchment," says Sir William Blackstone in 
his introductory preface to the Charters, "ten 
inches and three quarters broad, and twenty- 
one and a half in length, including the 
fold for receiving the label." The King's 
seal is affixed. There was also an agree- 
ment delivering the custody of the city and 
Tower of London to the barons till the charter 
was carried into execution. The Great 
Charter contains sixty-three clauses in ad- 
dition to the preamble, and its first clause 
declares the freedom of the EngHsh Church, 

We can now examine, by the help of the 
various ancient and modern authorities at 
hand, the amount of the liberties granted by 
the Charter, and those, for convenience' sake, 
may be divided into four separate groups or 
classes : — 

(i) We have, in the first place, certain 
privileges granted to the clergy and the 
Church. 

(2) Secondly, there are concessions made 
to the barons and other nobles " who held of 
the King, in capites 

C3) We have the clauses more directly 
applying to the citizens, merchants, and 
others in the cities and towns of the king- 
dom, for the encouragement and benefit of 
trade. 

(4) The liberties of the freedmen. 

In the above summary the lower classes, 
such as the serfs and vassals of the lords, are 
not distinctly mentioned, and it does not 
appear that the barons and their friends 
troubled themselves much concerning the 
poor "villeins " who were not free, as against 



407 



EPOCHS AAD EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the lords, though so regarded amongst their 
own peers. 

Lee us look at the first group of clauses, 
which, as will be readily surmised, were 
supervised by Archbishop Langton and his 
ecclesiastical friends, upon whose prede- 
cessors — or some of them — the Constitutions 
of Clarendon had pressed very heavily, and 
with whom they had become a byword and 
a reproach. But we do not find very much in 
the Great Charter concerning the Church. 
" The first article declares the Church shall 
be free, and have her rights entire, and her 
liberties unhurt;" and by this the clergy were 
free to choose their superiors, bishops 
and abbots. The twenty-second article also 
is favourable to the Church, respecting 
"amercement," which shall not be according 
to the quantity of his ecclesiastical benefice, 
but according to his lay tenement ; in other 
words, he shall be treated as a layman, and 
being without lay property, is practically 
exempted. The forty-second article permitted 
free travel of the clergy, a privilege withdrawn 
by the Constitutions of Clarendon, for the 
clause allowed "anyone except prisoners, 
outlaws, or enemies, to leave the kingdom 
and return to it, by land or by water." 

The greater portion of the advantages were 
gained by the barons. The clergy, having 
made themselves much feared, and having 
gained much influence, did not want so much 
redress as the nobles at feud with the King. 
So we find many articles devoted to their 
interests in the Charter. Though the Church 
took precedence, we perceive the barons well 
up in the second article, by which the heir, 
if of age, shall pay only the "ancient relief" 
("from the King's wardship) ; and this clause 
requires some little explanation. 

When an heir was a minor, the King acted 
as his guardian, and we may not doubt 
made great profit of him during the minority; 
and even after he had thus plundered the 
estate, the King demanded a sum as a relief, 
and this was very uncertain and arbitrary. 
Article II. of the Charter fixed the sums 
formerly paid — for an earl or baron, ^loo; 
for a knight, loos. ; and so on in proportion. 
But Article III. declared "a minor who is in 
ward shall have his inheritance free." Often 
besides the robbery of funds, the estates were 
neglected, and in many cases went to "rack and 
ruin" because they were not kept up during 
the minority ; and Articles IV. and V. refer 
to this abuse and provide for its removal. 
The disposal of the heirs in marriage, unless 
they paid to get off, was also a great hardship 
at that time and formerly. So the barons 
took care to insert a clause in their Charter 
to protect themselves according to Henry the 
First's Charter, referring to the marriage of 
heiresses. They accordingly provided in 
Article VI. that "heirs shall be married 



without disparagement, their near blood rela- 
tions having notice beforehand." 

In those "good old times," heiresses as 
well as widows were greatly oppressed, and 
many cases could be quoted in which ladies 
were obliged to pay for their money and 
marriage. The Countess of Warwick and 
the Countess of Chester are two instances in 
which Maud and Lucia respectively paid 
seven hundred marks (^7,000) and five 
hundred marks (^5,000) to be permitted to 
marry whom they pleased, and not within a 
fixed time. The barons took care of the 
widows in the seventh and eighth articles of 
Magna Charta, by which " they were to receive 
their inheritance freely, and not be forced to 
re-marry" in any station of life. This applied 
to feudal lords as well as to the king. 

By the twelfth and fifteenth articles the 
levying of scutage or aids were specially 
limited to the ransoming of the king's 
person, making his eldest son a knight, and 
once for marrying his eldest daughter ; and 
the king shall not empower mesne lords to 
exact other than the ordinary aids to ransom 
the lord's person, to knight his eldest son, 
and once to marry his eldest daughter ; and 
these of reasonalale amount." There were 
also some general clauses respecting the 
military vassals of the Crown, who were 
relieved from certain exactions hitherto levied 
upon them, and the Feudal System was 
modified. 

We now come to the third series of articles, 
those affecting the merchants and laity. We 
find in the thirteenth article of the Charter 
that "the city of London shall have all its 
ancient liberties and its free customs, as well 
by land as by water. Besides we will and 
grant that all other cities, and towns, and 
burghs, and seaports, shall have all their 
liberties and free customs." The twenty-third 
and thirty-third clauses deal with the ques- 
tions of bridge-building and of weirs, as 
regards the freedom of navigation ; and the 
Londoners had the decision of the weights 
and measures put into their hands by Article 
XXXV., while another clause made it illegal 
for Christians to lend money on usury. So 
money-lending fell into Jewish hands, though 
it was enacted that no Jew should be paid 
interest during the debtor's minority. 

Merchants, whether of native extraction or 
of foreign growth, were permitted to come 
and go ; and Article XLl. put the case very 
clearly. Previously foreign merchants had 
been much distressed by fines and personal 
restrictions, and their goods liable to be 
seized during war. But the trade influence 
of England was now making itself felt ; the 
nation of shopkeepers was born, and cried. 
So the barons, albeit careless of merchants, 
could not evade the Londoners' demand. 
" All merchants shall be safe and secure in 



408 



BRITISH CHARTERS OF LIBERTY. 




EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



coming into England and going out of 
England, and staying and travelling through 
England, as well by land as by water, to 
buy and to sell without any unjust exactions, 
according to ancient rights and customs, 
except in time of war," when reciprocal 
courtesy would be extended according to 
the treatment received by British traders in 
other countries. 

In other articles, the King resigned his 
arbitrary power, and it was enacted that " no 
freedman be apprehended or outlawed or in 
any other way destroyed, nor will we go upon 
him, except by legal judgment of his peers, 
or by the law of the land." This was a very 
important clause, and it was supplemented 
by another, viz., "To no man will we sell, 
to no man will we deny or delay right or 
justice." The proper appointment of com- 
petent legal officers was also provided for, 
and provision was also made for further 
protection of life by the limitation of the 
power of inflicting capital punishment. The 
Courts of Common Pleas were to be sta- 
tionary. 

Fines were limited according to the degree 
of the offence, and "not above measure;" 
and certain personal property could not be 
amerced. The property of the people was 
defended from unjust exaction, nor were any 
animals to be taken by a bailiff without the 
owner's consent. There are many other 
clauses, but we have enumerated the chief. 
The sixtieth article is significant, viz. : — 

" But all these aforesaid customs and liber- 
ties which we have granted in our kingdom, 
to be held by our tenants, as far as concerns 
us, all our clergy and laity shall observe 
towards their tenants as far as concerns 
them." 

This clause was probably inserted by John 
himself. 

Twenty-five barons were elected to enforce 
the charter, and if the King refused to do 
justice as required by any four of their num- 
ber, the barons were empowered to make 
war against the King and his possessions, 
saving his wife and children. 

The Welsh and Scotch were also granted 
certain concessions; but the twelfth, thir- 
teenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth articles were 
perhaps the most important of all, containing 
as they do the clear definition of taxation. 
These refer to the scutage or aid already 
mentioned, and the liberty accorded to the 
cities. The fourteenth clause declares a 
Common Council is to be assembled for the 
purpose of assessing a scutage or aid ; and 
when the members so assembled shall decide, 
they may be accepted as acting for the whole 
body summoned. This is really the germ of 
parliamentary voting of supplies. The fif- 
teenth article has been already mentioned. 

The Forest clauses of the Charter were after- 



wards enlarged and embodied in a separate 
instrument called the Carta de Foresta. As 
we have said, great precautions were taken 
by the barons to bind the crafty King to his 
deed. The Tower of London was handed 
over to the barons, and all mercenaries were 
dismissed ; but the King managed to evade 
all the safeguards of the lords, and a very 
long and severe struggle ushered in the true 
enjoyment of the Great Charter. 

Henry III. renewed Magna Charta and 
the subsequent Forest Charter, a grant of a 
fifteenth of all movables being demanded as 
the King's price for the Act ; and in its altered 
— very slightly altered — form, Edward I. con- 
firmed Magna Charta ; and so, for a con- 
sideration, which the people were always 
ready to pay, it was confirmed many times 
by successive Kings to Henry VI., no less 
than fourteen times by Edward III., and 
frequently by Henry III., Richard II., and 
Henry IV.,* — thirty-seven times in all. 

The Petition of Right. 

It is impossible within the limits at our 
disposal to trace the rise and history of the 
Parliamentary government of England. Our 
business is with the Charters only, but, 
as we all remember, the successive assem- 
blies had been in constant conflict with the 
monarchs of England at various times, and 
many checks had been put upon the royal 
authority. In Hallam, the student will find 
the results of the measures and the Acts 
passed in despite of the King's remonstrances, 
and will, from the following extract, be able 
to judge how the subject was gaining in the 
struggle. The writer of the Constitutional 
History thus briefly sums up the facts, and 
shows the power of Parliament : — 

" The King could levy no sort of new tax 
upon the people except by grant of the par- 
liament, consisting as well of bishops and 
mitred abbots, or lords spiritual, and of 
hereditary peers, or temporal lords, who sat 
and voted in the same chamber, as of repre- 
sentatives from each county, and from the 
burgesses of many towns and less conside- 
rable places forming the Lower or Commons' 
House. 

" The previous assent and authority of the 
same assembly were necessary for every 
new law, whether of a general or temporary 
nature. No man could be committed to 
prison but by a legal warrant specifying his 
offence, and by a usuage nearly tantamount 
to constitutional right, he must be speedily 
brought to trial by means of regular sessions 
of gaol-delivery. The fact of guilt or inno- 
cence in a criminal charge was determined in 
a public court, and in the county where the 



* See also ' ' Constitutional History ' 
Langmeed). 



(Taswell- 



4TO 



BRITISH CHARTERS OF LIBERTY. 



offence was alleged to have occurred, by a 
jury of twelve men, from whose unanimous 
verdict no appeal could be made. 

" Civil rights, so far as they depended on 
questions of fact, were subject to tiie same 
decision. 

" The officers and servants of the Crown 
violating the personal liberty or other right 
of the subject, might be sued in an action for 
damages to be assessed by a jury, or in some 
cases were liable to criminal process ; nor 
could they plead any warrant or command 
in their justification, nor even the direct 
order of the King. The King's Ministers 
were liable to be impeached by the Com- 
mons for misgovernment, and the general 
privileges of the nation were far more secure 
than those of private men, though there was 
little effective restraint upon the Government 
except in the matters of levying money and 
enacting laws." 

James I. could not agree with his parlia- 
ment from the very outset. He had strong 
notions concerning the divine rights of kings, 
and many conflicts arose; the Commons 
insisted upon their full rights and drew up a 
protest of them which was entitled, "A form 
of apology and satisfaction," in which they 
claimed as rights the privileges they enjoyed, 
and that " they cannot be withheld, denied, 
or impaired." The protest is long, and will 
be found in extenso in parUamentary history. 
The Commons asked nothing but that to 
which they were entitled; but still, as a 
writer remarks, they managed to show that 
" the King, the Council, the House of Lords, 
the Bishops, and Puritans, were no less 
emphatically in the wrong." 

So the King and Commons remained, if 
not at " daggers drawn," at any rate on the 
defensive till his death ; and Charles I, came 
to the throne imbued with all the divine- 
right ideas of his father, in March 1625. He 
was in want of money, and threatened the 
Commons if they did not grant it. " I wish 
you would hasten my supply, or else it will 
be worse for yourselves," was scarcely the 
tone to adopt with the House which was 
more than ever determined to stand upon its 
rights. 

We now come to the commencement of 
that period of English historj- which culmi- 
nated in Charles's death and parliamentary 
sovereignty. The King's reply called forth 
an answer from the Commons, and though 
they granted him the subsidies, they in set 
terms asserted their rights and privileges 
in the matter of supply, and in the case of 
Buckingham's impeachment as well. In fact, 
while granting the King's request as to 
money, they reminded him sharply that he 
could not do as he pleased. 

We need not trace the fortunes of Bucking- 
ham, nor the injudicious conduct of the King 



in forcing loans and putting in prison those 
who refused to lend. War was forced upon 
France; and when Charles opened parliament 
in 1627, he used very threatening language 
towards the House; but it was not at all 
alarmed. " We have come together," said 
Wentworth, " firmly determined to vindicate 
our ancient vital liberties, by reinforcing our 
ancient laws made by our ancestors ; " and a 
Committee set forth their grievances respect- 
ing " liberty of the subject in person and 
estate." These were in chief : — 
(i) The forced loans. 

(2) Arbitrary imprisonment. 

(3) Billeting of soldiers on private persons. 

(4) Infliction of punishment by martial 

law. 

The Commons also passed four important 
resolutions without a dissenting voice : — 

(i) That no free man ought to be restrained 
or imprisoned unless some lawful cause of 
such restraint or imprisonment be expressed. 

(2) That the writ of Habeas Corpus ought 
to be granted to every man imprisoned or 
restrained, though it be at the command of 
the King or of the Privy Council, if he pay 
for the same. 

(3) That when the return expresses no 
cause of commitment or restraint, the party 
ought to be delivered or bailed. 

(4) That it is the ancient and undoubted 
right of every free man that he hath a full 
and absolute property in his goods and 
estate, and that no tax, loan, or benevolence 
ought to be levied by the king or his ministers 
without common consent by Act of Parlia- 
ment. 

These resolutions were discussed between 
the King and Parliament, and the arbitrary 
clauses were argued by counsel on both 
sides for several days. The King pledged 
his royal word not to arrest any person 
without good cause. But this offer was not 
accepted by Sir E. Coke. He took his stand 
upon the letter of the law and Magna Charta. 
"The King," said he, "must speak by record 
and in particulars, and not in general. Let 
us put up a Petition of Right ; not that I 
distrust the King, but I cannot take his trust 
save in a parliamentary way." 

The House of Commons then set them- 
selves to draw up the Petition of Right in 
spite of the amendments or additions pro- 
posed by the House of Lords. In the Par- 
liamentary History (vol. ii.) the speeches will 
be found in full. The Lords wished to in- 
clude the terms, "sovereign power." "We 
humbly present this petition," they said, 
" not only with a care of preserving our own 
liberties, but with due regard to leave entire 
the sovereign power wherewith Your Majesty 
is trusted for the protection, safety, and hap- 
piness of your people." But the Commons 
would have no such terms. "'Sovereign 



4.11 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



power ' is no parliamentary word," said Sir 
Edward Coke. "What is 'sovereign power'?" 
asked Mr. Alford. "Bodin saith it is free 
from any conditions. . . Let us give that to 
the King- which the law allows him, and no 
more." " I know how to add sovereign to 
to the King's person," said Pym, "but not 
to his power. We cannot leave to him a 
^ sovereign power,' for we were never pos- 
sessed of it." Sir E. Coke declared that 
Magna Charta would not admit of such a 
term : " Magna Charta is such a fellow he 
will have no sovereign. I wonder this 
sovereign was not in Magna Charta or in the 
confirmations of it." 

The conditions of the Petition of Right 
are as follows. After enumerating the various 
Acts by which certain abuses were forbidden 
by the statute of King Edward I., it is 
stated by the petition as follows — 

" Nevertheless against the tenor of the 
said statutes and other the good lawes and 
statutes of your realme to that end pro- 
vided." 

The articles declare that — 

(i) Freedmen had been compelled to lend 
money to the King, and upon their refusal so 
to do had been constrained to become 
bound and make appearance, and otherwise 
variously molested with imprisonment. 

(2) Several persons had been imprisoned, 
and when brought before the court by Writ 
of Habeas, yet were returned back to several 
prisons without being charged with anything 
to which they might make answer according 
to law. 

(3) That in divers counties of the realme 
soldiers and mariners have been billeted in 
the houses of the inhabitants against their 
wishes, to the great grievance and vexation 
of the people. 

(4) That divers commissioners have been 
appointed with authority to proceed within 
the land according to martial law, and punish 
offences which ought to have been punished 
by the civil courts, while some offenders have 
escaped the courts on the pretext that they 
were only amenable to martial law. 

The Petition of Right therefore protested 
against such irregular proceedings, and re- 
quested that they might never become 
established precedents, being contrary to 
the rights and liberties of the subject, and 
the laws and statutes of nations. 

The King, instead of contenting himself 
with the usual assent, returned a reply to the 
Petition, — assenting, indeed, but in a some- 
what equivocal way: "The Kingwilleth that 
right be done according to the laws and 
customs of the realm, and the statutes be 
put into due execution that his subjects may 
liave no cause to complain of any wrong or 
oppression contrary to their just rights and 
liberties, to the preservation whereof he 



holds himself as well obliged as of his 
prerogative." 

This answer did not content the Commons. 
Mr. Rushworth relates that when, on the 
3rd of June, it was read to the House, " it 
seemed too scant," and the faithful Commons 
were much affected. " We must now speak, 
or for ever after hold our peace," said Sir N. 
Rich. " For us to be silent when King and 
kingdom are in this calamity is not fit." 
The House then resolved itself into a Com- 
mittee to consider what is fit to be done for 
the safety of the kingdom, and that "no man 
go out upon pain of being sent to the Tower." 
The Speaker, however, was permitted to 
leave ; and he immediately hastened to the 
King, and returned just as the Duke of 
Buckingham's reputation was being severely 
discussed, with a message adjourning the 
House until the following day. 

At the next meeting the Commons united 
with the Lords, and desired a more definite 
answer from the King, who when they ad- 
dressed him, replied, "That he would please 
to give a clean and satisfactory answer in 
full parliament to the Petition." Charles 
came at four o'clock to the House of Lords ; 
and in compliance with the request of the 
House, stated his wiUingness to pleasure 
them in words as in substance. The former 
answer was cut out, and the wished-for reply, 
" Soit droit fait comme il est desire," was 
given to the Petition. The Commons there- 
upon "gave a great and joyful applause;" 
and, to prove their gratitude, granted five 
subsidies to the King. By this assent as to 
a Bill, the Petition of Right became virtually 
an Act of Parliament ; and thus " the second 
great compact between the Crown and the 
nation" was ratified. 

The Revolution. 

On the morning of December i8th, 1688, 
James 1 1., surrounded by the boats contain- 
ing the soldiers of the Prince of Orange, 
quitted Whitehall stairs for Rochester. 
William of Orange was loudly greeted as 
he entered London ; and soon afterwards the 
most influential people, and many former 
members of the House of Commons of 
Charles XL, sent up a petition to His 
Majesty to summon a Convention Parlia- 
ment. This assembly met on the 22nd 
January, 1688-9 ; and on the 28th the House 
passed several resolutions of an important 
character. These were — 

(i) Resolved that King James XL, having 
endeavoured to subvert the constitution of 
the kingdom by breaking the original con- 
tract between king and people, and by the 
advice of Jesuits and other wicked persons 
having violated the fundamental laws, and 
having withdrawn himself out of this king- 



412 



BRFTISH CHARTERS OF LIBERTY 



dom, has abdicated the government, and 
that the throne is thereby vacant. 

And next day a further resolution was 
carried, viz, : — 

(2) That it hath been found by experience 
inconsistent with the safety and welfare of 
this Protestant kingdom to be governed by a 
popish prince. 

These two resolutions were not accepted 
entirely by the Lords ; and though they 
agreed to the second, the former was modi- 
fied. They proposed an amendment to the 
word "abdicated," and a long debate ensued 
in the Commons. A regency was suggested 
during the life of James to administer the 
government ; but William of Orange had 
come over to be a king, and gave the House 
to understand, and plainly, too, that nothing 
short of tliat dignity would he receive. If 
the Estates offered him the crown he would 
accept it ; and he thought it reasonable that 
the Lady Anne and her posterity might be 
preferred in the succession to any children 
whom he might have by any other wife than 
the Princess Mary.* 

The question was then referred to the 
House of Lords, and a conference with the 
Commons arranged that the Prince and 
Princess of Orange should be declared King 
and Queen of England. But the conditions 
were not yet settled ; and " the Commons 
wisely determined to postpone all reforms 
till the ancient constitution of the kingdom 
should have been restored in all its parts." 
The Act by which the succession was settled 
was decided " to set forth, in the most dis- 
tinct and solemn manner, the fundamental 
principles of the constitution," in order that 
the deed might be equally binding and 
advantageous to the rights of the king and 
people respectively. 

This instrument quickly embodied the 
clauses desired, and was termed the "Decla- 
ration of Rights." 

The Declaration of Rights. 

At about ten o'clock, a.m., on the 13th of 
February, the Speaker of the House of 
Commons, with the members, proceeded in 
state to Whitehall, where the Marquis of 
Halifax and the Lords awaited them. The 
Prince and Princess of Orange entered the 
banqueting-house, and then the Marquis, as 
Speaker of the Lords, acquainted their Royal 
Highnesses that Parliament had agreed upon 
a Declaration, and the document was read, 
after permission had been granted.f 

The Declaration of Rights is too long to 
quote /;/ extenso. It commenced by showing 
how James II. had endeavoured to extirpate 



* See Burnet's and Macaulay's Histories. 
t Parliamentary Plistory, vol. ii. 



the Protestant religion, and his arbitrary 
manner of suspending the laws and levying- 
taxes. Excessive fines and bails, and many 
other illegal practices and punishments had 
been carried out, and the Lords and Commons 
had therefore determined to assert them- 
selves and their claims to the liberty of their 
ancestors ; and they declared — 

(i) That the pretended power of suspend- 
ing of laws, or the execution of laws by regal 
authority without the consent of Parliament, 
is illegal. 

(2) That levying of money for or to the 
use of the Crown, by pretence of prerogative, 
without grant of Parliament, for longer time, 
or in any other manner in which the same is 
or shall be granted, is illegal. 

(3) That the raising or keeping of a stand- 
ing army within the kingdom in time of 
peace, unless it be with the consent of Par- 
liament, is against law. 

(4) That Protestant subjects may have 
arms for defence suitable to their condition, 
according to law. 

(5) That elections of Members of Parlia- 
ment ought to be free. 

(6) That freedom of speech and debates, 
or proceedings in parliament, ought not to 
be impeached or questioned out of parlia- 
ment. 

(7) No excessive fines or bail ought to be 
imposed or required, nor cruel or unusual 
punishments inflicted. 

(8) That jurors ought to be duly empan- 
nelled and returned, and jurors who pass 
judgment upon men in trials of high treason 
ought to be freeholders, with other enact- 
ments of less importance. 

The Declaration concluded with a resolu- 
tion that William and Mary, Prince and 
Princess of Orange, be declared King and 
Ou?en of England, France, and Ireland, and 
the dominions thereto belonging, for their 
lives and for the survivor of them, the King 
to possess sole administrative power, and 
after the death of both, failing heirs of the 
Queen's body, the crown to descend to Anne,, 
Princess of Denmark, and the heirs of her 
body, and in default thereof to the heirs ot 
the body of William of Orange. 

Respecting this instrument. Lord Macaulay 
says : " It finally decided the great question 
whether the popular element which had ever 
since the age of FitzWalter and Simon de 
Montfort been found in the English polity 
should be destroyed by the monarchical 
element, or should be suffered to develop 
itself freely, and to become dominant. The 
Declaration of Rights, though it made nothing 
law which had not been law before, con- 
tained the germ of every good law which 
has been passed during more than a century 
and a half, — of every good law which may 
hereafter, in the course of ages, be found 



413 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



necessary to promote the public weal and 
to satisfy the demands of public opinion." 

In October 1689, the Declaration of Rights 
was embodied in an Act of Parliament called 
the "Bill of Rights." This Bill has been 
termed " The third great Charter of English 
liberty, the coping-stone of the constitutional 
building." * 

On the 1 6th of December, 1689, the Speaker 
made a speech to the King when presenting 
the Bill of Rights, when WiUiam attended 
in the House of Peers to give his consent to 
the "Land Tax Bill" and "The Bill of 
Rights and Succession." The Houses have, 
said the Speaker, "agreed upon a Bill for 
declaring of their rights and liberties which 
were so notoriously violated in the late reign, 
humbly desiring Your Majesty to give life 
to it by the royal assent, so that it may 
remain not only as a security to them from 
the like attempts hereafter, but be a lasting 
monument to all posterity of what they owe 
to Your Majesty for their deliverance." 

Thus we can perceive how the Parliament 
insisted upon and obtained its rights. The 
doctrines of James I., which had been in- 
culcated in his successor, the " divine rights 
of kings," were all swept away. Everything 
was then centred in the Parliament. Supplies 
and all control of expenditure were in the 
hands of the people's representatives ; and it 
was only by the will of the people, as ex- 
pressed in the Bill of Rights, that William 
and Mary, and Anne of Denmark, became 
sovereigns of England ; and similarly our 
own rulers depend upon the Acts of Parlia- 
ment. 

We have so far traced the history of the 
great constitutional charters, the three land- 
marks, so to speak, by which all legislative 
courses have been directed in subsequent 
years. The base had been established by 
Magna Charta, and the subsequent renewals 
of that structure, with legislative additions 
and mouldings, became in time the real 
pillar of the English law. Since the Bill of 
Rights we have had the Act of Settlement, 
which is characterized by Hallam in his 
Constitutional History as "the seal of our 
constitutional laws, the complement of the 
Revolution itself and the Bill of Rights, and 
the last great statute which restrains the 
power of the Crown." 

The Act of Settlement. 

The Act of Settlement is " an Act for the 
further limitation of the Crown and better 
securing the rights and liberties of the sub- 
ject," and exists still. It commences by 
lamenting the death of Queen Mary and her 



* Stubbs. 



son, the Duke of Gloucester, and goes on to 
declare that the most excellent Princess 
Sophia, the daughter of James I., be there- 
by declared to be the next in succession in 
the Protestant line after His Majesty and the 
Princess Anne of Denmark ; and in default 
of issue, the crown to go to and "continue to 
the said Princess Sophia, and the heirs of 
her body, being Protestants." 

By Section 3, for the "further security of 
our religion, laws, and liberties," it is enacted 
that the sovereign shall be in communion 
with the Church of England. That if the 
future sovereign be not a native of England 
the nation will not be obliged to go to war 
for the defence of any territory not belong- 
ing to the crown of England without the 
consent of Parliament. No sovereign shall 
leave the United Kingdom without the con- 
sent of Parliament (this was afterwards re- 
pealed). The Privy Council underwent 
change, and practically a Cabinet Council was 
substituted for it, for all resolutions respecting 
the well-governing of the kingdom were 
ordered to be taken by " such of the Privy 
Council as shall advise and consent to the 
same." The appointments as privy councillors 
were limited to natives of the United King- 
dom or of English parents, and so ehgible for 
parliament or any office of trust. No person 
holding office of profit under the King was 
to be capable of serving in the House of 
Commons. No pardon under the Great Seal 
could be pleadable to an impeachment by 
the Commons in parliament. 

Some of these provisions were afterwards 
repealed, such as the prohibition of travel of 
the sovereign without consent of parliament, 
the non-eligibility of members to hold offices 
of profit, and the Cabinet Council clause ; 
but the lastnamed Council revived again 
as the " Ministry " ; and during the long 
absences of the first Georges really governed 
the kingdom, as a " Ministry," or executive 
committee of Lords and Commons, does now ; 
such members of it as are Cabinet Councillors 
being the real promoters of the business of 
the country and the Government. 

The result of the Act of Settlement and 
Bill of Rights may be summed up in a few 
words. Practically these measures took the 
power from the sovereign and gave it to 
parliament. The necessity for voting annual 
supplies, and renewing the Mutiny Act, and 
passing the estimates generally, gives the 
Commons supreme control. The real power 
is in their hands, and parliament, by the voice 
of the electors, is supreme. This power 
became gradually understood; and as time 
passed, the people wanted a voice in the 
administration. The sovereign's influence 
was once very great (witness George III.), but 
since his death it has declined to a certain 
extent, and is seldom exercised. 



414 



BRITISH CHARTERS OF LIBERTY. 



Modern Measures. 

We must pass hastily over the Reform Bills 
of 1 832 and 1837, which were scarcely charters, 
but the advantages gained by the people in 
more extended suffrage by the former, led up 
to riotous consequences, and the demand for 
a People's Charter, the provisions of which 
were not altogether new. They had been 
brought before Parliament in 1780. The 
Lords were at first opposed to the Reform 
Bill, but it was eventually carried. The 
"working" classes, as they are termed, that 
is the artizans, got little benefit by it, though 
the middle classes were represented. Dis- 
appointment not unnaturally ensued, and the 
lower classes wished to insist upon more 
reform. They became Chartists. Chartism, 
says Mr. McCarthy, " may be said to have 
sprung definitively into existence in conse- 
quence of the formal declaration of the 
leaders of the Liberal party in parliament 
that they did not intend to push reform any 
farther." The working man fancied he had 
been thrust out into the cold, and was deter- 
mined to let his influence be felt. 

A People's Charter was accordingly drawn 
up according to O'Connell's advice. But the 
question had been tried in the House imme- 
diately parliament met. An amendment was 
moved to the Address in favour of the Ballot, 
but only twenty voted for it, and the Govern- 
ment declined to proceed farther upon the 
path of reform. It was not long before the 
measure took definite shape, and the Charter 
was supported by thousands who objected to 
physical force, and by hundreds of thousands 
who believed in it. 

The Chartists' Riots. 

The Chartists, as they called themselves, 
demanded more power and a more potent 
voice in the affairs of state under the guise 
of the Peoples' Charter. The points enu- 
merated in the Charter were six in liumber, 
viz. : — (i) Universal Suffrage, (2) Vote by 
Ballot, (3) Annual Parliaments, (4) Payment 
of Members, (5) Abolition of Property quali- 
fication, and (6) Equal Electoral Districts. 

After the Reform Act of 1 832 had passed, 
the disturbance was initiated, and first 
showed symptoms of terrorism in 1838, 
when the Welsh Chartists, after some seasons 
of depression and indifferent harvests, felt 
the hard hand of famine. When work got 
scarcer and food dearer, the unreflecting 
portion of the community, ascribing all their 
troubles to the Government, began to agitate 
for a more equal share in the administration. 
Some six Members of Parliament, and an 
equal number of " working-men," as they 
called themselves, met and drew up the 
Charter. 



The result, when promulgated, was re- 
ceived with acclamation everywhere, and 
the popular opinion, already red-hot, was 
diligently fanned with fiery orations by plat- 
form windbags ; and as a consequence of 
this, "brute force" was threatened to back 
up the demands of the people. Then the 
Chartist riots commenced, but were put down 
at once, and the leaders imprisoned. A Con- 
vention — termed "National" — was elected, 
and Birmingham, as thehot-bed of Radicalism, 
was chosen as the scene of the first meeting 
in May 1839. The suggestions put forth to 
the people were sufficiently subversive. Uni- 
versal cessation from labour was one of the 
means whereby the Government was to be 
coerced ; exclusive dealing and a run on the 
savings banks v.'ere other ways by which the 
Chartists hoped to gain their ends. Their 
arrangements led them, however, into a 
riot, the military being called out ; and ex- 
cesses subsequently were frequently com- 
mitted. The petition presented to the House 
of Commons was not favourably received ; 
and the year 1839 closed with rioting in 
Wales, Newport being particularly distin- 
guished in this way. 

The flame of discontent smouldered still. 
In 1842 more riots occurred in various dis- 
tricts, and a Joseph Sturge came to the 
front, but did not succeed in uniting the 
people in a " Suffrage Union," as he hoped 
to do. The climax of Chartism occurred in 
184S, when measures were taken by the 
Duke of Wellington to act with vigour on 
the least sign of violence on the part of the 
mob. The circumstances of that time must 
be fresh in the minds of nearly all readers. 
The enrolment of special constables and the 
military preparations were on a most exten- 
sive scale. The great Chartist meeting was 
on Kennington Common, and^thousands were 
to march to Westminster and demand their 
rights. They didn't ! 

There was considerable danger imminent, 
and those in London at the time will remem- 
ber the excitement that pervaded all classes. 
Some two hundred thousand constables had 
been sworn in; and John Leech, in the pages 
of Punch, made merry at the expense of 
some of these " specials " when danger was 
over. The principles of the Chartist were 
that, as an individual, he had an equal right 
to vote and to partake in the administration 
of the law, and as he paid taxes he had a 
right to representation in parliament. These 
were what may be termed the moderate 
section ; others went far beyond this, and 
desired to initiate an entirely new state of 
things ; in fact, tended to Communism. No 
doubt these latter doctrines had weight with 
uneducated people, but a very slight examina- 
tion showed that the claims could not be 
recognised in the form proposed. 



41S 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



The Kennington Scare. 

When Louis Philippe had been deposed 
and revolution was stalking over the Con- 
tinent, the Chartists, with Fergus O'Connor at 
their head, imagined that it was a good time 
to intimidate the Government. The Conven- 
tion sat in London, and wanted to resort to 
force. The people must be represented ; and 
finally these unruly spirits, though probably 
many acted in good faith and sincere con- 
viction, declared that a Republic or a Charter 
must be granted, and parhament ought to 
be petitioned. 

A monster meeting was convened, and the 
huge procession was to be organized upon 
Kennington Common. The Government was 
to be overawed, and the legislature coerced 
by this display of force. On April loth the 
people assembled, though the meeting had 
been proclaimed unlawful ; and fortunately 
Fergus O'Connor had restricted the carriage 
of arms else the result might have been 
different. This resolve disgusted the "brute 
force " section, and numbers left the meeting 
or never united with it. About twenty-five 
thousand people came, about half were 
spectators ; and after some speeches the pro- 
cession was abandoned. The preparations 



everywhere in London, though scarcely any 
soldiers were visible, had been so complete 
that any attempt at violence would have 
been at once severely checked. 

This effort v/as an utter failure. The 
petition was signed by thousands, including 
hundreds of fictitious and assumed names ; 
ridicule fell heavily upon the " People's 
Charter," and it collapsed. This was the 
last of it. Since then the wage-earning 
classes have greatly benefited by ballot 
voting, and there is no farther need for any 
such monster meetings. 

What may be yet in store for England we 
cannot say. Radicalism is rearing up its 
head, decrying the House of Lords, and 
attempting to browbeat an institution as old 
as the Commons. It was not by setting 
classes at variance that the liberties of the 
people (not merely those of the artizans, 
who are not the " people" any more than the 
merchants or the aristocracy, but of all 
classes) were secured. Those who object to 
the existence of the Lords and their descen- 
dants will do well to remember that it 
was by the barons of England that Magna 
Charta — the first great charter of liberty- 
was obtained. 

H. F. 




— ._ -i"^^^^ 



RUiNYMEDE. 



416 




" Bring out your Dead ! Being out your Dead !" 

PLAGUE AND FIRE. 

THE STORY OF THE GREAT PESTILENCE OF 1665, AND OF THE' 
FIRE OF LONDON IN 1666. 



The Seeds of Death — The first Victims — Former Plagues — The Portent of the Blazing Star — Spread of the Plagile during | 
May — The Prescription of the College of Physicians — The Quacks — Increase of Mortality during June — Multitudes 
leave the Town — The Lord Mayor's Regulations — The Dreadful Days of July — The Plague Pits — The Horrors of 
August — The Death-fires of September — The Pest-houses — Abatement of the Plague — The Number of Deaths — What 
was the Plague ? — Fire ! Fire ! — No Water to be Obtained — Efforts to preserve Property — A Walk through the Ruins 
— The Rebuilding of the City. 



The Seeds of Death. 

N the dreary gloom of a December 

day, in the year 1664, there was 

brought to the house of a well-to-do 

tradesman in Drury Lane a large 

parcel of merchandize from the East ; and 




shortly afterwards, we may imagine, there was 
gathered together in one of the low-ceiled, 
high-wainscoted rooms of the picturesque old 
house, a little party of persons to inspect the 
fine fabrics just imported. Loud would be the 
exclamations of delight as the sumptuous. 
417 EE 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



stuffs were spread before their gaze ; and 
with the pleasure of children engaged with 
a new toy, coupled with the keenness of 
business men on the look-out for a good bar- 
gain, they doubtless turned over and handled 
with joyful eagerness the new goods just come 
from the far-off East. 

The firelight flickered on the low-pitched, 
smoke-blackened ceiling, and the short 
winter day waned into night, but still they 
lingered over the goods ; yet had they known 
what terrible danger lurked in the folds 
of those seemingly harmless materials, they 
would not only have shrunk back from them 
in terror and alarm, but would instantly 
have consigned them to the flames. For 
even as in the tiny seed lies hidden the 
promise of the stately oak or the lovely 
flower, so in these goods lay hidden the 
virulent contagion, the veritable seeds of 
death, which before long would burst forth 
into widespread pestilence. The death-cart 
rolling on its awful rounds, the hundreds 
of plague-stricken dwellings, the noisome 
plague-pits and pest-houses, the unparalleled 
dreariness and desolation of that fearful 
plague time, and the horrible deaths of a 
hundred thousand human beings, were the 
outcome of the contagion hidden in those 
infected goods. Those goods brought the 
plague to London; and in that picturesque 
old house in Drury Lane the Great Plague 
of 1665 was born. 

The First Victims. 
No suspicion seems to have been enter- 
tained that these goods carried contagion, 
although they had come from the Levant by 
way of the Netherlands, where the plague was 
.at that time raging frightfully ; for, according 
to an Order in Council then in force, all 
ships coming from Holland were quaran- 
tined for thirty days ; but very shortly after 
the parcel was opened, two Frenchmen who 
lived in the house began to show signs of 
feverishness and ill-health. A shivering not 
caused by the winter's cold shook their 
shuddering frames, a horrible nausea seized 
them, headache, swellings in various parts 
of the body, and low, muttering delirium suc- 
ceeded ; then, in a short time, the dreaded and 
unmistakable plague-spots appeared on their 
bodies, and death supervened. This was on 
the 20th of December, and these two men 
were held to be the first victims of the 
Great Plague.* 



* These are the generally accepted facts ; but Mr. 
P. W. Brayley, F.S.A., points out that they are not 
strictly accurate, as ' ' there were six persons died of 
the plague in 1664, as appears from the General Bill for 
that year;' 'and he also states that London had not been 
quite free for some years. Dr. Hodges, who practised 
in London during the time of the Plague, says in his 
' 'Letter to a Person of Quality on the Rise, Progress, 



The frightened family did all in their 
power to conceal the circumstance, but to 
no purpose. The news got abroad ; and the 
authorities sent surgeons and physicians to 
make official inquiry ; and they, finding on 
the bodies the fatal spots which were so 
characteristic of the plague that they were 
known as " tokens," sent in their report that 
the two men had indeed died of the dreaded 
disease, and the fact was so stated in the 
published Bills of Mortality. It does not 
appear, however, that many precautions were 
taken ; and although the cold weather was 
unfavourable for the spread of the disease, 
yet other houses in the vicinity became in- 
fected ; and not long afterwards, another 
Frenchman, who had resided in the same 
house, but who, for fear of infection, had 
removed to Bearbinder Lane, in the City, fell 
sick in the same way, and died also. 

Then, indeed, people's hearts began to 
fail them for fear, especially as the recorded 
number of the deaths in certain parishes, 
and especially in St. Giles', began to rise, 
and it was thought that many persons died 
of the plague whose deaths were publicly 
referred to other causes. And so in the time 
of the shameless sin and licentious luxury of 
the court of the " merrie monarch " fell this 
terrible pestilence into the city, like a bolt from 
out the blue of a summer sky, and the people 
were aroused from their selfish pleasures by a 
heart-shaking dread of this dire disease. 

Former Plagues. 

The people had good reason to dread this 
frightful scourge, for they remembered the 
terrors of the plague in previous times, and 
the terrible ravages then occurring on the Con- 
tinent. London had frequently been visited 

Symptoms, and Cure of the Plague": — "After 
the most strict and serious inquiry by undoubted 
testimonies, I find that this pest was communicated 
to us from the Netherlands, by way of contagion ; 
and if the most probable relations deceive me not, 
it came from Smyrna to Holland in a parcel of 
infected goods." And a writer in Northouck's London 
( ''-773 ) says that in the year 1663, shocking 
ravages were made in Amsterdam by the plague, so 
much so that measures were taken to prevent its 
spread into England. But in vain, for at the close 
of the year 1664, it was brought over to London in 
some Levant goods that came from Holland. These 
goods were carried to a house in Long Acre, near 
Drury Lane, or in the upper part of Drury Lane, where 
they were first op>ened. Here two Frenchmen died. 
The disorder communicated itself to other houses in 
the neighbourhood, and infected the parish officers 
who were employed about the dead. Another 
Frenchman who lived near the infected houses 
removed into Bearbinder Lane, City, and died there. 
Again, De Foe in his "History of the Plague," 
says : "The first person that died of the plague was 
on December 20th, or thereabouts, 1664, and in or 
about Long Acre ; the infection was generally said 
to be from a parcel of silks imported from Holland, 
and opened in that house," 

418 



PLAGUE AND FIRE. 



by pestilence. The narrowness of the streets, 
the closeness of the houses, built as they 
then were with the upper stories projecting 
over the lower, and the crowding together of 
the people, all rendered the inhabitants very 
liable to infectious diseases ; and the re- 
currence at irregular intervals of these terrible 
pestilences is one of the most remarkable 
facts of history. Frequently— indeed nearly 
always — they took their rise in the crowded, 
'heated, filthy cities of the Levant and Asia, and 
spreading westward into Europe, they slew 
tens of thousands in their onward march. 

One of the most notable of these epidemics 
was the " Black Death" of 1348-9, which, 
rising in Asia, strode rapidly westward, and 
raged fearfully for many months in all 
•countries of Europe. Great Britain and 
Ireland suffered severely, and it is said that 
m London alone two hundred persons were 
buried daily in the Charterhouse. The best 
•description of the ravages of this pestilence 
in Italy is to be found in the introduction to 
the Decameron of Boccaccio. 

The next great time of plague was in the 
closing years of the fifteenth century, from 
1485 to 1500, when at intervals the disease 
"known as the "Sweating Sickness" carried 
off thousands. According to the old his- 
torian Stow, this pestilence was so dreadful 
in London that Henry VII. removed his 
court to Calais. Again in 1506, and once 
more in 1517, the "Sweating Sickness" 
ravaged the land, so much so that, according 
to the same writer, half the inhabitants died 
in all the capital towns of England, and 
Oxford was quite depopulated. This disease 
Avas so fatal that it caused death in three 
liours. In addition to these, there were 
numerous other occasions when fearful and 
fatal epidemics prevailed. 

But terrible as these diseases were, and wide- 
spread as were their ravages, they sink into 
comparative insignificance when placed be- 
side the fearful plague which raged in London 
in 1665. So surpassingly dreadful were the 
scenes of this awful sickness, and so enor- 
mous was the mortality, that it is fittingly 
known as the Great Plague. Doubtless 
also greater prominence has been given to 
this visitation by reason of Daniel Defoe's 
celebrated narrative. Although v.'ritten many 
years after the occurrences took place, it has 
yet been elaborated with so much care, and 
contains -so many truthful details, evidently 
compiled either from the accounts of eye-wit- 
nesses, or from records to which the writer 
had access, that it leaves a remarkably 
graphic picture in the reader's mind. No 
other similar narrative, except that of 
Thucydides, which gives an account of the 
Plague at Athens, 430 B.C., can be compared 
to Defoe's, and the two may fitly be ranked 
together. It is written as if by an eye- 



witness, a saddler of Whitechapel ; and 
many of the circumstances he records may 
be traced to publications to which Defoe had 
access. ] 

It cannot be decided whether this plague 
was of precisely the same character as those 
which had before swept thousands into one 
common grave. Indeed, differences of opinion 
still exist as to its precise nature, and the 
means of its communication from one person 
to another. 

The Portent of the Blazing Star. 

During the month of February 1665, but 
few deaths seem to have occurred; and the 
severe frost which had bound the land in its 
icy fetters * still continuing, the ravages of 
the frightful pestilence were still further 
delayed. But with the advent of April warm, 
dry weather set in, and the Bills of Mortality 
rose very high. Then, indeed, terrible appre- 
hensions arose among the people; and the 
news quickly spread that, especially in St. 
Giles's parish, the pestilence was in several 
streets, and many families were all 
sick together with it. Then the knowing 
ones began to point out that the Blazing- 
Star, or comet which a short time before 
had passed over the city, had certainly fore- 
told this visitation ; and that as the star was 
faint and dull, it prognosticated a severe 
and heavy judgment of God, like the plague; 
also that the new one which was appear- 
ing (April 1665)! being swift and bright 
in appearance, it foretold that the pestilence 
would slay quickly, like a fiery furnace ; 
although after the Great Fire of London the 
wise folk and astrologers held that it had fore- 
told that great calamity. 

There were other signs and symptoms 
and supernatural appearances, portending, 
according to the numerous wizards and 
astrologers of that day, many evils. Some 
averred that they saw an angel in the upper 
air brandishing a fiery sword over the city ; 
while others maintained that they saw a 
ghost walk about the streets and point from 
the houses to the churchyards : but there is . 
no need to burden our pages with these 
details, except to point out that they in- 
creased the panic of the people. It was 
not until the 26th of April, 1665, when 
the number of deaths was already becoming 
frightful, that any official effort seems to have 

* December 2,nd, 1664, "It was now exceeding cold, 
and a hard, long, frosty season." January /s,th, 
1665, "Excessive sharp frost and snow." — Evelyn's 
Diary. February 6th, 1665, "One of the coldest 
days, all say, they ever felt in England." — Pepys' . 
Diary. 'y 

t Both comets are mentioned in "Pepys" Diary," and, 
also in the first volume of " Philosophical Transac- , 
tions." The first appeared in December 1664, and the' 
second in April 1665. 



419 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY 



been made to stop the progress of the dire 
disease. But on tlaat day appeared an Order 
in Council directing certain precautions to be 
taken ; as for instance, houses known to have 
the plague were to be shut up, and all com- 
munication with the outer world was to be 
stopped. 

Spread of the Plague during May ; 
The Prescription of the College of 
Physicians. 

But still the infection spread, until, in the 
middle of May, the weather becoming very 
hot, its ravages increased with frightful 
rapidity, and the plague began to be the talk 
of the town. Thus Pepys in his Diary, under 
date May 24th, says, " To the coffee-house, 
where all the news is of the Dutch being gone 
out, and of the plague growing upon us in 
this town, and of the remedies against it ; 
some saying one thing and some another." 

Some of these remedies seem to us of these 
later days ridiculous in the extreme, and 
suggest that many of the so-called specifics 
could not be other than utterly valueless. 
Thus, on the 13th of May, a Privy Council 
was held at Whitehall, under the auspices of 
which the College of Physicians formulated 
a code of directions for curing the plague 
and preventing infection. One ol these direc- 
tions was as follows : — 

"Pull off the feathers from the tails of 
living cocks, hens, pigeons, or chickens ; and 
holding their bills, hold them hard to the 
botch or swelling, and so keep them at that 
part till they die, and by this means draw out 
the poison. It is good also to apply a cupping- 
glass, or embers in a dish with a handful of 
sorrel upon the embers." 

If this were all that the concentrated wisdom 
of the whole College of Physicians could do 
for the poor plague-stricken people, no wonder 
that the pestilence raged so fiercely in the hot, 
close, and filthy streets of old London, during 
the sweltering heat of that burning summer. 
But, indeed, they knew no certain remedy; and 
it was as though the people were sheep without 
a shepherd, and without any protection what- 
ever against the disease, and the plague swept 
them away by wholesale into one common 
grave. The pestilence seemed to be utterly 
unknown to the doctors, past their art and 
comprehension. Indeed, many of them 
speedily fled to the country.* 

There were, however, here and there some 



* ' ' Physicians could not be blamed for retiring; the 
disease was not subject to tlieir art. Many learned 
physicians retired, not so much for their own preser- 
vation as for the service of those they attended: those 
who stayed, the plague put to their nonplus, in such 
strange and changeable shapes did the chameleon- 
like sickness appear." — ^De Quincey's Translation of 
Dr. Hodges' Loimologia, 



who remained, who seem to have had a fairly 
adequate idea of treating the distemper ; and 
it is on record that several cures were effected. 
Among these physicians may be mentioned 
the celebrated Sydenham ; and also Dr^ 
Hodges, author of " Loimologia," who seem 
to have practised with some success ; and 
Mr. William Boghurst, whose manuscripts 
are still preserved in the British Museum. 
This writer frankly says that at first he knew 
not what to recommend, thus : — "At first I 
was much baffled in giving judgment, yet 
afterwards, by use and long observation of 
the particulars, I arrived at a greater skill ; 
for I rendered myself familiar with the 
disease, knowing that the means to do any- 
good must be not to be fearful : wherefore I 
commonly dressed forty sores in a day, held 
the pulse of patients sweating in their beds 
half a quarter of an hour together .... held 
them up in their beds to keep them from 
strangling and choaking, half an hour together 
commonly, and suffered their breathing in. 
my face several times when they were dying ;. 
ate and drank with them, especially those 
that had sores ; sat down by their bedsides, 
and upon their beds, discoursing with them 
an hour together. If I had time, I stayed by 
them to see them die, and see the manner of 
their death, and closed up their mouth and 
eyes ; for they died with their mouth and eyes- 
very much open and staring. Then if people 
had nobody to help them (for help was scarce 
at such a time and place), I helped to lay 
them forth out of the bed and afterwards intcv. 
the coffin ; and last of all, accompanied them 
to the ground." 

There were several other physicians who^ 
like those already mentioned, nobly remained 
at the post of duty, and did what in them 
lay to combat the fell disease, but as a rule 
the doctors of that day seem to have been 
completely helpless before their noisome foe ;. 
nor is this to be altogether wondered at,. 
when the strange and surpassingly dreadful 
character of the complaint is remembered. 
It defied all medicine ; nothing seemed ta 
touch it ; and the very physicians themselves 
were seized and slain by it, even with their 
medicines in their mouths. 

The Quacks. 

But there are always fools who rush in. 
" where angels fear to tread ;" and there are 
always rogues to prey upon the ignorance 
and credulity of their fellows, especially in. 
times of danger ; and so in those early days. 
of the plague, when the fears of the people 
were yet young, and the terrible destruction 
and desolation which would ensue were yet 
entirely unsuspected, there were crowds of 
quack doctors, wizards, witches, and fortune 
tellers, who added greatly to the popular 



420 



PLAGUE AND FIRE. 



panic by enlarging upon the terrors of the 
plague, in order that the people might be 
the more easily fleeced of their money. 
Without doubt these quacks greatly helped 
the spread of the disease, for not only did 
the poor panic-stricken people succumb the 
more easily, because of the fright they were 
in ; but the filthy compounds prescribed by 
the quacks seem to have literally poisoned 
their bodies and prepared them for the 
plague. 

The art of advertising flourished exceed- 
ingly in those days, for innumerable doorposts 
and street corners were plastered all over 
with bills of advertisements of antidotes, such 
as, "Incomparable Drinks, Anti-Pestilen- 
tial Pills, Universal Remedies, Never Failing 
Preservatives, True Plague Waters," etc., etc. 
Pepys in his Diary refers to one of these, 
thus : " My Lady Carteret did this day give 
me a bottle oi Plague Water;" and in No. 38 
of the Newes (for May i8th), we find the 
following quack advertisement, which may 
be taken as a sample of many others : — 

" Constantine Rhodocanaceis, Grecian, 
"hath, at a small price, that admirable pre- 
servative against the plague, wherewith 
Hippocrates, the Prince of all Physicians, 
preserved the whole land of Greece, etc., etc. 
To be had in London, next door to the Three 
Kings' Inn, in Southampton Buildings, near 
the King's Gate, on Holborne." 

And our old friends the College of Physi- 
cians issued the following as The Plagne- 
'ivater of Mathins, or Aqua Epideniica : — 

" Take the roots of Tormentil, Angelica, 
Peony, Zedoarie, Liquorish Elecampane, of 
•each half an ounce; the leaves of Sage, Scor- 
■dium Celandine, Rue, Rosemary, Wormwood, 
Ros Solis, Mugwort, Burnet, Dragons, Scabi- 
ous, Agrimony, Baum, Cardnus, Betony, 
Gentery the less, Marygold's leaves and 
"flowers, of each one handful. Let them all 
te cut, bruised, and infused three days in 
eight pints of White W^ine, in the month of 
May, and distilled." 

Now, we do not pretend to any knowledge 
■of true remedies for the plague, and this may 
have been a scientific combination of proved 
remedies, but to our untutored imagination 
it seems that no person, even in the most 
Tobust health, could drink any of this pre- 
cious mess without becoming smitten at least 
with nausea and sore sickness, to say nothing 
•of a worse complaint. 

The Continued Increase of the Plague 
DURING June ; Multitudes leave the 
Town. 

Thus, amid terror and tribulation, and the 
clamour of many voices, passed the hot and 
•sunny days of that mournful month of May. 
And with the advent of June the trouble 
increased. The weather became still hotter ; 



the plague spread with frightful rapidity. 
People began to leave town in large numbers, 
and all the great thoroughfares out of the 
city were thronged day after day with 
vehicles of every description, — coaches and 
carriages containing folks of the richer sort 
appeared side by side with carts and 
waggons conveying persons of the humbler 
classes. There were multitudes on horseback, 
and many wayfarers on foot. 

And all day throngs besieged the Lord 
Mayor's door, pressing for passes and certifi- 
cates of health, for the fear of the plague 
had spread throughout the country, and no 
person now could lodge at any inn, or indeed 
as much as pass through a town, without a 
clean bill of health. London was indeed 
one great scene of uproar and confusion 
which contrasts strangely with the dreari- 
ness and desolation which were to follow. 
Some of these circumstances are thus noticed 
by Pepys, in his Diary, who makes this entry 
on June 7th : — " The hottest day that ever I 
felt in my life ;" and again on June 21st, "I 
find all the town going out of town; the 
coaches and carriages being all full of people 
going into the country." And yet again on 
June 29th, " To Whitehall, where the court 
was full of waggons and people ready to go 
out of town. This end of the town every 
day grows very bad of the plague. The 
Mortality Bill is come to 267, which is about 
ninety more than the last . . . Home; calling 
at Somerset House, where all were packing 
up too." 

Up to this time the pestilence had been 
confined chiefly to the west end of the town, 
— the parish of St. Giles, where it first 
appeared, and the neighbourhood around, — 
but now it spread eastward and southward. 
The heat continued very great, and the poor 
people, finding that neither physician nor 
quack could avail aught, ran about the 
streets crying, " Lord have mercy upon tcs, 
what shall we do f " 

The Lord Mayor's Regulations. 
It was at this time, when panic had suc- 
ceeded to terror, and it was clear beyond all 
possibility of doubt that the plague had taken 
strong hold on the town, that the Lord Mayor 
and Aldermen bestirred themselves as to 
the proper means to be taken for stopping 
the spread of the pestilence. As we have 
stated, regulations had been in force in St. 
Giles's since the end of April, and Defoe 
thinks that had these precautions been early 
followed in other parts of the metropolis the 
plague might have been stayed, or at all 
events deprived of half its terrors ; — for he 
says, "The Justices of Peace for Middlesex, 
by direction of the Secretary of State, had 
begun to shut up houses in the parishes of 
St. Giles - in - the - Fields, St. Martin, St. 



J.21 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY 



Clement Danes, etc. ; and it was with good 
success, for in several streets where the 
plague broke out, upon strict guarding the 
houses that were infected, and taking care to 
bury those that died immediately after they 
were known to be dead, the plague ceased 
in those streets. It was also observed that the 
plague decreased sooner in those parishes 
than it did in the parishes of Bishopsgate, 
Shoreditch, Aldgate, Whitechapel, Stepney, 
and others, the early care taken in that 
manner being a great means to the putting 
a check to it." But it was not until the 
latter end of June that the regulations of the 
Lord Mayor were published. They were to 
come in force on and from the ist of July, 
and are very lengthy and explicit. They 
provided for the appointment of examiners 
for every parish ; watchmen — one for the day 
and one for the night — for every infected 
house, to prevent both ingress and egress ; 
searchers to make due search and true report 
of the various cases of infection ; surgeons 
and nursekeepers. There were also orders 
concerning the regulations of infected houses 
and for the treatment of persons sick of the 
plague. Notice was to be given to the 
examiners of health of every person taken 
ill within two hours of the first appearance 
of any sign of illness, and as soon as the 
examiner, searcher, or chirurgeon (surgeon) 
found that any person was sick of the plague, 
the house was to be shut up, and a large 
red cross, a foot long, placed on the middle 
of the door, and the words, " Lord have 
MERCY UPON us," to be set close over the 
cross, and to continue there until the lawful 
opening of the house, which would not occur 
until all fear of infection therefrom was ab- 
solutely removed. There were also regu- 
lations for the burial of the dead, — that 
carts for the conveyance of the corpses were 
to perambulate the streets, accompanied by 
a bellman, and that funerals should only 
take place before sun-rising or after sun- 
setting, with the privity of the churchwardens 
or constables, and not otherwise, and that 
no corpse dead of the plague should be buried 
in or remain in any church. 

The principal and most stringent regula- 
tion was the shutting up of houses at the 
least fear of infection, and this rule was 
stoutly resisted by many of the people. 
Complaints were daily made to the Lord 
Mayor that the searchers, etc., had shut up 
houses unnecessarily, and from malicious 
motives, and also that in many instances 
there were several perfectly sound and 
healthy people who, being shut up with the 
one infected, perished in the miserable and 
unhealthy confinement, when otherwise they 
might have escaped. The magistrates were 
very strict, however, and the rule appears 
never to have been relaxed. This led at 



times to violent scenes between the watch- 
man and some of the people confined ; and 
often they broke out by main force, and many 
were the arts and deceptions practised to> 
outwit the watchman and escape. 

Pest-houses, or special hospitals for the re- 
ception of the patients, were also established 
in various parts of the town, and the church- 
yards being full, the dead were buried in 
the open spaces around, greatly to the dis- 
gust of certain of the inhabitants. Thus we 
find Pepys, in his Diary, writing, " I was 
much troubled to hear at Westminster, how 
the officers do bury the dead in the opeu 
Tuttle-fields (Tothill-fields), pretending want 
of room elsewhere." 

King Charles and his Court left the town. 
and went first to Hampton Court, then \.o 
Salisbury, and finally to Oxford, where the 
Parliament was held. The Duke of Albemarle 
was left Governor of London, and he co- 
operated cordially with the Lord Mayor in, 
his measures of relief. Most of the ministers 
fled, as also did many of the doctors. Tc» 
their everlasting credit be it said, there were 
many of the Nonconformist ministers who 
stayed. One of these, the Rev. Thomas 
Vincent, M.A,, who happily lived through 
the fearful scenes, wrote a remarkable ac- 
count, entitled, "God's Terrible Voice in the 
City," in which he says : — 

." The citizens, when under the dreadful 
and deplorable circumstances to which the 
plague had reduced them, and in the greatest 
want of spiritual guides, were forsaken by 
their parochial ministers ; and the people^ 
crowding into eternity (bewailing the want 
of spiritual assistance), the Nonconformist 
ministers, considering their great obligations 
to God, and indispensable duty in this 
dreadful visitation to their fellow-citizens^ 
were induced, though contrary to law, to- 
repair to the deserted Church pulpits j 
whither the people, without distinction 
of Church and Dissenters, joyfully resorted. 
The concourse on those occasions was sc» 
exceedingly great that the ministers were 
frequently obliged to clamber over the pews 
to get at the pulpits ; and if ever preach- 
ing had a better effect than ordinary, it was 
at this time ; for the people did as eagerly 
catch at the Word as a drowning man at a 
rope." 

The Dreadful Days of July. 
But these regulations of the Lord Mayor 
did not stay the plague. Indeed, after the 
1st of July, the number of deaths increased 
from 470 in the week to 725, 1089, 1843, and 
even 2010. The pestilence was in every street, 
and door after door was shut, and marked 
with a red cross and the pathetic appeal, 
"Lord have mercy on us," while before 
it stood the silent watchman. The stillness 



423 



PLAGUE AND FIRE. 



in many places was most profound, for half 
the people were away, and of the other half 
many were dead or dying or attending to the 
sick. Quiet and hot lay the bright sunshine 
on the desolate streets, and so deserted were 
the usually crowded thoroughfares, that grass 
began to grow between the stones. All trade 
was stopped, and no sound was heard save 
the shrieks of the plague-stricken people, or 
the agonised cries of those mourning fo 
their dead. Scarce any person passed through 
even the largest thoroughfares. There were 
but very few besides the devoted doctors or 
ministers, save the watchers or the corpse- 
carriers, and even these stepped in the 
middle of the roadway, and carried myrrh, 
wormwood, or rue in their hands. In the 



looked on strange and fearful sights, such 
as might well have eclipsed her mellow 
light. The churchyards being full, great pits 
were dug at Aldgate, at Finsbury, and other 
places; and into these the dead-carts were 
emptied one after another, the corpses being 
shot pell-mell into one common grave, and 
the buriers shovelling in earth over every few 
bodies. 

The Plague-pits. 
These pits were in some cases twenty feet 
deep, forty feet long, fifteen feet wide, and 
more than i,ioo bodies were buried in them.* 
They were dug out until they could be dug no 
more because of the water, and the corpses, fre- 
quently naked, — for incredible as it seems, it 




Pest-houses, Totkill Fields, Westminster. 



Star-lit dusk of the summer night, the 
dead-cart rolled on its awful rounds, and the 
desolate streets echoed to the melancholy 
cry, '■^ Bring out your dead, Brmg out your 
dead." 

Then the red-crossed doors were silently 
opened, and in the summer twilight the 
ghastly burdens were brought forth and 
thrown into the cart, accompanied by the 
groans and lamentations of the living. And 
the cart moved on with its gruesome freight, 
and the street was once more left to the 
solemn silence of death. London has never 
witnessed such scenes of horror before or 
since. It was no longer the busy metropolis. 
It was a city of the dead. 

Out in the suburbs the summer moon 



is said that the nurses and buriers often stole 
the linen or rugs wrapped round the poor 
bodies, — were hurriedinto them. Theseburiers 
were taken from the refuse of society; and so 
hardened and brutal did they become, that it 
is almost impossible to believe the tales of 
depravity reported against them, — some of 
them even secretly conveyed contagion from 
the sores of the sick to those who were well 
in order to rob them of their clothes. Some- 
times infected persons, in the frenzy of their 
fever and mad with pain, rushed up to the 
pits and threw themselves in, crying aloud 
that they would bury themselves ; and wher 

* Dimensions given by Defoe of the great pit ii 
Aldgate. 



423 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the men descended into the pit to rescue 
them, they were found quite dead though not 
yet cold. There were also many pits dug of a 
smaller size, capable of containing from fifty 
to sixty corpses, and these were sunk in any 
convenient place. By command of the 
magistrates, no body was allowed to be left 
within six feet of the ground, and so it was 
necessary to dig deep in order to bury any 
number of bodies at all. 

The Horrors of August. 

It was in this way that July passed and 
the fourth month of this terrible visitation 
drew on. All this time the plague had been 
increasing, and notwithstanding all efforts to 
stop its ravages, it still continued to spread. 
The people were now dying at the frightful 
rate of more than 2,000 per week, and so 
virulent had the pestilence become that some 
dropped down dead suddenly in the street. 
Several of the drivers of the dead-carts were 
taken in this way. The explanation of these 
astounding instances may be found in the 
fact that in some cases the premonitory 
symptoms of the disease were so mild that 
the sufferer could not or would not admit 
that he was attacked, when suddenly a severe 
faintness palsied his limbs, the fatal maculae, 
or tokens, as they were commonly called, 
appeared on his body, giving unmistakable 
signs of the corruption within, and the 
disease — all the more deadly because secret 
— completed its fatal work at once. 

But in the majority of cases the symptoms 
were far too painful and severe to admit of any 
doubt. The disease usually commenced with 
severe sickness, shiverings, and headache; 
then followed pains in the limbs, swellings on 
various parts of the body, and carbuncles, or 
sores. If these could be made to discharge 
and so relieve the system of the poisonous 
matter, it was considered that the patient 
might recover, and great efforts were made to 
obtain this result, but usually, alas, with no 
success. Sometimes the swellings were 
cauterized to such a barbarous extent that 
the poor patients, already tortured almost past 
bearing by the disease itself, became frenzied 
under the added pain, and in their raving 
madness burst the bands which bound them 
to their beds, and either leaping from their 
windows or breaking down the doors of their 
houses, fought the watchman, and ran naked 
about the streets, eventually to leap into the 
river or into the burying pits, or to fall dead. 

As the sultry days of August advanced, 
the heat became more oppressive, and the 
horrors of the plague increased tenfold. 
The death-rate rose to 8,000 a week, so that 
the regulations of the magistrates could no 
longer be enforced, and the dead-carts were 
obliged to convey their ghastly freights to 
the great graves at all hours of the day as 



well as in the night. House after house 
stood open to the winds of heaven, and the 
death-like solitude and stillness which now 
brooded over the city was appalling. The 
great thoroughfares became so overgrown 
with grass that they looked like fields. 

The dread silence was here and there 
broken by the wild ravings of delirium or 
the wailings of woe, borne from out the 
open casements on the soft summer air; 
and sometimes the solitude of the streets was 
startled by the cries of poor frenzied fanatics, 
whose brains had been turned by the terrible 
scenes around. 

One of these, named Solomon Eagles, 
walked about the desolate streets entirely 
naked, with a pan of burning coals on his 
head, proclaiming the judgment of the 
Almighty upon the inhabitants of the great 
city ; while another, pacing the pathway 
with ghostlike tread, never ceased day or 
night to cry aloud in hollow, sepulchral 
tones, — " Oh, the great and dreadful God! 
Oh, the great and dreadful God!'''' and 
a third, remembering only in his wearied 
brain the prophecy of Jonah, solemnly 
exclaimed, as with stealthy tread he walked 
the streets, — "Yet forty days and London 
shall be destroyed." 

And indeed it seemed as though the 
prophecy would be fulfilled ; for sometime 
since there had been a complete stop put to 
the exodus from the city, and it appeared as 
though all who remained would perish. The 
Lord Mayor, Sir John Lawrence, could no 
longer grant certificates of health; for all 
streets were alike infected, and the country 
towns would not permit any stranger to 
enter within their gates. Some persons 
managed to evade all regulations, and escape, 
and lived by the roadside or in barns ; others 
took tents with them, and lived a literally 
nomadic life. But there were very few of 
these ; and it seemed as though all shut 
up in the doomed city must perish. The 
absence of all or nearly all the wealthy 
persons, the complete cessation of trade, 
and the breaking up of so many establish- 
ments had thrown thousands out of work. 
It is said that 40,000 servants alone were 
without a home, and left literally in the 
streets to starve or die of the plague, while 
the number of artisans without employment 
was too large to be calculated. 

During the whole of this trying time the 
Lord Mayor — Sir John Lawrence — and Alder- 
men remained in town and nobly fulfilled 
their duty. When the plague had begun 
seriously in May they did all that lay in 
their power to compose the minds of the 
people and keep them from the tricks of the 
astrologers and from that state of panic which 
we have seen prevailed to such an alarming 
extent, and so powerfully help to spread the 



4.24, 



PLAGUE AND FIRE. 



plague. They published their determination 
not to quit the city, and announced their 
resolve that whatever happened they would 
remain to preserve order and do everything 
possible to prevent the ravages of the plague. 
Every day they held councils, inspected the 
markets to see that food free from taint 
was sold, and collected large sums for the 
benefit of the starving and plague-stricken 
poor. Fearful as were the scenes through 
which London passed during that fatal 
■summer, they would have been still worse 
but for the noble, self-denying conduct of 
Lord Mayor Lawrence, for the horrors of star- 



There were various plans pursued for the 
purchase of provisions without spreading 
infection. On some occasions the money 
was placed in vinegar on a stone some little 
way out of the city, and the purchaser then 
retired some distance away, while the persons 
from the country having the food, vegetables, 
fruit, etc., to sell, and who had watched 
the proceeding from a place of safety afar 
off, came forward and took the money, 
and left the provisions bargained for. When 
meat was bought in the market it was hung 
on hooks in the same way, and the pur- 
chasers deposited the money in vinegar and 










Purchasing Provisions in the Days of the Plague. 



vation would have been added to those of the 
plague, and whatever mitigations were in 
force would have been wanting. A fund for 
the relief of the suffering city was inaugu- 
rated and regularly dispensed. The King 
subscribed a thousand pounds per week, and 
the city six hundred. The Earl of Craven, 
the Duke of Albemarle, Sir John Lawrence, 
Dr. Sheldon, the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
who remained in London all the time, the 
Oueen-dowager, and others, also gave liber- 
ally. It is said that for several weeks the 
Lord Mayor and Aldermen were able to dis- 
pense ^100,000 a week, but it is probable 
that this is an exaggeration. 



took it themselves off the hook, so that the 
vendor and purchaser came not at all near 
each other. The pestilence raged fearfully 
among the butchers and slaughter-houses of 
Whitechapel, and the market there was 
shunned as much as possible ; it is said 
that no person could go near the market 
without seeing several dead bodies lying 
about or across the narrow lanes leading 
to and from it. And there they lay until 
the dead- cart came and they were found by 
the buriers. 

The Death-fires of September. 
As August passed and the sultry days of 



425 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



September set in, the mortality still con- 
tinued to increase. As a last hope it was 
resolved to endeavour to dissipate the pesti- 
lential miasma by burning huge fires in the 
streets. There were many doctors who op- 
posed this plan, but it was ordered by the 
council, and on the 2nd of September a 
proclamation was issued by the Lord Mayor 
to the effect that as the number of deaths 
still continued to increase, huge fires of 
sea-coal were to be kindled in every street, 
court, and alley, in the proportion of one fire 
to six houses on every side of the way. For 
three days and nights did these death-fires 
continue to burn, when they were extinguished 
by a heavy fall of rain. Whether caused by 
the suffocating smoke which arose from the 
fires put out in this way, or from the reeking 
mist caused by the hot sun shining after the 
heavy rain is not known, but certain it is 
(that the mortality rose higher than ever, 
more than 4,000 deaths occurring in the night 
following. 

The plague was now at its height, and it 
spread with an irresistible fury which seemed 
as though in a very few days it would sweep 
away every person left within the doomed 
city. The citizens, in the desperation of 
despair, gave over all efforts to stop its 
ravages. 

Some poor creatures paraded the streets, 
crying and wringing their hands, and pray- 
ing God for mercy ; others sat in their houses 
and wearily waited for death. Mothers mur- 
dered their own children in their desperate 
despair, and many went melancholy mad. 
Whole streets were now deserted, and it was 
a common thing for the buriers to find a 
houseful of persons all lying dead together. 
Frequently there were many dead-carts con- 
gregated at the pit's mouth full of dead 
bodies, but there was neither bellman or 
burier with them. These men had fallen 
dead while employed in their ghastly but 
necessary work. 

In the curious little book before alluded 
to, and published by Mr. Vincent after the 
plague, he saeaks thus of the days of August 
and September : — 

"Now the cloud is very black and the 
storm comes down upon us very sharp. Now 
Death rides triumphantly on his pale horse 
through our streets, and breaks into every 
house almost where any inhabitants are to 
be found. Now people fall as thick as the 
leaves in autumn when they are shaken by a 
mighty wind. Now there is a dismal solitude 
in London streets ; every day looks with the 
face of the Sabbath day, observed with greater 
solemnity than it used to be . . . and a deep 
silence almost in every place, especially within 
the walls. No prancing horses, no rattling 
coaches, no caUing in customers nor offering 
wares, no London cries sounding in the ears. 



If any voice be heard it is the groans of 
dying persons breathing forth their last, and 
the funeral knells of them that are ready to 
be carried to their graves. Now shutting up 
of visited houses (there being so many) is at 
an end, and most of the well are mingled 
among the sick, which otherwise would have 
got no help. . . . Never did so many hus- 
bands and wives die together ; never did so 
many parents carry their children with them 
to the grave and go together into the same 
house under earth, who had lived together in 
the same house upon it. Now the nights are 
too short to bury the dead ; the whole day, 
though at so great a length, is hardly suffi- 
cient to light the dead that fall thereon into 
their graves. ... Now the grave doth open 
its mouth without measure. Multitudes — 
multitudes in the valley of the shadow of 
death thronging daily into eternity ! The 
churchyards now are stuffed so full with dead 
corpses that they are in many places swelled 
two or three feet higher than they were 
before ; and new ground is broken up to 
bury the dead." 

The week ending the 19th of September 
was that in which the pestilence reached 
its greatest destructiveness. It is impossible 
to give the accurate figures of those who fell 
in this fearful week, as the buriers themselves 
said they were unable to reckon how many 
they had carried to the grave each day, and 
they frequently did not know the number in 
their carts ; but it is certain that more thani 
10,000 perished. The number returned is 
8,297, but it was well known that the Bills 
seldom gave more than two-thirds or three- 
fourths of the actual number. 

Yet even in this awful time there were some 
persons so desperate in their wickedness, and 
so utterly lost to all sense of shame, that 
they rioted in the basest licentiousness, and 
prowled about bent on robbery and murder. 
They literally fulfilled the heathenish maxim, 
" Let us eat and drink, for to-moirow we die." 
To-day they indulged in the grossest vice — on 
the next, their bodies were in the dead-cart. 

The Pest-houses. 
Without doubt the Lord Mayor and 
Council were remiss in one particular — viz.,. 
the erection of pest-houses or hospitals^ 
where stricken persons could have been 
taken directly they were infected. Defoe 
mentions that during the whole of this tinie 
there were but two pest-houses — one in 
the fields beyond Old Street, and one in 
Westminster, Tothill Fields ; but he must 
have been mistaken, for according to other 
sources, such as the parish book of St. Giles, 
etc., we learn that there were certainly others, 
though probably only small ones. Lord 
Craven, who remained in London during the 
whole of the time, caused one to be buUt on 



426 



PLAGUE AND FIRE. 



what is now known as Golden Square. This 
consisted of about thirty-six small tenements, 
and was capable of holding about two hundred 
patients, but certain charges appear to have 
Tseen made for admission, which of course 
prevented its usefulness, and defeated the 
very object for which it was erected, as the 
very poor, among whom the plague raged so 
violently, could not avail themselves of it. 

The "pest-houses" inTothill Fields, West- 
minster, consisted of a few red-brick build- 
ings, also built by Lord Craven ; and many 
a torch or lanthorn-lighted group of mys- 
terious figures bore litters of plague-stricken 
people to this then solitary spot when the 
pestilence was at its height. 

The other pest-house belonged to the City. 
It consisted of several tenements, and was 
situated on the spot upon which Pest-house 
Row now stands, near Old Street, St. Luke's. 

In these pest-houses the people were so 
well looked after that there were but com- 
paratively few burials from them, only about 
1 60 from each of the two principal ones 
having occurred during the entire time. 

Abatement of the Plague. 

Towards the end of September, cool winds 
began to blow, and the scorching heat of this 
most sultry summer sank to a more normal 
temperature. The effect was instantly seen 
in the weekly Bills of Mortality, and men 
thanked God as they had never thanked 
Him before when, on the 26th of September, 
they saw that there had been a considerable 
decrease in the number of deaths during the 
week. There were, in fact, nearly two thousand 
less than in the week preceding. Although 
the number was still very great, yet the 
citizens regarded this decrease as a most 
favourable sign ; and grim Despair, which 
for so long a time had been their dread fami- 
liar, now gave place to white-winged Hope. 
Joy began again to beam forth on faces 
which for so many weary weeks had been 
stricken with gloom. 

We can well imagine that bright autumn 
morning when this first good news was pub- 
lished. Those who knew it went from street 
to street, repeating it to those whom they 
met. 

" Have you heard the good news, neigh- 
bour?" 

" Nay, what good news ? There can be 
no good news in these dreadful days !" 

" Yes, but the plague is abating.^'' 

"The plag7ie is abating? Oh! thank 
God. God be praised !" And he would cry 
or weep aloud for joy, and hasten to tell his 
friends. And those who could not leave their 
houses would shout the glad tidings from their 
narrow casements to any persons who might 
be near; and thus the city of the dead and 
dying began again to take hope and courage. 



But at this time it has been computed that 
there were no less than 60,000 people sick 
of the plague ; and if it had not been that 
many of them began now to rapidly recover, 
the mortality must have been greater than 
even when the plague was at its highest, in 
the third week in September. But the most 
cheering feature of this period was, that 
whereas before, most persons who were in- 
fected died, and died very rapidly, a very 
great number now began to recover. The 
poison of the plague seemed to have lost its 
virulence, and out of that large number — 
60,000 — it is believed that the vast majority 
became healthy again. 

This fact received still more striking con- 
firmation during the next and following 
weeksj for the number of deaths decreased 
daily, and the same cold winds and crisp 
frosts of that chill October which shook the 
sere leaves of the long, hot summer to the 
ground, gave new life and vigour to the poor 
plague- stricken and enervated people in town. 
The cold, bracing vi^eather of late autumn and 
early winter seems to have done more to stop 
the plague than all the efforts of physicians. 

The city now made rapid progress to 
health, and people began gradually to return 
— very slowly and timorously at first, lest the 
contagion might not be really gone. By 
degrees the shops were re-opened, and the 
bustle of business was again heard in the 
streets. Every morning when the Bill of 
Health was published, and the numbers were 
seen to be still on the decline, the people 
would go about with smiles on their faces, 
repeating the good news one to another. 

As the plague still further abated, the people 
returned in crowds to occupy their houses. 
In fact, such foolish haste did many of them 
exhibit, that several cases occurred of persons 
sleeping in beds from which but a itw days 
before bodies dead of the plague had been 
taken to the grave. Thus Dr. Hodges, in 
his Loijiiologia, writes : " Those citizens who 
were before afraid even of their friends and 
relations, would without fear venture into the 
houses and rooms where infected persons 
had a little before breathed their last ; nay, 
such comforts did inspire the languishing 
people, and such confidence, that many went 
into the beds where persons had died, even 
before they were cold or cleansed from the 
stench of the disease." This foolish temerity 
caused many persons to lose their lives, and 
in the first weeks of November, when the 
people were fast returning to their homes, 
the bills rose again ; but by degrees people 
began to resume their usual occupation. 

London once more appeared full and busy. 
The Court returned in February to White- 
hall, and the nobility followed. So many 
people again crowded the streets that in a 
short time those who had perished seemed 
427 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



not to be noticed ; and though the plague 
■still lingered in out-of-the-way streets, its 
terror seemed almost forgotten. 

According to the official returns, there 
perished in London during the time of the 
plague-year — i.e., from the 20th of December, 
1664, when the plague first broke out in 
Drury Lane, by the death of the two French- 
men, to the 19th of December, 1665, when the 
number had decreased to about 200 — the 
immense number of 68,596 ; but as many 
deaths were known to have been unrecorded, 
and as in the six most terrible weeks of August 
and September the dead-carts were so con- 
stantly full that the buriers lost all count, it 
has been computed that the real number of 
■deaths must have been at ]east 100,000, while 
Clarendon gives the appalling number of 
160,000. It is believed, however, that this 
last number is an exaggeration. 

What was the Plague? 

Happily the plague has been unknown in 
England since the times of which we have 
written, and there has been no opportunity 
for our scientific men to study it with accuracy. 
Its true home seems to be in Egypt and 
the Levant. Great difference of opinion 
still exists among medical men as to its 
cause, exact nature, and treatment. It would 
seem that a subtle poison, which has hitherto 
•escaped all chemical tests and microscopic 
examination, is communicated and absorbed 
in the system, where it speedily alters the 
blood and tissues, and decomposes the whole 
body before even life has become extinct. 
It is known, however, to be a very ma- 
lignant contagious fever, prevailing epidemi- 
cally, and accompanied by buboes or painful 
swellings of the lymphatic glands, and also by 
carbuncles. It appears usually to commence 
with sensations of intense weariness, accom- 
panied by shivering and sickness, giddiness 
and pains in the loins. Mental disturbance, 
delirium and stupor, follow ; there is a painful 
sense of constriction about the heart, and 
darting pains are felt in the armpits, groins, 
and other parts of the body where the 
lymphatic glands are situated, and which 
presently swell painfully, although some 
accounts exist in which these swellings have 
not occurred. Carbuncles appear on various 
parts of the body, and also petechial spots, 
or purple patches resembling bruises, and 
dark-looking stripes. These spots are sup- 
posed to have been the " tokens * alluded to 
by the old writers on the subject. 

Most writers agree that it spreads rapidly 
by contact, and that temperature exerts a 
i"onsiderable influence over it. Both extreme 
Iieat and cold seem to be fatal to it. Thus 
in tropical and in extremely cold countries 
it is unknown, while in Europe it has been 
always most fatal in September. 



It may be that it is a very malignant and 
complicated combination of other epidemics 
with some of which we are even now at times 
familiar ; such malignancy and complication 
being due to the closeness, sickening heat, 
and filth of the old cities. In any case there 
is no doubt but that the better sanitary con- 
ditions under which Europeans now live, the 
free use of cold water, good ventilation, wider 
streets, and moderate habits of life, all con- 
duce to keep us free from this horrible 
pestilence. 

In former times, however, seeing that the 
people could find neither adequate cause or 
certain cure for the disease, it is not to be 
wondered at that many persons believed that 
the Almighty had for the time being put 
aside all natural laws, and inflicted upon the 
people a strange and terrible disease which 
should baffle all human skill, and which He 
alone could stop at His pleasure. 

Fire ! Fire ! 

Scarcely had the terror and tribulation 
occasioned by the ravages of the plague 
died away before another appalling calamity 
burst upon the devoted city, — a calamity 
which, although at first it appeared so des- 
perately disastrous, was to prove a veritable 
blessing in disguise. 

It was just a year after the terrible death- 
fires were burning in London streets, and 
doubtless there were many who were speak- 
ing of those dismal times, when about ten 
o'clock on the evening of Saturday the 
2nd of September, 1666, the late loiterers 
in the narrow streets near London Bridge 
were startled by the sight of a bright 
tongue of flame shooting upwards into 
the darksome sky ; and before long they 
learned that the house of a poor baker 
named Farryner, situated in Pudding Lane, 
near Fish Street Hill, had caught fire. 

Unfortunately in those days a fire in the 
close and crowded London streets, built of 
wooden houses, some of them a century old, 
was no uncommon occurrence ; and after 
the first shock of surprise had passed, most 
of the people went quietly home to bed. 
" Oh, it is only the half-decayed house of 
a poor baker who has over-heated his oven," 
they said. " It is better down than up, no 
doubt, it is so old." But before morning 
had dawned they thought otherwise, for the 
fire spread with startling rapidity, and all 
efforts to stop it were unavailing. 

The house in which it originated was a 
very old and worm-eaten structure ; and 
being dry as tinder by reason of the recent 
drought, it was rapidly consumed. A high 
wind was blowing from the east, and the 
flames speedily spread to the neighbouring 
houses, which, being all old and half-decayed, 
and filled with oil, tar, and other combus- 



428 



PLAGUE AND FIRE. 



tibles used in ship-building and ship-furnish- 
ing, afforded ready fuel for the wind-driven 
fire. In a few hours the whole of Billings- 
gate ward was in flames ; and then, fanned 
by the fierce wind, the fire tore along Thames 
Street, and seized upon St. Magnus' Church, 
which was situated at what was then known 
as Bridgefoot. 

At first the few citizens who were alarmed 
were so affrighted and amazed that they 
knew not what to do. The cumbersome 
engines then in the neighbourhood were 
reduced to ashes before they could be used. 
Then as the terrible cries of " Fire ! Fire ! 
Fire !" resounded through the streets, the 
inhabitants of the surrounding houses rushed 



sparks and flakes of fire a great distance- 
ahead, and set many buildings on fire before, 
the original conflagration reached them. 
Still the flames swept on, and their lurid 
light fell upon the white faces of the terrified 
people who thronged and struggled in the 
crowded streets. Their terrible rattling and 
roaring was now mingled with the din of 
falling houses and the shrieks and shoutings, 
the oaths and curses of the panic-stricken 
people. Now the terrible scene was lighter 
than day by reason of the ruddy flames, and 
again it was dark as night when the fire 
seized some warehouse of oil and tar and 
poured forth volumes of dense black suffocat- 
ing smoke. 




The Great Fire of London, seen from Bankside, tiouTHWARK. 
{Frotn a print of the period by Visscher^ 



from their beds in terror, panic-stricken, and 
numbers of half-dazed, half-dressed creatures 
thronged into the narrow thoroughfares and 
increased the panic. 

Then burst forth the fire-bells from the 
neighbouring churches, and their loud alarums 
now mingled with the roar of the rushing 
flames, and the terrible cries of "Fire ! Fire !" 
The confusion and terror increased every 
minute. Every one seemed bent on saving 
what they could of their own property, and 
the narrow streets were choked with piles of 
household goods. But the flames were so 
fierce that they burned even these, and the 
terrified people had to fly for their lives. 

The summer had been long and hot, and 
all the wooden houses were dry as touch- 
wood. The wind, blowing fiercely, carried 



No Water ! 
To add to the terror and confusion the pipes 
of the New River Company were found dry, 
and no water could be obtained. This added 
to the belief that the fire was the work of in- 
cendiaries, either fanatical papists or foreign 
enemies, or, as an old writer quaintly said,. 
"The same doth smell of^ popish design." 
And there were not wanting religious enthusi- 
asts who sternly shouted aloud that this was 
another judgment of the Almighty for the 
wickedness of the times, and that He, seeing 
that the people had not been turned to repent- 
ance by the plague, now intended to make an 
end of the wicked city. Every minute the 
flames gathered fresh force, and seemed to 
justify the belief that every building would 
be bnrned to the ground. 



42Q 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



The Lord Mayor — Sir Thomas Bludworth 
—and the civic authorities were long m 
coming to the scene, and when they arrived 
they shrank from such bold and decisive 
measures as the blowing up of houses and so 
localizing the flames, which alone could 
have availed anything. For many hours the 
Lord Mayor would not even accept the aid 
of the soldiers, and, in short, nothing worth 
mentioning seems to have been done to 
prevent the spread of the flames. 

As the night passed, the flre continued to 
rage with the utmost fury, rushing from 
house to house with marvellous rapidity. 
The narrow lanes and streets speedily- be- 
came streets of flame, and the half-naked 
people, abandoning all hope, fled before them 
' in abject terror. 

Sunday morning dawned, and the Septem- 
ber sun showed through the canopy of lurid 
smoke like a spot of blood. Still the flames 
rushed on, and the whole city resounded 
with their roaring and rattle and the cries 
of "Fire! Fire! Fire!" The houses near 
London Bridge, all Thames Street, and up 
to Cheapside, appeared now but heaps of 
hot and smouldering ruins. The consterna- 
tion and confusion increased every minute. 
Never was there such a Sunday before or 
since in London. The terror and tribula- 
tion, the frenzied fright and panic-stricken 
confusion were without parallel. The people, 
deprived of house and home as it were in 
a second of time, were driven westward and 
northward to find refuge in the fields about 
Islington and Highgate, for there was fear of 
every building being destroyed. The city 
train-bands were put under arms, with orders 
to watch at every quarter for treacherous 
men, because it was rumoured that fire-balls 
were thrown into houses to increase the fires, 
and that popish emissaries were at work. 
And indeed men's thoughts seem to have 
been almost more turned on these stories of 
malice and treachery as to the cause of the 
fire than how to prevent it. Immediately 
near to it were gathered a vast number of 
wretched ruffians who carried on their 
work of plunder even in the very teeth of 
death. Oaths and shrieks, the clanging of 
fire-bells and the roaring of the flames, were 
all mingled in one horrible din. Many 
churches were in flames that day ; and of 
this the Rev, Thomas Vincent writes in the 
quaint pamphlet to which we have before al- 
luded : — 

" God seemed to come down and preach 
Himself in them, as He did in Sinai 
when the mount burned with fire ; such 
warm preaching those churches never had ; 
such lightning dreadful sermons never were 
before delivered . . . Instead of a holy rest 
which Christians had usually taken on 
that day, there was tumultuous hurrying 



about the streets toward the places that 
burned, and more tumultuous hurrying upon 
the spirits of those that sat still, and had 
only the notice of the ear of the strange and 
quick spreading of the fire." 

As that Sunday night drew on, the spectacle 
became most appallingly magnificent. Thou- 
sands of houses were burning, and a vast sheet 
of fire, a mile in diameter, was seen ascending 
to the sky ; the flames were bent and broken, 
and twisted by the fierce wind into a thou- 
sand fearful shapes,- and every blast bore 
through the air large flakes of fire which, 
falling on the pitched roofs of the old houses, 
kindled new conflagrations on every side. 
The lurid glare of the sky, which for miles 
was like a burning vault, and the oppressive 
heat, the roaring of the flames and the falling 
of the houses and churches, combined to 
make a scene the like of which has never 
been witnessed before or since. For ten 
miles around the country was bright as mid- 
day, while for fifty miles the billows of smoke 
rolled, and London seemed like a sea of 
flame. The fire had now reached Garlick- 
hithe, in Thames Street, and had levelled 
part of Cannon Street to the ground. It 
was blazing all along by the water's edge, 
and advancing up towards Cornhill. 

All efforts made this day to stop the 
flames proved ineffectual, the wind still con- 
tinued high and swept the fire onward with 
merciless rapidity. Little sleep was taken 
in London that night. 

Complete consternation had seized upon 
all the people, and those who had hitherto 
regarded the fire as a local affair, not con- 
cerning them, were now aroused and fearful. 
The slothful king himself was startled from 
his selfish pleasures, and leaving his luxurious 
palace, appeared in person and gave direc- 
tions for fighting the flames. Houses were 
pulled down, and water was thrown on the 
burning masses by means of buckets ; but all 
to no purpose. The fire leaped over the gaps 
caused by the ruined dwellings, crossed the 
narrow streets, and lapped up the water like oil. 

When Monday morning dawned, Grace- 
church Street was all in flames, with Lombard 
Street and Fenchurch Street. The burning 
was like a bow, the point of which soon 
reached Cornhill, and attacked the Royal 
Exchange. This splendid building, which 
at that time was the best of the kind in 
Europe, had been built just one hundred 
years before by Sir Thomas Gresham. 

But very quickly the noble galleries of 
that spacious building were burned down, 
and with an appalling noise the walls 
fell in, and all the stone statues of the 
English kings which had stood within its 
quadrangle cracked and crumbled with the 
intense heat, leaving only the founder's 
statue, which, strange to say, remained un- 
430 



PLAGUE AND FIRE. 



shaken. But when the merchants and the 
townspeople saw their celebrated Exchange 
consumed, then indeed did they quail and 
tremble. They feared that everything must 
go, and became full of distraction and con- 
fusion, running hither and thither in utter 
bewilderment and having no command of 
their own thoughts. 

Efforts to preserve Property. 

Some persons who still kept their wits 
about them chartered boats and barges, and 
filled them with such goods as they could 
save and sent them floating down the Thames. 
Others paid as much as £10 for a cart to 
convey some of their property far beyond the 
outskirts of the city. The fields for many 
miles around were strewn with movables 
of all kinds, and tents were erected to cover 
a few of the thousands of burned-out people. 

It was indeed a piteous sight to see these 
terror-smitten myriads wearily wending their 
way, with their wives and little ones, into the 
fields. There were some so terror-stricken 
that tears ran down their pallid cheeks like 
rain, others beat their breasts and wrung 
their hands in utter despair, while many 
sobbed and shrieked aloud in their agony 
and distress of soul. Here might be seen 
sick invalids just borne from their beds, and 
others only just able to drag themselves along, 
and close by were aged persons whose 
withered cheeks and white hair told of many 
a painful struggle past, and now in their old 
age they were reduced t6 utter penury and 
want. Sick and sound, aged and young, 
were all going forth in their thousands to 
seek shelter in the shelterless fields, and so 
Monday night drew on. 

If the evening of Sunday had been' fearful, 
Monday night was much worse. The very 
pavements were glowing with fiery heat, and 
the air was so hot that no person could ven- 
ture within a furlong's space of the burning 
streets. The blaze was so fearful that it was 
lighter than noonday. The fire had now 
worked backward against the wind along 
Thames Street East, and up towards Tower 
Hill. The other part of the conflagration had 
burned Cheapside, and was close upon St. 
Paul's, while another portion had blazed 
along the water's edge towards Fleet Street 
and the Temple. 

There were some who hoped that the 
Cathedral, being isolated and only very lately 
rebuilt of stone, would remain untouched, 
and for a long period it towered grim and 
dark above the sea of flame like a massive 
rock amid the stormy waves. But it yielded 
at length; and the all-conquering flames, 
driven furiously towards it by the fierce east 
wind, caught the roof and some of the 
scaffold poles which were still standing 
around it. The molten lead from the roof 



ran down its walls in a fiery stream, and the 
stones split and peeled off with the intense 
heat, and pieces flew from side to side with 
loud reports as if shot from a cannon ; mas- 
sive beams fell to the ground with a noise like 
thunder, and as the splendid building was 
consumed, the triumphant flames shot higher 
and higher into the burning sky. 

After this, the fire raged down Fleet Street 
with wonderful rapidity, and blazed to the north 
along Newgate Street, and attacked Newgate 
Prison, which was soon consumed. The 
flakes of fire now fell thick on every side, and 
so rapid was the spread of the flames that 
King Charles feared that not only Whitehall, 
but Westminster Abbey would be consumed. 
Then indeed he bestirred himself. He sent 
numbers of gentlemen to various posts, with 
instructions at all hazards to stop the flames; 
and as it seemed quite clear that nothing 
short of blowing down houses — so as to create 
wide gaps over which the fire could not leap 
— would be of service, this plan was now 
adopted. But the fire was spreading with 
such marvellous rapidity that it was now 
several miles in compass. Beginning near 
the Temple, it was blazing northward along 
by Fetter Lane to Holborn ; here it bent back- 
ward by Snow Hill, Newgate Street, Guildhall, 
Coleman Street, Lothbury, Broad Street, 
Bishopsgate Street, and Leadenhall Street. 
All through Tuesday night the fire raged 
with unabated force, the roaring of the flames 
was increased by heavy sounds as of thunder, 
as houses were blown down. This night 
Guildhall was a splendid though appalling 
spectacle. Being built of solid oak, it stood 
for many hours after the fire had seized upon 
it, glowing with heat like the heart of a fire 
or burnished brass. 

Thus, notwithstanding all efforts, the fire still 
1 a jed fiercely ; and when Wednesday morn- 
ing dawned on the weary eyes of the terrified 
people, there were many who believed that 
all the suburbs would be burned. King Charles 
had sent all his belongings down the river to 
Hampton Court, and great preparations were 
made for a still further exodus of the people 
and removal of property. But now provi- 
dentially the wind fell, and the efforts that 
had already been made seeming likely to be 
successful, the people were encouraged to 
make still further exertions ; the gaps caused 
by the blown-up houses being wider than 
previously, and the wind being far less 
furious, the fire could not leap across ; conse- 
quently it began very sensibly to abate. It 
came no farther west than the Temple, and no 
farther north than the entrance to Smithfield; 
but within these limits it still raged, and so 
great was the heat thrown out by the burning 
ruins that no one could venture near. 

The people stiil worked with a will, and 
the fire being thus localized and limited in 



431 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



its extent, was kept under, although so fiercely 
did it rage in certain quarters — towards 
Cripplegate and also near the Tower, while 
it also broke out again in the Temple — that 
there were many who still feared it might 
spread. The exertions of the King on this 
day were most praiseworthy. He made the 
round of the fire twice, and by commands, 
threatenings, and a good store of money, 
kept the workers at their various posts. He 
also exerted himself to obtain food and 
procure provisions and shelter for the thou- 
sands of burned-out people who were lodging 
in the fields. Orders were sent into various 
parts of the country for supplies of food and 
tents, and also for boards wherewith to 
construct temporary huts. During Wednes- 
day afternoon the flames gradually decreased, 
and on Thursday the fire was everywhere 
extinguished. Curiously enough, it ended at 
a place called Pye Corner, where a tablet still 
marks the spot. « 

A Walk through the Ruins. 

It was a fearful and melancholy sight that 
the September sun shone upon, that Friday 
morning following the fire. London in ruins 
— smoking, smouldering, burning ruins. A 
traveller making his way with extraordinary 
difficulty along what once was Fleet Street, 
would see on every side the heaps of smoking 
rubbish where once had been quaint and 
picturesque houses, ancient churches, and 
historical edifices. And when, often mis- 
taking his way, he reached the spot on which 
St. Paul's Cathedral had reared its imposing 
front, he would be able to see straight down 
to the river on one hand, and obtain a clear 
view of the Tower before him on the other ; 
there was nothing to obstruct his view — on 
every side were the blackened heaps. But the 
sad ruins of the Cathedral itself would arrest 
his attention. Before him lay long flakes of 
the huge stones, all split asunder, and many 
pieces of the massive Portland stone quite 
calcined; ornaments and arches, capitals and 
columns, all destroyed and crumbled into 
dust ; yet, singularly enough, the inscription 
on the architrave was yet entire. 

But the ground was still so hot that he 
would not be able long to stand at one spot ; 
and indeed in the narrower streets he could 
not pass at all, while the clouds of suffoca- 
ting smoke that here and there arose almost 
choked him ; so making his way north, he 
would come in time to Moorfields and Fins- 
bury Fields, where for several miles around, 
and as far as the eye could reach, were 
encamped the poor inhabitants burned out of 
house and home. Many of them, by reason 
of the hurriedness of their flight, had scarcely 
any clothes to cover them ; many more had 
nothing but the dress on their backs. Yet, 
though on the verge of starvation, they were 



for the most part quiet and orderly, although 
it was the quiet of melancholy and despair. 
On every side were ruin, poverty, and distress. 

The City's Resurrection. 

The sturdy English spirit soon reasserted 
itself, and before long great eff"orts were made 
for the rebuilding of the city. Even before 
the ruins were cold, Sir Christopher Wren, 
by the King's command, had been over the 
great plain of ashes, roughly surveyed the 
ground, and drawn out plans for the recon- 
struction of the city on a uniform and 
magnificent scale. Unfortunately the owners 
of the various sites could not be brought to 
agree, and a splendid opportunity of re- 
building a magnificent city was los't. 

But as it was, London soon rose phoenix- 
like from its ashes, with more spacious streets 
and splendid edifices than had ever been 
seen before in England. The Act for re- 
building was drawn by Sir Matthew Hale 
with great wisdom, so that no lawsuits ensued ; 
and here and there houses began speedily 
to arise, as far as possible on the old sites • 
these were gradually joined into wide streets. 

In four years' time, according to the writers 
in one of the papers of the period, London 
was rebuilt with so much beauty and mag- 
nificence that all Europe was amazed. 

And in order to preserve the memory of 
this terrible visitation, it was enacted by 
Parliament that a tali column should be 
erected as near to the place where the fire 
began as was possible ; in consequence of 
which Sir Christopher Wren erected the 
famous monument on Fish Street Hill, on 
which is set forth, in accordance with the 
searches of the city surveyor, that the de- 
struction comprised eighty-nine churches, 
1 3,200 houses, the city walls and gates, Guild- 
hall, four hundred streets, St. Paul's Cathedral,, 
and many other public edifices, the total 
amount of loss being estimated at ;!^7,33 5,000. 

But however much the good citizens of 
London might have suffered through these 
dreadful three days, and however great the 
destruction might have been, there is no 
doubt birt that the fire was one of the great- 
est blessings that ever befell London. For 
not only did it purify the city from the plague, 
and banish it from our midst, but instead 
of the close, and crooked streets, with 
their dark and ill-contrived wooden houses, 
each having its various stories jutting out 
one above another, so that light and air could 
scarcely penetrate into the street below, where 
pestilential vapours always hung, — instead of 
a foul and filthy town, the nest of noisome 
disease, there arose a handsome and healthy 
city, well adapted for the grand part it was 
destined to play as the great centre of the 
Anglo-Saxon race and the mighty metropolis. 
of the whole world. F. M. H. 



432 




The Cathedral at Palermo. 



THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 

THE STORY OF A NATION'S VENGEANCE. 



" Ill-lording, which doth desperate make 
The people ever, in Palermo raised 
The shout of ' Death ! ' re-echoed loud and long." 

Dante : Paradiso, Canto viii., I. 78 i 



National Outbreaks and their Effects— The " Roman Empire " of the Germans— Italy in the Middle Ages — Her Municipal 
Institutions — The Hohenstauffen Emperors and the Popes — Guelphs and Ghibelines— Sicily under the Saracen and the 
Norman rule — Frederick Barbarossa and his Successors — Policy of the Popes — Supremacy of Rome — Manfred the 
Suabian Hero ; and Conradin the Last of the Hohenstauffen— Papal design to establish a King in Sicily — Charles of 
Anjou and Manfred— Battle of Benevento — Conradin's invasion of Italy — Tagliacozzo — l3eath of Conradin — 
Vengeance of Charles of Anjou — Feudal Oppressions — Condition of Sicily and Apulia — Peter of Aragon and John of 
Procida — The Massacre of March 31st, 1282 — Its Results — Conclusion. 



NATIONAL Outbreaks and their 
Effects. 



N his glorious Lay of the Bell, 
Schiller describes, in thrilling verse, 
the sudden uprising of a people, 
that breaks its bonds asunder, and in a 



sudden burst of fury sweeps away, like a 
mighty inundation, the landmarks esta- 
blished by law and government. With a 
vivid recollection upon him of the scenes of 
slaughter and violence that horrified Europe 
in the first French Revolution, the poet 
declares that though it is dangerous to 

433 FF 



EPOCHS AND. EPISODES OF HISIORY. 



arouse the slumbering lion, though the 
tiger's fang is destructive, "Das Schreck- 
lichste der Schrecken'' (the horrible of 
horrors) is man when fury has bereft him 
of reason. With glowing eloquence he 
paints the scene of rapine and of ruin ; 
emphatically denouncing the folly of those 
who place in the grasp of the blind, besotted 
helot the torch of liberty, which sheds no 
light upon him, but becomes in his hand 
the instrument of the incendiary, laying 
habitations and cities in ashes, and spread- 
ing woe and desolation around. 

It is not, however, always thus. Sudden 
outbursts of popular indignation do not 
always end in impotent bursts of fury ; 
"Time and destiny also travel on." Thus 
in Paris, on the 14th of July, a mob as- 
sembles suddenly, — a fierce "sansculotte" 
mob, such as the majority of great cities can 
produce at a moment's notice. "A hundred 
and fifty thousand of us," says Carlyle in 
his magnificent History of the French Revo- 
lution, "and but the third man furnished 
with so much as a pike ! Arms are the one 
thing needful : with arms we are an uncon- 
querable, man-defying National Guard ; 
without arms, a rabble to be whiffed with 
grape-shot." Arms are procured ; and be- 
fore the shades of the short summer night 
have descended upon Paris, the Bastile 
has fallen, and the last hour of the despotic 
government and of the power of poor Louis 
XVI. has sounded. Again, an adventurer 
who had failed repeatedly and disastrously 
when the conditions of success seemed in 
his favour, puts forth from a port of Northern 
Italy, with a few hundred companions, in 
a steamer bound for Sicily, in i860; and 
men shrug their shoulders, and cynically 
speculate on the probable fate of the mad- 
man Garibaldi who has engaged in a 
desperate venture to overthrow the govern- 
ment of the Neapolitan Bourbons. But the 
hour has come, and the man ; and the 
enterprize, to the marvel of Europe, succeeds 
— succeeds brilliantly ; and Garibaldi the 
conqueror marches from triumph to triumph, 
until Francis II. and his troops and his sbirri 
have been hustled out of Italy. These and 
many other instances bear witness to the 
great results achieved by desperate ventures 
and in sudden tumults, when the time is ripe 
for action, and when the heart of a nation 
has been thoroughly stirred by a feeling 
of hatred and a determination to endure 
wrong no longer. 

Such a sudden and irresistible outburst 
it was that occurred at Palermo just six 
hundred years ago, on the Tuesday in 
Easter week in 1282, Easter falling in that 
year on the 31st of March. The event is 
known in history as the Sicilian Vespers, 
and has justly been designated by the 



Italian Amari, the historian of the "War 
of the Sicilian Vespers," as the most im- 
portant thing that happened in Sicily during 
the middle ages. Its effect was to wrest 
the Kingdom of Sicily, consisting of the 
island and of the large territory on the 
mainland, from the rule of the French, and 
ultimately to transfer it to the Spaniards. 
It also had a most important influence on 
the fortunes and destinies of the continent 
of Europe generally. National vanity and 
other causes had obscured the facts of the 
revolution, and surrounded it with fables 
that arose in long subsequent times, and 
were repeated by various historians. It 
was reserved for the intelligent and acute 
reasoner, the Sicilian Michell Amari, to» 
sweep away the accumulated errors, and to- 
place this important Epoch of History in its 
true light before the world. A new interest 
has been given to the event, moreover, by 
the recent celebration of the six hundredth 
anniversary of the Sicilian Vespers, a pro- 
ceeding which to many has appeared like 
commemorating a massacre of St. Bartho- 
lomew. But the cases are widely different. 
The St. Bartholomew was a treacherous 
and cruel conspiracy, involving the murder 
in cold blood of a number of peaceful 
citizens against whose lives fanaticism had 
been roused in its most hideous form. In 
the " Sicilian Vespers," though involving a 
lamentable butchery, may be recognised 
the furious outburst of anger of an oppressed 
people seeking a kind of wild justice in 
righting its own wrong. Therefore, also, 
the defenders of the celebration declared 
that the event was to be commemorated as 
the French were accustomed to observe the 
anniversaries of the taking of the Bastile, — 
not with reference to the violence and blood- 
shed it involved, but in its character as a 
great effort made by a people to free itself 
from unendurable tyranny. 

To place before the reader this event in 
an intelligible form, it is necessary briefly 
to speak of the state of things in Italy and 
the German Empire some time previously. 

The Roman Empire of the Germans « 

It had been a fundamental principle from 
early times, that the German Emperors- 
should protect the Church with their great 
material power, and stand forth with their 
armies to defend the pope in his rights 
and immunities whenever these should be 
attacked by an enemy. In return the 
sovereign pontiff was to uphold the au- 
thority of the Emperors by all the great 
spiritual influence he wielded as the Head 
of the Church, — an influence that was greatly 
increased in the course of centuries. The 
old formula that defined the respective 
position of the greatest of earthly and the 



434 



THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 



first of spiritual rulers ran thus : " God 
hath sent two swords into the world for the 
protection of Christendom — to the Pope He 
hath entrusted the spiritual, to the Emperor 
the temporal. Thus the feudal supremacy 
of the Emperors of the West, from Charle- 
magne downwards, extended over Italy ; 
and m the tenth century, under the powerful 
Saxon House, under Henry the Fowler and 
his descendants the Othos, this dominion 
and supremacy was real and actual. But 
after the Saxon House came feeble suc- 
cessors ; and the influence of the Church 
increased as that of the Empire diminished, 
the long minority of Henry IV. , afterwards 
the opponent of Gregory VII., giving a 
good opportunity for the increase of the 
ecclesiastical power throughout Germany, 
while the imperial sway in Italy became 
merely nominal. Humiliation was inflicted 
upon the Emperor Henry IV. at Canossa, 
where the unfortunate monarch's only hope 
of regaining his authority over his re- 
volted vassals was in reconciliation with 
the pontiff whom he had bitterly offended, 
and who revenged himself by keeping the 
suppliant waiting in penitential garb in 
the outer court for several days before 
admitting him to an audience ; and even 
then, though the kiss of peace was at last 
reluctantly given to the suppliant emperor, 
it was only on condition that the points in 
dispute between Henry and the pontiff 
should be referred to a council to be sum- 
moned the next year. 

It may easily be supposed that such a 
spectacle was not calculated to raise the 
respect of the Italians for the imperial 
authority ; and, indeed, the popes now re- 
pudiated the idea of the divided power, 
and arrogated to themselves temporal as 
well as spiritual sway over the nations of 
the earth ; alleging that the emperor's 
power was of human, and that of the pope 
of divine institution, and that the divine 
must in the nature of things prevail over 
the human. 

Italy and her Municipal Institu- 
tions, 

The material prosperity of the beautiful 
land of Italy meanwhile continued to in- 
crease with astonishing rapidity as time 
went on. Italy was the great emporium 
for the commerce from the East in those 
days when a maritime route to the Indies 
was yet undreamt of; and in intelligence, 
in literature, science and the arts, she was 
as far in advance of the rest of Europe 
as in opulence, in those days "when com- 
merce proudly flourished through the state," 
and when at wealth's potent command 
"the palace learnt to rise ; Again the long 
fallen column sought the skies; The canvas 



glowed, beyond e'en nature warm; The 
pregnant quarry teemed with human form ' ' — 
ere yet, "more inconstant than the southern 
gale. Commerce on other shores displayed 
her sail." 

As feudal communities are by the nature 
of things aristocratic in their constitution, 
so are commercial states inclined towards 
the republican form. The wealthy cities of 
Italy aspired to govern themselves inde- 
pendently; and a municipal system, or con- 
federacy of cities, sprang up, each with its 
separate polity and laws, but sometimes 
joining together to resist any attack from 
without on their privileges or their self- 
government ; and thus, especially in Lom- 
bardy and in Tuscany, thriving and warlike 
cities, each with its own army and its citizen 
nobles, flourished in opulent pride ; jealously 
guarding their national honour and freedom, 
and cherishing an intense feeling of hatred 
against the strangers from beyond the Alps. 

The Hohenstauffen Emperors and 
THE Popes; Guelphs and Ghibelines. 

For a long time the German Emperors 
were unable to assert, in any practical form, 
the rights of dominion they claimed over 
Italy. Their position in Germany itself 
was full of difficulty ; for there also the 
municipal system, as exhibited in the free 
towns, had taken deep root, and each 
imperial city jealously. guarded its privi- 
leges, and was always on the watch to 
resist encroachment, if necessary at the 
point of the lance and sword. The con- 
stitution of the Empire was moreover feudal ; 
and feudalism always means the supremacy 
of a powerful nobility. Many a great noble 
had more real authority, and could bring a 
greater number of vassals into the field, than 
the Emperor himself : the character of 
Richard Neville the King-maker had many 
representatives at the Courts of the Kaisers. 

The German imperial crown also was not 
hereditary but elective ; and though a kind 
of prescriptive custom kept the diadem in 
the same family for successive generations, 
there was always the prospect of its transfer 
from one great House to another. ^^ Die 
Kaiser-krone gehtvo?i Stamin, zic Stamtn, 
sie hat fiir tretie Dienste kein Geddcht- 
nisz" (The imperial crown goes from race 
to race. It has no memory for faithful 
service), says the discontented Swiss noble 
in Schiller's William Tell. And the 
Popes took advantage of this circumstance 
to increase their own power, arrogating to 
themselves the right of approving or annul- 
ling the election of an emperor ; and such 
was the deference paid to them at this 
period, that they were able to assert this 
power in the most practical manner. For 
high and low courted their favour : the 



435 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



people, as the protection the Church afforded 
them against feudal oppression ; the nobles, 
for the sake of the influence it could exert 
with their vassals and dependents either 
in their favour or against them. 

In the middle of the twelfth century the 
imperial power in Germany passed into 
the hands of the great Suabian House, the 
Hohenstauffen, They were a high-spirited, 
warlike race. The ruins of their old 
" Stammburg," or Castle of Stauffen, are 
still to be seen not far from Stuttgart in 
Wiirtemberg, the seat of their sway. 
Conrad III., the first Emperor of the 
dynasty, after being duly elected, had 
almost to conquer his kingdom from rebel- 
lious knights and townsmen ; and the story 
of the women of Weinsberg has preserved 
among the people the memory of his 
clemency as well as of his warlike prowess. 
It relates how at the siege of the revolted 
town of Weinsberg, Conrad, exasperated at 
the obstinate resistance of the place, had 
vowed to put every man of the garrison to 
the sword ; but that he acceded to the 
request of a deputation sent by the women, 
begging that, according to the custom of 
war with chivalrous leaders, they might be 
permitted to quit the doomed town with so 
much of their personal possessions as they 
could carry away. Whereupon, to the 
astonishment of the Emperor and his fol- 
lowers, they were shortly afterwards seen 
emerging from the gates of Weinsberg, 
carrying husbands, fathers, brothers, lovers, 
and friends on their shoulders. The Em- 
peror's followers cried out against the trick ; 
but Conrad, though at first somewhat dis- 
concerted at the wide interpretation put by 
the fair dames upon ' ' personal possessions, ' ' 
presently declared that an Emperor's word 
■once given must not be twisted and turned, 
and that the women of Weinsberg should 
do as they pleased, and carry off their 
belongings unmolested. 

The Suabians had, in their native 
domains, an allodial possession called 
Waiblingen, from which they were known 
as the " Waiblinger." This name, cor- 
rupted by foreign pronunciation, became 
converted into the term Ghibeline, and 
became the designation of those who sup- 
ported the claims of the German Emperors 
on Italy. On the other hand, the powerful 
family of the Welfen, the Dukes of Bavaria, 
the great opponents of the Suabian House, 
took every opportunity of thwarting the 
Ghibeline Emperors in their pretensions 
and efforts, and assisted and supported all 
who resisted their authority. Thus the 
name Welf, corrupted into Guelph, became 
the war-cry of the faction opposed to the 
rule of the German Emperors in Italy; and 
for generations the battle-cry of Guelphs 



and Ghilbelines resounded throughout the 
fair fields of the peninsula, — the Guelph 
adherents being those who supported the 
sovereign pontiff, and endeavoured by every 
means to keep away foreign influence and 
German dominion from Italy, while they 
upheld municipal government and the great 
union or confederation of the Lombard 
cities ; while on the other hand, the Ghibe- 
line faction was strengthened by many 
Italians who considered that the future 
welfare of Italy lay in the establishment of 
a great imperial power which should unite 
the strength of the country into one har- 
monious whole, whereas under the municipal 
system it was split up and distracted by the 
quarrels and enmities of a number of 
separate republics and communities con- 
tinually at strife with one another. It was 
the old controversy of the concentrated 
strength of a dictatorship as against the 
freedom of individual and independent 
action. But the feuds of Guelph and Ghi- 
beline brought lasting calamity and de- 
gradation, as well as present bloodshed and 
devastation, upon the fair Italian land. 

Sicily under the Saracen and the 
Norman Rule. 

In the general overturn of authority and 
the barbaric scramble for power that 
followed the downfall of the great Roman 
Empire, the southern portion of the Italian 
peninsula and the island of Sicily had a 
different fate from the rest of Europe that 
came under the dominion of the northern 
races, whose rule was distinguished by 
ferocity and savage strength. Like Spain, 
these two portions of fair Italy fell into the 
hands of the Saracens, at that time far 
more enlightened and intellectual than 
their northern compeers, and thus were 
decidedly in advance of the rest of Europe 
in civilization, enlightenment, and polity. 
A number of states were established on 
the mainland, independent of each other, 
and holding their own as best they might 
against the attacks of northern barbarians 
and the occasional invasions of the armies 
of the Greek Emperors. Gradually they 
adopted the republican form of govern- 
ment ; and in the effort to maintain them- 
selves, adopted the method often employed 
before and after those times by states whose 
existence was jeopardised by foreign ene- 
mies. 

They called in the aid of foreigners, 
and were undone by their allies. It was 
a handful of Norman adventurers who, 
summoned as defenders, established them- 
selves rulers in Southern Italy and in 
Sicily in the eleventh century, expelling 
the Saracens, whose religion and foreign 
nationality made them hateful to the in- 



436 



THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 



habitants of Italy ; and thus was established 
the feudal dominion of the Normans in 
Sicily. In this enterprise they had the 
assistance and countenance of the Church ; 
for they were looked upon as the champions 
of the Christian religion against the Moslem 
infidels ; and their leader, the Norman 
Count Roger, was invested with the autho- 
rity of a legate by the Pope at Rome. 
This gave to their dominion the strength 
of prescriptive and legitimate authority, 
and undoubtedly contributed in a marked 
and valuable degree to its permanence ; 
just as in former times the Gothic con- 
querors who established their rule on the 
ruins of the effete Empire of the West 
had considered it advisable to have the 
sanction of a commission and charter from 
tlie Emperors of Constantinople. The degree 
of power and independence attained by the 
different states before their arrival also 
rendered feudalism in Southern Italy less 
burdensome and oppressive than elsewhere. 
The power of the barons was modified 
and decreased by the prevalence of free 
municipal institutions among the towns, 
and could not therefore assert itself, as else- 
where, in the form of unmitigated military- 
tyranny. Count Roger ruled over what 
could almost be considered a free state, 
judged by the standard of those times ; 
and the son of the first Count Roger, 
treading in the footsteps of his father, 
raised the Norman principality to the rank 
and dignity of a kingdom; a strong kingdom, 
moreover, able to defend itself for a long 
period against the various enemies raised up 
against it by jealousy and ambition. The 
monarchs also were able to keep down the 
power and resist the encroachments of the 
nobility. The second Roger increased the 
extent of his dominions by definitely esta- 
blishing his authority over the other Norman 
princes in Calabria and Apulia ; and as 
King of Sicily, Prince of Capua, and Duke 
of Apulia and Calabria, his authority was 
recognised by the Pope. Industry, arts and 
sciences, trade and commerce, flourished 
throughout the monarchy ; and in the 
dominion of the Normans in Sicily there 
was the hope of a national unity, which 
might in time have raised Italy to the rank 
of a gieat and harmonious power, able to 
resist the turbulence of factions from within 
and the encroachments of ambition from 
without ; and realised that dream of a 
great and solid Italian kingdom, in which 
patriotism saw the best hope of stability 
and happiness. But this was not to be. 

Frederick Barbarossa and his Suc- 
cessors ; Policy of the Popes. 

The successor of Conrad III. in Germany, 
the renowned Frederick I., surnamed Bar- 



barossa, the * ' Kaiser Rothbart ' ' of mediseval 
story and popular tradition, was undoubtedly 
one of the greatest historical characters of 
the twelfth century, and indeed of the middle 
ages. Since the time of Otho the Great, 
the sceptre of imperial rule had not been 
wielded by so sagacious and so determined 
a hand. In him the whole strength of the 
Ghibelines was concentrated and personi- 
fied ; and in his character were found united 
the great qualities of the warrior and of the 
statesman. Alike at the council-board and 
in the field his majestic figure towered above 
his contemporaries. His reign was long, 
and his fortunes were varied. At one time 
he was supreme in authority, and had his 
rivals at his feet ; at another, he himself 
was impelled, under the pressure of terrible 
anxiety and fear of the future and its un- 
certainties, to kneel before his proud and 
powerful vassal, Henry the Lion, the head 
of the Guelph family, imploring the man 
upon whom he had bestowed the duchies 
of Bavaria and Saxony not to desert him 
in his utmost need, — a prayer to which the 
haughty Guelph, a kind of King-making 
Warwick in his vast extent of dominion 
and the number of vassals swayed by his 
command, remained obstinately deaf; and 
for this refusal to listen to his master's 
appeal and to fulfil his feudal duty by 
following his lord to the war, Henry was 
obliged at length to pay the penalty in 
deprivation of his estates, and in long years 
of foreign exile. 

The one great aspiration of Barbarossa, 
and indeed of the Suabian House of which 
he was the noblest representative, was to 
consolidate the rule of the German Em- 
perors beyond the Alps. Long afterwards 
the politic and cautious Rudolph of Haps- 
burg, the founder of the great Austrian 
Power, was accustomed to liken Italy to 
the lion's den in the ^sopian fable ; for 
he declared, like the fox in that fable, that 
he saw traces of the footsteps of many 
German Emperors and of great German 
armies going into that region of peril, 
while few were found returning thence. 
It was against the league of the Lombard 
cities that his warlike enterprises were 
again and again directed ; and it was in 
the hope of inducing Henry the Lion to 
follow him into Italy that he had abased 
himself before his haughty vassal. Milan, 
the chief in size, wealth, and power among 
the cities of Northern Italy, was pre- 
eminently the scene of the struggle he 
carried on for many years ; and around 
Milan's walls the battle-cries of Guelphs 
and Ghibelines sounded continually. The 
proudest moment of the warlike Emperor's 
life was perhaps that in which, after a long 
oiid arduous contest, he triumphantly en- 



437 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



tered the once stubborn but now humiliated 
city with a long train of armed followers ; 
not in the ordinary way, through one of 
Milan's lofty gates, but through a breach 
made in the walls ; through which the con- 
queror passed, in token of his resolution to 
punish the proud Lombard town that had 
so long bidden defiance to his authority. 

One of the greatest causes of the long 
resistance made by Italy to the claims of 
the Emperor and his House to dominion in 
Italy was found in the policy pursued with 
equal astuteness and perseverance by the 
popes at Rome. The powerful pontiffs who 
wore the tiara in the twelfth and thirteenth 
centuries, claimed the fullest authority over 
the monarchs of Europe and the right of 
intervention in all great political questions of 
the time. Consequently they upheld in their 
resistance any towns or communities that 
set up the standard of opposition against 
the Ghibeline Emperors ; and even the 
mighty Emperor Barbarossa himself was 
compelled to acknowledge that in an accom- 
modation with the Pope was his only hope 
of retaining permanent authority in the 
peninsula. And on his part the Pope was 
not indisposed to a compromise, or unwil- 
ling to acquiesce in the authority of the 
Emperor in Italy, provided that authority 
was subordinate to his own, and was avow- 
edly held and maintained under his sanction. 
Thus we find Frederick Barbarossa pro- 
ceedingto Rome to seek the Pontiff's favour 
and friendship, and consenting to do a 
deed of vassalage, holding the stirrup of 
Pope Alexander's mule, in token that he 
considered himself the Pope's "man," or 
one bound to render homage and service 
to him. It was the custom of the Roman 
rule to hold the balance between Guelphs 
and Ghibelines, lest either should become 
independent, and to maintain himself in his 
position as the umpire and supreme judge 
among the princes of Europe. 

While in Northern Italy the German 
Emperor thus gained an authority, though 
at best a precarious and unstable one, by 
the joint exertion of conciliation and arms, 
he endeavoured to establish his dominion 
in the south by dynastic successors, and 
succeeded in bringing about a marriage 
between his eldest son Henry, afterwards 
the Emperor Henry VI., and Constance, 
the Norman heii^ess of Naples and Sicily. 
Thus the dominion of Sicily passed from the 
Normans to the German House of the Ho- 
henstauffen ; thus the Ghibeline ascendency 
was for a while established in Southern 
Italy, and for a few short years Henry VI. 
governed that countiy with undisputed sway. 
But his nature was harsh, cruel, and vindic- 
tive ; and by his severities he raised such a 
storm of indignation agaipst him in Italy, 

438 



that at his death in 1196 the party of his 
adversaries was considerably strengthened. 

Again the strife of Guelphs and Ghibe- 
lines raged in Italy, and Sicily and Apulia 
were involved in the struggle. Henry had 
left an infant son, who afterwards became 
the Emperor Frederick II. of Germany, to 
which realm his uncle, Philip of Suabia, 
had succeeded on the death of Henry VI., 
though the Pope upheld the pretensions of 
Otho of Brunswick, the head of the Guelphs, 
who had been elected by that faction in 
opposition to Philip, and for a long time 
maintained his sway over part of Germany. 

When Frederick was of an age to take 
the authority into his own hands, he brought 
about a great and salutary reform in Sicily 
and Apulia. The magistracy was reformed ; 
a new code of laws based on that of the 
Normans, but more adapted to the spirit of 
the times, was introduced ; the turbulent 
nobles were kept in check by the warlike 
and sagacious Emperor, who ruled with a 
vigour and dexterity that would have done 
honour to his grandfather the great Bar- 
barossa himself; the syndics of the various 
towns were summoned to Parliament, and 
the foolish and unjust trials by ordeal, which 
had utterly ceased to command respect or 
credence, were abolished. The pecuniary 
resources of the state were also developed 
by the energetic Emperor, who indeed in- 
curred considerable blame in this matter ; 
being accused of taxing his subjects to the 
verge of tyranny and extortion, for the means 
of carrying on the foreign wars in which he 
was frequently engaged. 

The brilliant success of the Ghibeline 
Emperor was the reverse of welcome to the 
Papacy ; for it manifestly involved the dan- 
ger of a rule in Italy independent of the 
authority of Rome, and subversive of that 
subserviency of the temporal powers which 
it had been the continued effort and desire of 
the popes to perpetuate. Innocent IV., one 
of the most vigorous and politic of the occu- 
pants of the chair of St. Peter, perceived this 
danger, and also saw the means of combat- 
ing it ; for the exactions of Frederick had 
aroused a formidable spirit of discontent 
throughout ^icilyand Apulia. Accordingly 
the astute pontiff took advantage of this 
state of things to rouse the subjects of 
Frederick to resistance against their master. 
Everywhere in Sicily, in the Lombard cities 
of Northern Italy, and in Frederick's Ger- 
man dominions, the Emperor's vassals were 
incited to rise against his authority ; and 
at length Innocent went to the length, at a 
great council of Lyons, of declaring that 
the Suabian Emperor had forfeited the im- 
perial throne, and absolving all Frederick's 
vassals from their allegiance. The heroic 
Suabian opposed an undaunted front to all 



THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 



enemies, and. met every peril with equal 
vigour and skill ; but his health was sapped 
by anxiety and care, and his spirit was 
heavy at the discovery of the treachery of 
many trusted friends. He sank into the 
grave in 1250, his end hastened by disap- 
pointment and vexation. The death of 
Frederick greatly strengthened the hands 
of Innocent IV., who was moreover jealous 
of the long tenure of imperial power by the 
Suabian House ; and as the German Empire 
was elective, he now saw a welcome oppor- 
tunity for the transfer of the imperial dignity 
to another family. He exerted his power to 
the utmost against Conrad IV., the son of 
Frederick, appearing as an open enemy, 
and stirring up all the vassals of Conrad to 
resistance. Liberty and extensive privileges 
were offered to the citizens of Southern Italy 
as the price of rebellion against the Ghi- 
beline. The bishops and clergy were ex- 
horted to join in the general movement 
against the enemies of the pontiff; remission 
of sins was promised to every zealous up- 
holder of the papal cause ; and Conrad, 
though he had been elected King of the 
Romans, was virtually shut out from the 
enjoyment of real authority. But the party 
of the Ghibelines in Italy was strong ; and 
papal denunciations and promises, em- 
bodied in various briefs and mandates, and 
all having for their aim the overthrow of the 
monarchical authority in Southern Italy, did 
not succeed in entirely accomplishing that 
object. 

Manfred ; and Conradin, the last 

OF THE HOHENSTAUFFEN. 

In 1254, the Emperor Conrad died, leaving 
an infant son of the same name, who after- 
wards became known in history, through a 
most tragic episode, as Conradin, or the 
little Conrad. But there was a member of 
the House of Hohenstauffen, who, though 
illegitimate by birth, was not likely to allow 
the honours of that renowned family to be 
reft from it without a struggle. This was 
Manfred, a son of the Emperor Frederick 
TI. and of a noble Italian lady whom the 
Emperor married after the death of his wife. 
Manfred fought valiantly to reconquer the 
country that the Pope had incited to revolt ; 
and when Innocent IV. died, and was suc- 
ceeded by the far less energetic Alexander 
IV., whom the chronicle states to have been 
"jovial, ruddy, corpulent, and incapable of 
carrying out the designs of his fiery pre- 
decessor," the warlike Manfred fought with 
considerable success to put down the 
municipal and republican system that had 
arisen in Sicily and Calabria under the 
fostering care of the enemies of the Suabian 
dynasty, and to set up the monarchy once 



more ; and a more capable and chivalrous 
champion could scarcely have been found. 

During the short and troubled reign of 
Conrad IV., the affairs of Sicily and Cala- 
bria had been administered by a viceroy, 
Pietro Ruffo. This man, originally a menial 
follower of Frederick II., had been raised 
to high honour and invested with the im- 
portant of&ce of governor by that monarch, 
who had a high opinion of his fidelity, valour, 
and capacity. Conrad had continued the 
favour shown by his father to Ruffo, whom 
he created Count of Catanzaro, and retained 
in his dignity of viceroy. After the death 
of Conrad, the Governor endeavoured to 
maintain his authority against the repub- 
lican movement organized by the Pope ; 
and afterwards, when his position became 
critical, entered into negotiations with the 
Vatican, offering to rule Sicily, if he were 
allowed to retain his position, as a depen- 
dency of the Church, and to pay tribute to 
Rome as a vassal. Manfred's authority he 
entirely repudiated. 

But the cities, bent on municipal inde- 
pendence, would have nothing to do with 
him ; and the confusion was presently worse 
confounded by their proclaiming a republic, 
with Palermo at their head, under the pro- 
tection of the Church. With the help of an 
army chiefly consisting of soldiers from 
Messina, Ruffo gained some slight advan- 
tages, but was speedily overwhelmed by the 
united resistance of the cities. Leonardo 
Alighieri, a member of the family afterwards 
rendered illustrious by the great name of 
Dante, was chosen captain of the people. 
" Success to the municipality ! Down with 
the viceroy ! " was the cry raised every- 
where ; and the unfortunate Count of 
Catanzaro, who had negotiated with all 
parties, without succeeding in gaining the 
confidence of any, was fain at last to com- 
pound for his personal safety by a total 
abandonment of his ambitious claims, and 
ultimately hid his shame and humiliation 
beneath the shelter of the Papal Court at 
Rome. Palermo, Messina, and various other 
cities thereupon declared a republic, and 
the confederation placed itself under the 
papal protection ; and there was great 
rejoicing among the Liberal party, various 
of whose chiefs, long exiled as Guelphs, or 
opponents of the Suabian House, now re- 
turned in triumph to their homes. 

But the new republic had no time to con- 
solidate its institutions, or to establish itself 
on a firm and permanent basis. " In times 
of revolution," Amari justly observes, "men 
often expect to reap the fruit of a political 
revolution earlier than nature will yield it, 
and, finding themselves disappointed, rush 
into the opposite extreme ; individuals are 
sundered by envy, and reaction again rears 



439 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



its head." There were various great feuda- 
tories in Sicily and Apulia, whose interests 
would be better served under a monarchical 
than under a republican form of government. 
These rose in support of the pretensions of 
Manfred ; and in two years the fate of the 
Republic of Vanity, as Bartholomew of 
Neocastro contemptuously terms it, was 
sealed. Frederick Lancia, with one army 
compelled Calabria to return to its allegiance 
to the House of Suabia ; Henry Abbate 
entered Palermo with another ; and after 
Lancia' s victory on the plain of Corona, not 
only Calabria but the whole of Sicily sub- 
mitted to Manfred ; who, after governing for 
a while in the name of the child Conradin, 
caused a report of his nephew's death to 
be spread abroad, and on the nth of August, 
1258, had himself crowned in Palermo; 
assuming the sovereignty of Sicily in his 
own right as the son and successor of the 
great Emperor Frederick H. 

The Pope looks round for a King 
FOR Sicily ; Charles and Manfred, 

The establishment of Manfred on the 
throne of Sicily and Apulia was a sore 
blow to the Roman Pontiff. Though com- 
pelled to acknowledge that the Holy See 
was not sufficiently strong in the material 
force represented by armies and a well- 
filled treasury to rule Southern Italy as a 
direct possession. Innocent II. would have 
preferred to see those fertile regions in 
the hands of any potentate rather than 
under the sway of the hated Ghibeline. 
Accordingly he revived a scheme already 
entertained in the time of Frederick II., 
and looked round for a prince who might 
conquer Naples under his patronage, and 
hold the title of king as a vassal of Rome ; 
thus strengthening the hands of the Guel- 
phic party in Italy, and increasing the re- 
spect an'd honour in which the Vicar of 
Christ was held as the distributer of 
thrones and principalities. It was in 
Western Europe that he hoped to find a 
ruler to his mind for Sicily and Apulia, 
and consequently he offered the throne first 
to Duke Richard of Cornwall, brother of 
the weak and vacillating Henry III. of 
England ; then to a prince of very different 
character, Charles of Anjou, brother of 
the pious Louis IX., " Saint Louis," of 
France ; and thirdly to Prince Edmund of 
England, ayoungerson of Henry III. That 
monarch, at once feeble and extravagant, 
a lover of splendour and magnificence, and 
destitute of the knowledge and statesman- 
ship that would have made him aware of 
the difficulties of the enterprise, negotiated 
with Innocent, accepted the investiture for 
his son, and made every preparation in the 



way of raising money and troops to carry 
out the design. But the troubles in which 
his foolish disregard of the laws and liberties 
of England involved him with his barons 
had already begun. The Parliament, then 
in its infancy, but already putting forth its 
power to good purpose, compelled him to 
desist from his enterprise, and Innocent 
quickly saw that he must choose a prince 
who possessed more freedom of action and 
greater material means than the weak King 
of England could boast. Accordingly he 
made every exertion to secure Charles of 
Anjou ; and for this purpose endeavoured 
by all the arts of cajolery, persuasion, and 
intimidation, to obtain the consent of Louis 
IX. to his brother's candidature— repre- 
senting the undertaking in the light of a 
crusade against unbelief and rebellion as 
impersonated in the half heathen Manfred^ 
who would introduce Saracen customs and 
the abominations of the infidel into the 
beautiful land of Italy, and against whom 
it behoved every Christian potentate to 
fight, as against a pestilent enemy of the 
faith. 

His efforts were ably seconded by the 
ambition of Charles himself, and of Beatrice, 
of Provence, the consort of the Duke of 
Anjou, in whose right Charles had become 
ruler over vast estates. The three sisters of 
Beatrice were all queens ; being married 
respectively to Henry III., King of England,, 
Louis IX., King of France, and Richard, 
Earl of Cornwall, who had been nominated 
"King of the Romans," — a title bestowed 
on the successor to the German Empire, 
though in his case it was a title only. It 
is said that the Countess Beatrice, who at 
the French Court had suffered a slight in 
not being permitted to take her place on 
a raised platform of state, with two of 
the queens, her sisters, ardently urged her 
husband to accept the offer made him 
of a throne, with all its perilous surround- 
ings ; and that the desire to make Beatrice 
a queen was a powerful motive with Charles 
of Anjou, impelling him to use every 
exertion against Manfred in Sicily. The 
consent of the King of France was gained, 
and a bargain was made between Charles 
of Anjou and Pope Urban IV., and ratified 
by Clement IV., that Pontiff's successor. 
It set forth that the Count of Anjou was to^ 
take possession of Naples and Sicily, witk 
the exception of Benevento, and was to 
hold that kingdom as a gift from the Pope, 
doing service in war as a vassal, and paying 
a tribute of 8,000 ounces of gold annually. 
It is only just to add that in the bull which 
thus gave over the people of Southern Italy 
to a foreign ruler, some provisions were 
inserted for the maintenance of their ancient 
privileges. 



440 



THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 



In some of its features, the invasion of 

-Sicily and Apulia by Charles of Anjou 

bears an analogy to the invasion of Eng- 



some of the spoils of the conquered nation. 
Charles's army consisted in great part of 
Condottieri and mercenary troops, attracted 




Naples, and Mount Vesuvius. 



land by the Normans two centuries before. 
As in that memorable case, a multitude of 
adventurers now flocked to the standard 
set up, each hoping to be rewarded with 



by the prospect of plunder. Part of the 
expense of the outfit was borne by Louis 
of France, and part was defrayed by ex- 
actions levied from Provence, of which terri- 



441 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



tory Charles of Anjou had become lord by 
his marriage with the heiress of the last of 
its dukes. Beatrice is said to have even 
pawned her jewels to furnish money for the 
•enterprise ; and large sums were borrowed 
by her husband from nobles and merchants. 
He had a great stake for which to play, 
and took every precaution to ensure suc- 
cess. 

The valiant Manfred fully appreciated 
the gravity of the situation. He saw the 
storm that was gathering around his head, 
and seems to have had little doubt that 
it would speedily overwhelm him ; but he 
determined to uphold the hpnour of the 
Ghibelines, and to fight it out to the last. 
It was in the summer of 1265 that Charles 
of Anjou landed in Italy, and Manfred 
speedily saw that the fidelity of many on 
whom he had reckoned for aid was not to 
be trusted. The nobles proved fickle, and 
showed a disposition to m.ake terms for 
themselves ; the people, who had been 
harassed by taxes and forced contributions 
during the late war, were inclined to hope 
for some benefit to themselves from a 
change of government. Manfred gathered 
together as numerous an army as he could 
muster, of Germans, Apulians, and of the 
Saracens of Sicily, whose fortunes were 
identified with his. Charles had met with 
no resistance in invading Italy. He had 
been awarded the rank of a Senator of 
Rome by the Pope ; and on the 6th of 
January, 1266, he and Beatrice were 
crowned at the Vatican as King and Queen 
■of Sicily. Manfred's hope was in delay, 
that should compel Charles to disband his 
troops ; the Duke of Anjou's prospect of 
success lay in prompt action, before Man- 
fred could sufficiently strengthen his forces. 
The Guelphs of Italy played into the in- 
vader's hands, and a decisive battle was 
quickly brought on at Benevento. 

That day was fatal to the brave Manfred. 
In spite of the bravery of his German and 
Sicilian troops, the French had the advan- 
tage almost from the first ; and the Suabian 
hero, perceiving that all was lost, sought 
and found a soldier's death. He fell fight- 
ing valiantly among his men. His corpse, 
discovered by the enemy on the field of 
battle, was at first honourably buried by the 
soldiers, and a heap of stones was raised 
over it as a memorial; but the vindictive- 
ness of the hostile leaders would not 
accord a soldier's grave to Manfred of Ho- 
henstauffen. His corpse, to their shame, 
was dragged from its resting-place and 
subjected to the grossest ignominy. The 
triumph of Charles of Anjou was complete, 
and the fair inheritance of Sicily and 
Apulia had passed away from the House of 
Suabia. 



The Enterprise of Conradin, and ■ 
ITS Result. 

The victory of Benevento gave the supre- 
macy in Italy to the Guelphs, and seated 
Charles of Anjou on the throne of Naples 
and Sicily. The usual consequences of a 
successful invasion followed. The partisans 
of the victors were rewarded with lands, 
money, and plunder of various kinds ; and 
the inhabitants were made to experience 
the truth, so often exhibited in history and 
so continually disregarded and forgotten, 
that the burden of a war ultimately falls 
upon the people, whichever side may be 
victorious. They had been angry with 
Manfred and had fallen away from him on 
account of the contributions he exacted 
from them ; but they found their new 
master far more severe and rapacious ; and 
the extortions were accompanied by every 
circumstance of contumely and insult. 

Accordingly a reaction soon began ; and 
the Ghibeline party meditated revolt against 
the authority so suddenly and harshly im- 
posed upon the land. The young Conradin, 
son of the Emperor Conrad IV.. was now 
past the age of childhood. He was un- 
doubtedly the rightful heir to Sicily and 
Apulia ; and it was resolved to invite the 
imperial youth to come to Italy and claim 
his inheritance. Conradin himself eagerly 
embraced the proposal. He was sixteen 
years of age, full of hope and promise, 
and ardently hoped at once to regain the 
patrimony of his race, and to raise the 
name of the great Hohenstauffen House 
of which he was the last representative. 

Various partisans took up his cause, in- 
cluding two princes of the royal family of 
Castile, Henry and Frederick, who had been 
fighting in Africa, and in the former of 
whom unjust treatment and ingratitude on 
the part of Charles of Anjou had aroused a 
feeling of revenge. It was in 1267 that 
Conradin appeared in Italy with an army 
of some seven or eight thousand men ; and 
his coming was the signal of open revolt 
against King Charles throughout Southern 
Italy. A temporary success gained over 
Fulk de Puy- Richard, who governed the 
island of Sicily, gave additional hopes to 
the Ghibelines and to the partisans of 
Conradin. But the gallant boy had not the 
experience or the knowledge to make his 
authority acknowledged and respected. 
His army was scanty in number, disorderly 
and unreliable in action ; and at the ap- 
proach of Charles of Anjou, many who had 
at first taken part with Conradin submitted 
to the French tyranny as the established 
government ; fearing the result of the 
Suabian prince's enterprise, and above all 



442 



THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 



things dreading the vengeance that would 
surely overtake them, in case of failure. 

Still the army of Conradin had sufficiently 
increased in numbers to warrant him in 
risking an engagement. He advanced 
southward with about 20,000 men. At 
Tagliacozzo, in the plain of San Valentino, 
the decisive battle was fought, on the 23rd 
of August, 1268. At first the army of 
Conradin had the advantage, and fortune 
seemed to promise the gallant young 
invader a brilliant triumph over his foes. 
But here as elsewhere the steady delibe- 
ration of disciplined valour decided the fate 
of the day. It was the veteran Alard de 
Vallery who appeared with the reserve of 
the French army at the decisive moment, 
and restored the battle that seemed already 
lost. The followers of Conradin were thrown 
into confusion, and their defeat was igno- 
minious and irretrievable. They were 
slaughtered by thousands by the victorious 
army of the French, and Charles, exaspe- 
rated at the attempt to overthrow his 
authority, showed no mercy to the pri- 
soners who fell into his hands. Some 
Romans were singled out for atrocious 
vengeance. He had at first ordered that 
their feet should be cut off ; but fearing 
that their condition might excite sympathy, 
and rouse indignation against him, he 
revoked the command and had them im- 
prisoned in a house, which was then set on 
fire. Conradin, who fled from the field, was 
soon after delivered by treachery, with his 
friend and partisan the young Duke of 
Austria, into the victor's hands. Towards 
his prisoner Conradin Charles behaved with 
extreme cruelty ; and that cruelty was 
augmented by a cynical observance of the 
outward forms of law. A great assembly 
of lords, syndics, and citizens was convened 
for the trial of the unfortunate youth whose 
attempt to regain his own had ended so 
disastrously. By this tribunal, whose judges 
were too completely under the influence of 
Charles of Anjou to dare to oppose his will, 
Conradin and his companions were pro- 
nounced guilty of high treason, in levying 
war against a sovereign prince. Only one 
of the council, the famous lawyer Guidone 
da Suzara, dared to record his protest 
against the proceedings of Charles, and 
to pronounce an opinion in favour of the 
prisoner. On the 29th of October, 1268, a 
scaffold covered with scarlet cloth was 
erected in the market-place at Naples ; 
and the last descendant of the mighty race 
of monarchs who had swayed the sceptre 
of Germany for more than a century, was 
led forth, with a train of his friends and 
followers, to die. He bore himself on the 
occasion with a fearless dignity worthy of 
the proud race of the Hohenstauffen. He 



indignantly repudiated the charge brought 
against him of sacrilege and treason, and 
looked round with bitter scorn on the venal 
crowd who had doomed him to death at a 
tyrant's behest. A feeling of mingled 
shame and horror seized the spectators of 
this mournful and tragic sacrifice. The 
Count of Flanders, who was present on the 
scaffold, though a son-in-law of Charles, 
was seized with such fury at the sight, that 
he suddenly killed the man who had 
framed the iniquitous sentence and read 
it aloud on the scaffold. It is told, also, 
that Conradin, before stooping his neck to 
the axe, flung his glove over the rail as a 
token that he bequeathed his rights as 
well as the task of avenging his death to 
Peter of Anjou, the son-in-law of Manfred. 
Other details are related, such as Conradin' s 
taking up the severed head of his friend the 
young Duke, and kissing the lifeless lips ; 
but these rest rather on tradition than on a 
reliable basis. The last page in the history 
of the Hohenstauffen is one of the most 
mournful in history. 

Oppression exercised by the new 
Government; Charles of Anjou 
AND his Rule. 

A reign of terror now began throughout 
Apulia and Sicily. The partisans of Charles 
of Anjou hastened to show their zeal ; the 
nobles and citizens whose sentiments were 
doubtful endeavoured to clear themselves 
from suspicion by executing vengeance 
upon all who had been concerned in the 
late rebellion. A frenzy of cruelty appears 
to have seized upon the agents and partisans 
of the monarchy. " They confiscated, they 
plundered," says the historian, "they 
blinded, they tortured, till Charles himself 
checked the inhuman zeal which was reduc- 
ing the kingdom to a desert, and at length 
vouchsafed to forgive. But for the Sicilians 
there was no mercy." Among the warlike 
leaders who executed vengeance upon the 
unhappy island, one William I'Estendard is 
described as more cruel than cruelty itself; 
" Drunk with blood," says Saba Malaspina, 
"and thirsting for it the more fiercely the 
more he shed." One of the most horrible 
stories of those times is that of the siege 
of Agosta, the one place that held out after 
all the other strongholds of the Ghibelines 
had surrendered in despair. L'Estendard 
and his men became masters of the town 
through the treachery of six of the in- 
habitants, who opened a postern gate to 
them in the night. The place was given 
up to the violence of the soldiers, who, 
according to the custom of the middle ages, 
and, unhappily, of later times also, slew and 
plundered, murdering the inhabitants with- 



443 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



out distinction of age or sex. But after the 
vengeance of the soldiery had been satiated, 
and when no object was to be gained by a 
further exhibition of cruelty, in the mere 
wantonness of savagery, the brutal leader 
caused the captive citizens of Agosta to be 
brought bound into his presence, and had 
them put to death by a gigantic executioner, 
who went about his work of butchery in the 
style of the " Septembriseurs " of 1792 in 
Paris, the heads and bodies of the victims 
being gathered into a great pile. Never 
was a massacre more purposeless. The un- 
happy town was literally emptied of its 
iuhabitants ; and the memory of the deeds 
done there remained rankling in the hearts 
of the dwellers in every part of the island, 
and had doubtless much to do with the 
tremendous vengeance executed some years 
afterwards. " These inhuman butcheries 
and equally inhuman triumphs," says the 
latest commentator on the events of that 
period, "are passed over by the greater 
number of the historians who so studiously 
dilate upon the massacre of the Vespers, 
which was but measure for measure." 

" VcB victis I" might have been written 
on every habitation of the captured island. 
The effect of the revolt had been to impose 
a heavier yoke than ever on the unhappy 
country, which was now vexed by exactions, 
in which no distinction was made between 
the partisans of the rulers and their oppo- 
nents ; for an equal oppression weighed 
upon all. The naturally cruel and vindic- 
tive temper of Charles had been exasperated 
by the i^esistance he met with, and his 
suspicious nature saw the means of safety 
only in thoroughly keeping down the people 
to whom he knew his rule to be hateful ; 
and thus, for a series of years, the materials 
of hatred and vengeance were smouldering 
among the inhabitants of Southern Italy : 
kept down for a time by fear, but certain to 
burst forth, sooner or later, into conflagra- 
tion. The brave Manfred had left three 
sons, Henry, Frederick, and Enzo. These 
children were kept in strict imprisonment 
by the conqueror. Documents found in the 
archives of Naples prove them to have been 
still living and in captivity in the year 
1299 ; and their confinement probably only 
terminated with their lives. There was, 
however, another scion of the Suabian 
House, and one who was not in the power 
of the savage victor. This was Constance, 
daughter of Manfred, and wife of Peter, 
King of Aragon, the prince to whom Con- 
radin on the scaffold had bequeathed his 
rights and his vengeance. 

Charles of Anjou soon made enemies in 
every direction ; and especially aroused 
against himself the very important hostility 
of the Church. He broke the promises 



he had made to Pope Clement regarding 
the privileges and immunities of the eccle- 
siastics, for his insatiable rapacity drove 
him, like John of England to "shake the 
bags of hoarding abbots," and to extort 
money wherever it was to be had. The 
powerful associations of the Templars and 
Hospitallers were also roused to enmity 
by exaction. The feudatories, too, were 
harassed by means similar to those em- 
ployed in England at a later date by Emp- 
som and Dudley ; inquisition being made 
into title-deeds of demesnes and baronies, 
with total disregard of the prescriptive right 
arising from long possession ; and thus 
Charles obtained the opportunity of trans- 
ferring many a fair estate from its owner to 
a follower of his own, who held it on feudal 
tenure. The customary practice of sub- 
tenure was followed, and thus each foreign 
master was surrounded by French soldier- 
followers, whose petulant and licentious 
manners, total disregard of justice in deal- 
ing with the natives, and openly expressed 
contempt of them as a conquered people, 
added to the general mass of hatred that 
was accumulating in secret. Impressive 
warnings and counsels addressed to Charles 
by Pope Clement, who exhorted him to be 
content with the taxes he could justly claim, 
and to leave his subjects free, were disre- 
garded by the despot, whose collectors 
practised every kind of injustice, fraud, and 
extortion in the districts they visited. The 
unfortunate peasants, unable to pay the 
sums demanded of them, were deprived of 
all they possessed, even to their implements 
of husbandly, and dragged off to bondage 
in loathsome prisons. " Oh, that they 
would but leave a bit of bread to the cul- 
tivators ! " thus run the words of a pathetic 
remonstrance of the civilians; "would they 
but be content to eat, instead of devouring \ 
But no ; the owner can neither secure the 
goods, nor can the goods secure the owner. 
. . . We are hardly allowed to fight with 
the crows for the carrion." The exactions 
upon the rich were equally general ; while 
oppressive monopolies fettered the action 
and development of trade and commerce ; 
and frequent loans exacted from the cities 
increased the general discontent. A new 
coinage was introduced, and the people 
were compelled to receive the " Carolines " 
at a rate much above their real value. The 
most oppressive features of feudalism were 
introduced ; the game laws and forest laws 
were enforced with increased severity. The 
King claimed and carried to its fullest 
extent the right of bestowing heiresses to 
great fiefs and estates in marriage, thus 
obtaining large sums from noble ladies that 
they might not become the wives of some of 
the lowest partisans of the King, to whom 



444 



THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 



he had adjudged them, or for the removal 
of the royal prohibition against marriages 
they were desirous to contract. It would 
be an endless task to enumerate all the 
particulars of oppression and wrong that 
afflicted the unhappy countries under the 
dominion of Charles of Anjou. The mon- 
arch, considering himself strong in the 
allegiance of those who participated in his 
ill-gotten gains, and in the terror his savage 
cruelties had inspired, seems to have had 
no idea that vengeance could overtake him 
from the wrath of the oppressed people. 
He seems to have judged the Sicilians 
and Apulians by the standard of his own 
country ; forgetting that the Italians had 
been used to a far greater measure of 
liberty, and were more quick to feel and 
resent wrongs, than the lower classes among 
his own countrymen. 

The Age of Conspiracy and Intrigue; 
Peter of Aragon and John of 
Procida. 

The two ruling passions of the life of 
Charles of Anjou were ambition and avarice. 
It has been rightly said of him that he saw 
in wealth only a source of power, and in 
power only a source of wealth. Utterly 
unscrupulous and devoid of any sense of 
justice, he made use of any and every means 
to increase his riches and widen his domin- 
ions ; and, possessed of talents, valour, and 
determination far beyond most of his con- 
temporaries, he contrived to turn to his own 
advantage the circumstances and events 
by which others were governed. 

In the chief features of his character he 
presented a striking contrast to his brother, 
Louis IX. of France, a mild and just prince, 
filled with a pious and romantic enthusiasm. 
Not unfrequently Charles took advantage, 
for his own purposes, of the religious zeal of 
his brother. When his power was to all 
appearance firmly established in Southern 
Italy and Sicily, his ambition soared with 
a stronger wing, and he meditated new 
triumphs and conquests. His aim was to 
extend his dominion over Upper Italy, and 
ultimately over the Greek Empire ; trusting 
for success to the political dissensions in 
the former country, and to the contests of 
two rival families, represented by Baldwin, 
Count of Flanders, and the usurper 
Michael Paloeologus, in the latter. For 
.a time he was diverted from these schemes 
"by Louis, who compelled him to take part 
in that crusade which terminated so disas- 
trously with the pious king's death at 
Tunis. Charles arrived with his forces in 
Africa at the very moment of his brother's 
death ; and turned that calamity to his own 
profit by an advantageous treaty with the 



King of Tunis, stipulating that the crusa- 
ders should retire, but that he himself should 
receive an augmented tribute and a large 
sum of ready money. He then took up the 
cause of Baldwin, who had been driven 
from Constantinople, promising to lead an 
army against the usurper Palceologus ; in 
return for which he was to receive a third 
of the conquered territory, and the reversion 
of the throne of Constantinople itself if the 
direct line of succession failed. He also 
affianced his infant daughter, Beatrice, to 
Baldwin's heir, Philip. 

In Italy he had become so powerful that 
he utterly disregarded the stipulations 
originally made with the Pope, and per- 
petrated the greatest violence and injus- 
tice, attacking Genoa and other states, 
and upholding his agents and followers in 
the commission of the worst crimes. Thus 
he inflicted no greater punishment than a 
reproof upon Guy de Montfort, son of the 
famous Simon, Earl of Leicester, when the 
said Guy, in revenge for the fate of his 
father, with his own hand murdered Prince 
Henry, son of Richard, Earl of Cornwall, 
and nephew to King Henry III., in the 
church at Viterbo. By force or by fraud, 
he managed to obtain power in Northern 
Italy ; and the see of Rome beheld with 
affright its supremacy menaced by the man 
upon whom it had bestowed the kingdom of 
Apulia and Sicily. 

Then it was that the celebrated scheme 
for the liberation of Sicily was promulgated, 
which was rendered famous in history by 
the name of John of Procida. This able 
and energetic man was an Italian noble, 
who had stood high in the favour of the 
Emperor Frederick II. and of the warlike 
Manfred. He had considerable reputation 
for scientific knowledge,' and was justly 
accounted one of the most learned and 
astute of the men of his time. After the 
cause of the Ghibeline party was lost in 
Italy, he took refuge at the Court of Peter 
of Aragon. His estates had been con- 
fiscated by Charles of Anjou ; and it is 
said that insults to his personal honour 
increased his natural desire for revenge. 
Queen Constance received him with wel- 
come as a faithful friend and supporter of 
her late father ; and John of Procida soon 
gained the favour and confidence of her 
husband, the King Peter. With two other 
noble exiles, Roger Loria and Conrad 
Lancia, he contrived to persuade Peter 
that the conquest of the Kingdom of Sicily 
was a practicable, as it certainly must be 
a glorious, enterprise. They could count 
upon the influence of the Pope, who was 
bitterly displeased at the faithlessness and 
arrogance of Charles ; on the help of 
Michael Paloeologus, whom he undertook 



445 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



to convince of the danger that would 
threaten his own throne so long as Charles, 
the insatiably ambitious, occupied that of 
Sicily ; and, above all, on the exertions of 
the Sicilians themselves, among whom the 
tyranny of Charles and the horrible malad- 
ministration and injustice of his govern- 
ment had excited universal hatred. Each 
of the powers could contribute an important 
element to the contest : Michael Paloeo- 
logus could find gold ; the King of Aragon 
would be able to furnish troops ; and the 
Pope would work for them with the spiritual 
weapons of ban and excommunication, 
which in those days had a powerful in- 
fluence on men's minds. 

There has of late been considerable doubt 
cast on the accounts of the transactions of 
this time as related by the earlier his- 
torians, who represent John of Procida as 
the head and the chief agent in the great 
conspiracy for the dethronement of Charles 
of Anjou. Certain it is, however, that he 
was very active in bringing about an under- 
standing between the King of Aragon, the 
Greek Emperor, and the Pope, who also 
desired to see the power of Charles of 
Anjou overthrown. The circumstances 
appearing favourable for an effort, Peter 
of Aragon began to make extensive pre- 
parations for war, ostensibly against the 
Saracens in Africa. He made a five years' 
truce with the King of Granada, put his 
country in a complete state of defence, and 
provided himself with "the sinews of war" 
in the shape of ample funds. The Pope, 
Nicholas III., whom Charles of Anjou had 
converted into an enemy by his violent pro- 
ceedings, looked with favour on the enter- 
prise of Peter; which might have been 
brought to an issue at once but for the 
death of the Pontiff in 1280. This was a 
great blow to the conspirators. By this 
time also the preparations of Peter, in 
spite of his attempts to keep them secret, 
had been noised abroad ; and Charles of 
Anjou became suspicious as to the inten- 
tions of the Spanish king. Charles had 
never been wanting in determination, or in 
the faculty of seizing upon a favourable 
moment. He saw the opportunity afforded 
him by the death of Nicholas III. ; and in 
defiance of all public opinion, he imprisoned 
three cardinals of the house of Orsini whom 
he considered inimical to his interests, and 
so closely pressed the others, when the duty 
of electing a successor to Nicholas came 
before them, that a Frenchman and a tool 
of his own was chosen in the person of 
Martin V., in February 1281 ; and thus the 
scale seemed again to have turned in his 
favour. He now began extensive prepa- 
rations for carrying out his designs in the 
East, under pretext of taking the cross for 



the recovery of the Holy Land. Bartholo- 
mew of Neocastro describes this as "the 
cross of the thief, not that of Christ!" 
With the Pope thoroughly in his interest, 
and only Peter of Aragon to oppose him, he 
had not the slightest doubt of success. 

But in Italy the national feeling was 
against him ; and there were many even of 
the Guelphic faction to whom the idea of 
the rule of a Frenchman was odious. At a 
later period even Dante, at first a Guelph, 
became converted to the idea of the power 
and unity of Italy under the rule of a German 
Emperor, and thus we find him, in his im- 
mortal epic, welcoming Henry VII. ot 
Luxemburg, who renewed the designs ot 
the Hohenstauffen, as the liberator of his 
country from internal strife and consequent 
weakness. From day to day the antagonism 
between the French and the Latin race 
became more embittered ; and the detesta- 
tion in which the arrogant rule of Charles 
was held was increased by the appointment 
of the cruel and merciless William I'Es- 
tendard to the office of Charles's deputy in 
Rome. The cup of iniquity and oppression 
was almost full. Deeming themselves 
secure in their ascendency, the followers of 
Charles of Anjou perpetrated every kind of 
wrong on the people subject to them, un- 
mindful of the slumbering ferocity in the 
Italian character, that might at any time 
burst forth into a flame. Here and there 
warning voices were raised to predict the 
calamity that would happen, when the 
temper of the people should be tried beyond 
all bearing, and when the time came at 
which endurance should suddenly end. 
Very remarkable are the words uttered by 
the good and learned Bertrando, Arch- 
bishop of Cosenza. "He who lives long 
enough," said this wise priest "shall see 
adversaries of abject condition rise up 
against these proud oppressors, expel them 
from the kingdom, and destroy their do- 
minion ; and the time will come when he 
who slays a Frenchman will deem that he 
is offering a pleasing sacrifice to God." 

The Massacre of Easter Tuesday,, 
1282. 

Palermo, the ancient capital of Sicily, 
was the place where the tyranny of the 
Angevin King and his satellites appeared 
in its most odious colours. John of St. 
Remigia, the Justiciary who ruled in the 
name of Charles, with a number of subor- 
dinate officers, carried out his master's 
system of terrorism and coercion with an 
exaggeration of tyranny almost inconceiv- 
able, and the very submissiveness of the 
people seemed to inflame his cruelty. The 
Easter festival, regarded in those devout 



446 



THE SICILIAN VESPERS. 



if ignorant days with especial veneration, 
was chosen by the Justiciary and his men 
for the display of their relentless spirit. 
Men who had failed to pay their propor- 
tion of the taxes were dragged from the 
churches where they were praying and cast 
into prison in chains. The insulting name, 
"Paterini," was applied to the people in 
jeering contempt of their dependent condi- 
tion. But Easter Day, with the week it 
ushers in, is a season of joy ; and the 



or stood chatting in groups, while some 
made merry at the tables with meat 
and wine, and others danced upon the 
greensward. But suddenly the harmony 
of the meeting — it was at the hour of 
vespers — ^was disturbed by the appearance 
of some officers of the Justiciary. These 
men appeared angry at the cheerfulness 
displayed by the people, and proceeded 
rudely to- interfere with them, under the 
pretext of maintaining order. They forced 




SCENt ON THE COAST OF THE GuLF OF GeNOA. 



Sicilians, who have all the elasticity of the 
Southern character, seemed for a time 
to have forgotten the bitterness of their 
servitude; and on that Tuesday the 31st 
of March, 1282, many of the inhabitants 
of Palermo had assembled near a church 
dedicated to the Holy Spirit, about half 
a mile from the southern wall of the city. 
On the open space near the church, now 
enclosed as a cemetery, tables and benches 
had been placed, as for a feast, and the 
people from the city walked to and fro, 



their way noisily among the chatting and 
dancing groups, accosted the women with 
coarse barrack-room jests, and insulted 
them with unseemly behaviour. Temper- 
ately remonstrated with at first, they per- 
sisted in their annoyance, until such a 
threatening murmur arose among the 
younger men that the soldiers declared 
" these paterini must be armed, or they 
would not dare to speak out so loud." 

Accordingly they began to hustle and 
strike them, and insisted upon searching 



447 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



them for hidden weapons. In mere bravado, 
or with a hideous relish of the pain and 
humiliation they w:ere causing-, they added 
all possible insult to these violent proceed- 
ings. One of them, whose name history 
has preserved for infamy, seized a young 
woman of great beauty and of modest and 
dignified bearing, and proceeded in an in- 
sulting manner to search her. She sank 
fainting into her husband's arms. Then the 
fierce Southern nature suddenly sprang up, 
and the submission of years was in an in- 
stant, cast to the winds. A fierce shout of 
"Death to the French!" arose from a 
hundred voices, and a youth rushed from 
the crowd and laid the insulting French- 
man dead at his feet. A still fiercer yell 
greeted this summary act of vengeance. It 
seemed as though an electric spark had 
kindled the spirit of the people. " Death, 
death to the French!" resounded again 
and again, now taken up as a battle-cry ; 
and in another moment the people and 
their oppressors were in fierce conflict. Of 
the citizens many perished ; but though they 
.had only sticks, stones, and knives to oppose 
±0 the warlike weapons of the soldiers, and 
the courage of hatred and despair where- 
with to combat their discipline, they pre- 
vailed in the end. The corpse of Drouet 
was hidden under heaps of the slain, who 
fell on both sides ; but the victory remained 
with the citizens, — for two hundred French- 
men were present when the death-struggle 
began, and when it ended every one of 
those two hundred was stretched lifeless on 
the plain. 

But the slaughter on their own side had 
been immense ; and, indeed, it could not be 
otherwise, the inequality of the conflict 
considered. The sight of the corpses of 
brothers, fathers, and sons roused the sur- 
vivors to still greater fury. The throng 
rushed back into the city brandishing their 
bloody weapons, and more fiercely than 
ever rose the shout, "Death to the French ! " 
Through the streets they ran, their numbers 
continually increased by fresh accessions ; 
and a spectacle of horror ensued, such as 
is seen when a city is taken by assault. 
The houses of the French were broken 
open, and the occupants dragged forth 
and poniarded. Women and children were 
included in the fierce vengeance of that 
moment of madness. The massacre con- 
tinued until darkness put an end to it for 
the time, only to be resumed with un- 
diminished fury on the morrow. The 



castle of the Justiciary was surrounded by 
a raging mob, clamouring for his blood. 
With fierce imprecations they stormed that 
"Bastile" of Italy; but the Justiciary 
contrived to escape, with two attendants, 
and to get out of the city. When the 
massacre ended for want of victims, two* 
thousand French had been slain. In the 
case of persons whose nationality was 
doubtful, they were made to pronounce the 
word " ciciri," and those who uttered it 
with a foreign accent were at once pat to 
death. The convents were broken open, 
and the French friars were slain. The 
memory of the massacre of Agosta seemed 
to have quenched every feeling of humanity 
and pity in the breasts of the Sicilians ; 
and horrible instances of cruelty and ferocity 
occurred. The historian of these events finds 
in the wrongs inflicted on Sicily an extenu- 
ation for the atrocity of the reprisals. " I 
do not blush for my country at the remem- 
brance of the Vespers," he says, "but 
bewail the dire necessity which drove Sicily 
to such extremities — bleeding and tortured, 
consumed by hunger, trampled underfoot, 
and insulted in all she held most precious." 
In one respect the completeness of the 
massacre proved of high political import- 
ance. The people had gone too far for any 
hope of forgiveness. There was no possi- 
bility of compromise with Charles, and in 
speedy action lay the only chance of life 
and safety. A parliament at once assem- 
bled, abolished monarchy, and proclaimed 
a republic. Messina, astonished and be- 
wildered at first, after a few weeks made 
common cause with Palermo, and slew or 
drove away the Frenchmen resident within 
its walls. Charles of Anjou, who was at 
that time staying at Ovieto, was filled with 
rage at the news of the massacre at Palermo 
and Messina, and at once turned the force 
he had assembled for the Greek war against 
the insurgents. He besieged Messina, and 
might have obtained submission but that 
the citizens knew that submission to such 
a man meant death. They determined to 
resist to the last man ; and before Charles 
could conquer them, Peter of Aragon ap- 
peared with an army, and landed at Trapani 
in Sicily. The strife was long and arduous ; 
but in the end Peter triumphed, and he and 
his wife Constance were crowned as King 
and Queen of Sicily. Thus tyranny and 
oppression cost the House of Anjou the fair 
dominion of Italy. 

H. W. D. 



448 




The Embarkation of William of Orange at Helvoetsluys for Torbay. 



FROM TORBAY TO ST. JAMES'S. 

THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION OF 1688. 

"This revolution, of all revolutions the least violent, has been of all revolutions the most beneficent. . . It is because 
we had this preserving revolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution in the nineteenth 
. . . For the authority of law, for the security of property, for the peace of our streets, for the happiness of our homes, our 
gratitude is due, under Him who raises and pulls down nations at His pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, 
and to William of Orange. — Lord Macaulay. 



Torbay — An Eventful Week — James's Early Designs — His First Parliament — Revenge on Titus Oates — The Insurrections 
in the North and West ; The Battle of Sedgemoor — The " Bloody Assizes " — Persecution of the Nonconformists — The 
Dispensing Power — Trial of Sir Edward Hales — James coerces the Universities — The First Declaration of Indulgence 
— The Child of Prayer — The Second Declaration of Indulgence — The Prayer of the Prelates — The Trial of the Seven 
Bishops — For Parliament and Protestantism — William enters Exeter ; Marches on Salisbury — Defections from James 
— The King escapes, is captured, and again flies — William enters St. James's Palace — Conclusion. 




TORBAY. 
WAY down on the east coast of Devon- 
shire, where the wild Atlcintic waves, 
as yet unchecked by the narrows of 
the Channel, still roll in long and unbroken 
billows on the pebbly beach, lies a wide and 
spacious harbour, well-known from time 
immemorial as a safe and sure anchorage 
in times of storm and stress. 

For many years its smooth waters were 
scarcely cut by a keel larger than that of a 
fishing-smack, and the wide amphitheatre of 
grassy rocks rising around remained desolate 
and deserted, save for the huts of a few fish- 
ermen and farm-labourers. But one mild 
morning in the month of November 1688, 
the silence of years was suddenly broken, and 
a large fleet rounded the lofty promontory at 



its south-western extremity, and rode securely 
at anchor within its peaceful limits. 

The shores, once so lonely and deserted, 
were now crowded by numbers of anxious 
and excited people, who had thronged from 
all parts to witness the disembarkation from 
the fleet ; and as boats put off from the ships, 
and soldiers, speaking for the most part a 
strange tongue, landed on the stony shore, 
they were welcomed with loud huzzas, and 
overwhelmed with offers of assistance. It 
was more like the home-coming of a victorious 
prince than the invasion of a foreign army. 

Yet such, we suppose, it must be called, 
for the ships and most of the soldiers were 
Dutch ; and although English royal blood 
ran in the veins of their leader, William, Prince 
of Orange, yet he had come to wrest the 
449 C G 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



throne from its possessor, and to establish 
himself thereon instead. But he came at the 
invitation of the people, who were still full of 
bitterness when they remembered the Bloody 
Assizes and the cowardly cruelties of the 
King ; he came as the champion of liberty 
and the defender of Protestantism ; he came, 
if possible, to end once for all the weary con- 
test which had so long been waged between 
the English sovereign and his subjects, — the 
Stuart princes and their people. 

How time changes all things ! Where once 
the wild bee hummed over the thyme-scented 
grass of those quiet sunny slopes ; where once 
William of Orange landed on the stony shore 
amid the huzzas of English Protestants, now 
stands the thriving town of Brixham, and in 
the quay is still shown a certain stone which 
they say is the veritable piece of rock on which 
he first stepped ashore, while at the north- 
western extremity of the bay flourishes the 
fair town of Torquay, famous everywhere 
for the beautiful softness of its air and the 
mildness of its climate. 

It was thus that Torbay was awakened 
from the sleep of centuries, and became for 
ever famous in our "rough island story." 
Let us now endeavour to set forth the causes 
which led to the landing of the Prince of 
Orange, and the errors which had so com- 
pletely alienated the hearts of the English 
people from their sovereign. To do so we 
must glance at the chief events of the reign 
of that sovereign — James II. 

An Eventful Week. 

We said just now that it was hoped the 
coming of the Prince of Orange would ter- 
minate the contest between the English 
sovereign and his subjects. That contest, 
in short, was for parliamentary power and 
for the Protestant religion. The Stuart kings 
were all cursed with an insane desire for 
absolute power, and blinded by their belief 
in their "divine right" to rule and do as 
they pleased with their subjects. To this 
mad desire for despotic rule, James added a 
desperate determination to overturn the Pro- 
testant religion, and make England a province 
of the Pope. It was known that he was an 
avowed Romanist, and during the previous 
reign certain members of parliament had 
brought forward a Bill to exclude him from 
the throne. By reason of the support of the 
Episcopalians the Bill was thrown out, and 
James laid up schemes of vengeance in his 
heart, — schemes which he executed with only 
too great success when he came to the throne. 

Still there were many men whose faces 
turned pale as they remembered the dreadful 
doings of the last Romanist sovereign of 
England, and knowing the autocratic and 
unreasoning temper of the Stuart race, feared 



for a return of the fires of Smithfield and the 
Torture Chamber of the Tower. 

His accession came somewhat suddenly 
upon the country, for only a few days before, 
on Sunday morning the ist of February, 
1685, the shameless sovereign known as the 
" Merrie Monarch" was still well and pre- 
sumably happy, and both he and his people 
looked forward to a lengthened reign. But 
on this day, as he was laughing gaily with 
his three favourite court ladies in the great 
gallery at Whitehall, and listening with languid 
pleasure to the love-songs sung by a little 
French page, suddenly, in the midst of his 
Sunday revel, he was stricken with a severe 
sickness. He reeled, strove to rally, and 
finally tottered to his bed-chamber. Next 
morning, as he was dressing, he was seized 
with a fit of apoplexy, and for five days his 
life trembled in the balance. On Wednesday 
he was better, and joy-bells pealed throughout 
the land, for the people feared the accession 
of his brother, James, Duke of York. But 
at noon on Friday, the 6th of February, he 
died ; and a quarter of an hour afterwards 
the new King made his first speech to the 
Council, in which he declared his determi- 
nation to rule according to the tenets of the 
Reformed Church. During the same after- 
noon James II. was proclaimed as king from 
Whitehall Gate, Temple Bar, and the Ex- 
change, and thus within a week the whole 
course of events was changed, and an avowed 
Romanist ruled on the English throne. 

James's Early Designs. 

Notwithstanding the King's declaration at 
the meeting of the Privy Council, it was not 
long before he showed himself in his true 
colours. On the second Sunday after his 
accession he went publicly to mass, and 
ordered the doors of the chapel to be flung 
open, so that he might be seen kneeling 
before the altar. He encouraged Romanists 
to flock to Court, so much so that even 
Evelyn says in his Diary the Romanists 
" were swarming at Court with greater con- 
fidence than had been ever seen in England 
since the Reformation, so that everybody 
grew jealous as to what this would tend." 
Still further he caused his hatred of freedom 
to find vent in a special letter which he sent 
to the "Estates of Scotland," by which it was 
enacted that if any person should preach or 
attend a conventicle under a roof or in the 
open air, he should be liable to the punish- 
ment of death, and all his goods and lands 
should be confiscate ! 

Romanists were released from prison in 
thousands, and every favour was shown to 
them. Many were given high appointments 
in the army and public service. This was 
in direct defiance of the Test Act, which 



450 



FROM TORE A V TO ST. /AMES'S. 



liad been passed in the previous reign, and 
provided that all persons holding public ap- 
pointments should take an oath against 
transubstantiation. A Papal nuncio vs^as 
entertained at Court, and Father Edward 
Petre, one of the most active of the Jesuits, 
became the confidential adviser of the King. 
In short, although it was gradually and by 
slow degrees at first, he began to unfold the 
grand design of his reign, which was not 
only to rule as a despotic prince, but to 
completely restore the Romish worship in 
England, and to crush all freedom, not only 
of speech and action, but also of thought out 
of the land. 

One of his first aims was to become omni- 
potent in the House of Commons. The 
Commons of England have always been a 
difficulty with our autocratic kings, and in 
the long run they have generally forced the 
sovereign to submit ; for although in the far 
past the prerogatives of the prince were ex- 
ceedingly extensive, yet the consent of the 
Commons was necessary to both legislation 
and taxation. And as a rule, whenever the 
sovereign endeavoured to pass laws or levy 
taxes vvithout their co-operation, they have 
not only failed miserably, but in the end have 
had to confess themselves beaten. 

At the time of the accession of James, 
however, the representation of the people was 
almost entirely in his hands. The municipal 
charters imposed by Charles enabled the 
sovereign to practically secure the return of 
any member he chose for the boroughs, 
while the county members were almost 
certain to be extreme Tories, who considered 
it part of their religion to believe in " divine 
right," and a religious duty to support the 
King at all risks, and supply all the money he 
asked for. 

But even before James summoned a par- 
liament, his determination to rule with 
despotic power showed itself most unmis- 
takably. He put forth an edict declaring it 
to be his will and pleasure that certain 
custom-duties given only to the late King 
for life should still be paid, although accord- 
ing to the fundamental law of the realm no 
duties could be levied without an Act of Par- 
liament. 

James was urged to take this course by 
Chief Justice Jeffreys, whom he had caused 
his brother, the late King, to appoint, and 
who undoubtedly was the greatest ruffian who 
ever wore the ermine. His brutal nature 
was precisely of that character which tyrants 
require to carry out their worst designs, and 
James had been on the throne but a few days 
when this abandoned wretch was raised to a 
peerage and a seat in the Cabinet. The 
whole of the legal patronage was in his 
hands, and his selection by James reveals 
still more clearly his determination to have 



the whole of England under his thumb, to 
rule it with a rod of iron. 

James put off the general election as long 
as he could, for, to tell the shameful truth, 
he was afraid of the displeasure of Louis 
of France. This king greatly feared t'"e 
English Parhament, whose policy and in- 
fluence he believed to be antagonistic to his 
growing power on the Continent. He had 
therefore paid Charles II. large sums to keep 
his Commons quiet. The same course was 
pursued with James, and the shameless tyrant 
was thus the virtual vassal and paid partizan 
of the French king. But there were signs 
that although the nation was now quiet 
enough, discontent was beginning to show 
itself, and unless a parliament were soon 
summoned there was every probability of a 
decided outbreak. Moreover James wanted 
to have certain large revenues settled on him 
for life. The summons for the Parliament 
was therefore sent out, and at the same 
time James sent messages to Louis inform- 
ing him that he would certainly keep the 
Commons from meddling with foreign affairs, 
and prevent them from getting into mischief. 
The immediate result of this message was 
that large sums of money found their way 
from Louis of France into the coffers of King 
James, who received the money with tears of 
joy and words of abject gratitude. He then 
proceeded to fill the House of Commons 
with representatives who would be slaves of 
his will. The most illegal pressure was put 
upon the voters to return James's candidates. 
Never was there an election so shamelessly 
conducted : the clergy were ordered to pro- 
claim from their pulpits that the righteous 
wrath of God would descend upon any one 
who voted for a Whig candidate ; and the re- 
turning officers were all bribed to act in the 
interests of the Court. Evelyn, in his Dt'arj, 
writes under date May loth, 1685: "Elec- 
tions were thought to be very indirectly 
carried on in most places. God grant a 
better issue of it than some expect." And 
again on May 22nd : " The truth is there 
were many of the new members whose elec- 
tions and returns were universally censured." 

The result of the elections was, in truth, 
far more favourable to James than ever he 
had dared to hope ; but we might almost 
say that it was one of the first of the series 
of steps which led to his downfall, for there 
were many royalists who had fought and 
bled for his father who stood aghast at the 
shameless manner in which the almost 
universal return of James's candidates had 
been secured. 

James's First Parliament, 
The session opened on the 19th May, and 
with very little delay the subservient parlia- 
ment settled on the King for life the whole 



451 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



of the revenues previously enjoyed by King 
Charles. A few days after this, however, 
they passed two resolutions : " To stand by 
His Majesty ... for the defence and support 
of the Church of England;" and the other 
was to petition the King to "put into exe- 
cution the laws against all dissenters whoso- 
ever from the Church of England." As 
these laws would operate against Romanists 
as well as Puritans, James was highly indig- 
nant. He was willing enough to take ad- 
vantage of the Toryism of the Episcopalians 
to answer his own purpose, but he had no 
notion of their acting on the initiative in any 
way or petitioning against the members of 
his own Church. He therefore issued orders 
to rescind these resolutions, which the servile 
House did immediately, and shortly after sub- 
mitted to be adjourned sine die. 

James, having obtained a servile Parlia- 
ment, now proceeded to curb the power of 
the Established Church, and to advance the 
spread of Popery. Naturally the clergy were 
much alarmed at the rise of Romanism, and 
many of them fiercely denounced the "Scarlet 
Lady," as they called the Church of Rome, 
from their pulpits. James, in high dis- 
pleasure, sent for certain of the bishops, and 
sternly commanded them to put an end to 
all such preaching, and for a time he was 
successful. 

But the sturdy Nonconformists required 
stronger treatment. Thus Richard Baxter, the 
venerable and pious Puritan divine, was 
heavily fined and imprisoned, and the odious 
Five Mile Act— by which no dissenter could 
hve within five miles of any town — was 
rigidly enforced. 

The Trial of Titus Gates. 
Then James bethought him of revenge, and 
Titus Gates, the infamous perjurer who had 
given false evidence of a Popish plot, and 
had grievously libelled James, in the pre- 
vious reign, was brought to trial. Un- 
doubtedly Gates was a deeply dyed villain 
and well deserving of punishment, but his 
sentence savours more of cruel revenge than 
justice. He was sentenced to be first pil- 
loried at the Royal Exchange, then in Palace 
Yard ; then he was to be whipped from Aid- 
gate to Newgate on one day, and then from 
Newgate to Tyburn within the next forty- 
eight hours. He was to be imprisoned for 
life, and five times every year he was to be 
pilloried. Intercession was made to James 
to remit the second flogging. The King's reply 
was characteristic : " He shall go through 
with it, if he has breath in his body." And 
Gates did go through with it, and received 
more than seventeen hundi'ed lashes, every 
one of which drew blood. The groans and 
shrieks of the wretched criminal were enough 
to have pierced the stoniest heart. Many 



times he swooned, and had to be dragged to 
Tyburn on a sledge. Under the tyrant James 
fearful floggings of this kind soon became 
quite common for the smallest of political 
offences, until the Petition of Rights under 
William of Grange stopped this, together with 
all cruel punishments. 

The Insurrections in the North and 
West; The Battle of Sedgemoor. 
The Dukes of Argyle and Monmouth, who 
were now exiles in Holland because of their 
attempts in the previous reign to limit the 
despotic power of Charles, thought this a 
favourable opportunity to raise again the 
standard of liberty and Protestantism. Their 
partizans in England and Scotland supplied 
money and assured them that whenever they 
appeared, the country would rise as one man 
to overturn the Popish king. Moreover, Argyle 
counted upon the support of the persecuted 
Presbyterians of Scotland, and Monmouth 
relied upon the Protestants of the west and 
the belief, which many persons held, that he 
was the rightful heir to the throne. He was, 
in fact, the illegitimate son of Charles II. and- 
Lucy Walters, a Welsh girl ; but there were 
several stories in circulation of a secret mar- 
riage having taken place, and there were 
many who credited the story and honestly 
believed him to be the true heir to the throne. 
It is not within the scope of this paper to 
give a detailed account of these ill-advised 
insurrections. Both failed utterly and mise- 
rably. Both leaders were captured and speedily 
executed. The battle of Sedgemoor, in which 
Monmouth's hopes were crushed, is memo- 
rable as being the last fought on English soil. 
But although it is not necessary to our pur- 
pose to refer more particularly to the details 
of these revolts, the cruelty with which James 
punished the rebels must be noticed, as afford- 
ing another link in the chain of evil and 
tyrannical deeds which finally alienated from 
him the hearts of even his most devoted 
adherents. 

The Bloody Assizes. 
Among the first of the victims was Abraham 
Holmes, one of Cromwell's Ironsides. He had 
been an officer in the Protector's own regi- 
ment, and was one of those to whom the idea of 
a Popish king being the head of the Protes- 
tant Church was nothing short of blasphemy. 
Hewouldacknowledge noking and no superior 
—in spiritual matters at least — but King Jesus. 
When examined in London before the Privy 
Council he said boldly that he had fought 
against the tyrant James Stuart even as he 
had fought under Cromwell against his father, 
Charles Stuart, and if he had the chance he 
would certainly fight again. When told that 
if he would give certain information his life 
should be spared, the stern old soldier 



452 



FROM TORE AY TO ST. JAMES'S. 



replied : " Not I. Cromwell's Ironsides never 
submit, and never turn against their com- 
rades." He was taken back to Bridgewater 
and there hanged. 

To Judge Jeffreys was given the task of 
reaping the bloody harvest sown by the sword 
of the rebellion. The gaols were full of 
"rebels," either taken as prisoners after 
Sedgemoor, or arrested on suspicion of being 
concerned in the revolt. Numbers had 
already been slain by Colonel Kirke, who, 
after the battle, had pursued his opponents 
far and wide and butchered hundreds in cold 
blood. 

Taunton was the scene of a horrible mas- 
sacre. Kirke and his officers lodged at the 
White Hart Inn, and whilst they drank 
beer within, the prisoners were hanged by 
scores, one after the other, over the sign-post 
of the house, the band playing meanwhile 
various lively tunes, 
to afford them, as Kirke 
said, music for their 
dancing. The victims 
were then drawn and 
quartered, and so many 
were slaughtered, that 
the executioner stood 
ankle deep in blood 
while streams of gore 
flowed down the streets 
like water. 

During that woeful 
autumn, Jeffreys con- 
demned to death no less 
than 331 persons ; 849 
were transported ; and 
33 were fined or whipped. 
His first victim was 
Lady Alice Lisle, whose 
sole offence consisted in 
giving a meal and a 
night's lodging to two 
fugitives. For this she was condemned to be 
burned ; and neither her extreme age — she 
was seventy years old — nor the fact that she 
had frequently sheltered the adherents of 
James during the time of the civil war, and 
it was by no means clear that she knew whom 
she was now helping, could avail aught. 
In reply to the most passionate appeals for 
mercy, sent in even by Romanists, James only 
commuted her sentence from burning to 
hanging. 

But the barbarity of these executions were 
equalled, if not surpassed, by the villany of 
the courtiers who thronged James's palace and 
made money out of the unfortunate prisoners 
who were transported for life, by selling them 
for field labour in Jamaica and Barbadoes. 
It is said that eleven thousand pounds were 
paid by the West Indian. planters for these 
sturdy Somersetshire peasants whose faults 
were that they had fought for Protestantism 




Judge Jeffrey 



and for him whom they considered to be the 
rightful king. The^-e was fierce contention 
among James's courtiers for shares of this 
unholy spoil. Of course Jeffreys took good 
care of himself in the matter, as also did the 
Queen and her ladies. The action of her 
maids of honour (!) was most reprehensible. 
There were twenty or thirty Somersetshire 
maidens whose only fault was that they had 
presented to Monmouth a silk banner and 
a Bible. The Queen's maids of honour 
obtained their imprisonment, hoping and 
beheving that their friends would purchase 
pardon for them at any price. Their atrocious 
scheme succeeded only too well. The ladies 
were arrested and thrown into prison, and 
the Queen by degrees obtained the King's 
pardon for them as their friends paid the 
exorbitant bribes demanded into the hands 
of her agents. Thus did James wreak his 
vengeance on the " re- 
bels." 

This was the state of 
affairs in " merrie Eng- 
land" duringthe first year 
of the reign of James II. 
The people were impri- 
soned and sold for the 
benefit of the King's 
favourites ; they were tor- 
tured because of their re- 
ligious opinions ; they 
were forced to pay il- 
legal taxes ; the laws were 
administered by villains 
for judges ; and last 
though not least, the 
country was governed 
without a parHament and 
in direct defiance of con- 
stitutional law, by the 
despotic will of the King 
who was himself the 
hireling of the King of France. It was not 
thus that the so-called " rebel " Oliver ruled 
England, — at least he had made her name 
respected throughout the world. 

Persecution of the Nonconformists. 
James was exultant in his victory. At last 
he had this turbulent England at his feet, 
and had carried out some of the despotic de- 
signs of his father and grandfather. Poor 
fool ! he little knew the Enghsh people ; and 
even while he thought he had conquered 
them, the storm was rapidly rising which 
would hurl him from the throne like a vvi- 
thered leaf on a mountain torrent. But at this 
period, the autumn of 1685, his power was at 
its height. Everywhere his enemies had been 
vanquished. The Whig party seemed exter- 
minated. The parliament was entirely under 
his control ; it had voted him immense sums 
of money, and had then quietly submitted to 



453 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



be dismissed. Even the Nonconformists, the 
most persistent and invincible advocates of 
the civil and religious liberty which the Stuarts 
were so madly determined to crush, seemed 
completely beaten and discouraged. Their 
most famous and pious ministers were afraid 
to be seen in the streets lest they should be 
grossly insulted and their lives endangered ; 
their places of meeting were literally the holes 
and corners of the earth ; and when they 
gathered together for worship in any building, 
sentinels were posted to give the alarm if 
strangers drew near. Trap-doors were con- 
structed in their houses so that in case of danger 
they might escape unseen ; and so keen was 
the persecution that at last the bolder spirits 
determined to oppose forceby force. England 
seemed on the verge of the fiercest of all 
fights — a religious war. Thus, when a Mid- 
dlesex magistrate, hearing that certain Non- 
conformists were wont to meet for prayer in 
an obscure gravel pit a mile or two out of 
London, marched upon them with a strong 
posse of police, the assembly turned upon 
them, rescued their minister, and put the 
magistrate and his constables to an ignomi- 
nous flight. On the site of this place of meet- 
ing a chapel was erected, which we believe 
still stands, being known to this day as the 
Old Gravel Pit Chapel. 

It was thus that James, helped in some 
instances by the extreme partisans of the 
Established Church, strove to stamp out 
Dissent, and burned into the hearts and 
minds of the Nonconformists bitter memories 
which unhappily, in some cases, have lasted 
to this day. Persecution has only strength- 
ened its growth and increased its hold on the 
affections of its people. Even as the perse- 
cution by Papists only promoted the pros- 
perity of the Reformed Church, so the per- 
secution of Dissent increased its life and 
vigour. Strange that the people who had 
witnessed the fact in their own case should 
not have seen it in the case of others. 

In those dark and gloomy days of which 
we write, England might be likened to a wide 
arena, in which the three parties — the Roman- 
ists, the partisans of the Established Church, 
and the Dissenters — all fought and strove for 
victory, and all of them professing to be the 
exact followers of the meek and lowly Jesus, 
who when He was reviled reviled not 
again ! 

Without doubt the first-named party ap- 
peared to have the greatest chance of success, 
for the King himself was a pronounced Papist ; 
and now that his enemies were under his feet 
he prepared to realize more fully his obstinate 
desire to make England once more a Roman- 
ist country. It seemed comparatively easy 
for him to do this, for the Episcopalians and 
Tories, strong in their belief in the " divine 
right " of James to rule and do as he pleased, 



at first refused him nothing, and followed 
his every act with a chorus of sycophantic 
praise. 

But a change was at hand, for James had 
set his heart upon accomplishing two or three 
designs to which his zealous cavaliers were 
bitterly opposed. These things were in fact 
but further exemplifications of his pernicious 
principles ; but now they would touch his 
friends, who would speedily discover how bad 
those principles were when applied to their 
own case. Thus, Episcopalians could applaud 
James when he violated the principle of 
liberty by persecuting the Dissenters ; and it 
was only when he began to exalt the Papists 
to the detriment of the Churchmen that the 
latter discovered how precious that principle 
was. Again, James and his vile judges might 
unlawfully slaughter and imprison any number 
of the common people who were suspected ot 
being secretly connected with Monmouth's 
insurrection, but directly James spoke openly 
of repealing the Habeas Corpus Act, — the 
principle of which he had violated again and 
again, — even his most obsequious Members 
of Parliament began to grow restive. Well 
might Englishmen of all classes and of all 
shades of opinion value this Act, for it is 
second in importance only to Magna Charta. 
It secures the liberty of the subject, and no 
king dare keep even the meanest person in 
prison without a full and fair trial. Macaulay 
speaks of it as " the most stringent curb that 
ever legislation imposed on tyranny ;" and 
even Dr. Johnson, a veritable Tory of Tories, 
praises it, and says that it is the single ad- 
vantage which our government has over that 
of other countries. 

But this was one of the changes which 
James was bent upon accomplishing. It 
is almost impossible to understand how he 
could have been so blind as to endeavour 
to force this repeal on his people. He 
must have remembered how it had been 
wrung from his brother, and he must have 
known how highly it was prized even by the 
dependents on his Court and the most red-hot 
royalists. 

Another design upon which James was 
fully resolved was the establishment of a 
large standing army under his own per- 
sonal control. In defiance of the law he had 
already increased the number of his soldiers 
from six to twenty thousand, which was the 
largest force any King of England had at his 
own command in time of peace, and not con- 
tent with this he was bent on a still larger 
increase. This again was most hateful to 
even his warmest supporters, for it meant 
the complete supercession of the militia ; and 
in that force the gentlemen of nearly all the 
noble and county families held important 
posts, and thereby gained much dignity and' 
influence. 



454 



FROM TORE AY TO ST. JAMES'S. 



The Dispensing Power. 

There was yet another most audacious 
design which James was bent upon accom- 
phshing. This was to claim and exercise 
the power to dispense with the execution of 
the laws, — a right which he declared was 
inherent in the Crown, and could certainly not 
be denied by persons who held — as the Church- 
men and Tories then held — that complete 
and passive obedience to kings was a subject's 
most sacred duty, and that the only guide 
and controller of a king was his own con- 
science ! More audacious tyranny England 
had never known. Not even in the days of 
the Plantagenets did the sovereign claim such 
despotic powers. 

When Parliament met on the gthNovember, 
James made a bold avowal of these intentions, 
and asked for further supplies mainly to sup- 
port his large standing army, which was 
principally officered by Romanists. But in 
those days of hideous persecution, to put the 
sword into the hands of Papists, and then ask 
Protestants to pay them, was more than even 
that servile Parliament could bear, and by a 
majority of one it refused to grant James's 
requests. Finding it completely imprac- 
ticable, he dissolved it quite suddenly on 
the 20th, and determined to rule absolutely, 
and without a Parliament. But if he had 
had the slightest spark of wisdom he would 
have acted otherwise, for even that timid 
Parliament had shown some sign of that 
sturdy English spirit which had forced his 
grandfather, his father, and his brother to 
yield, and which, by persistently and unne- 
cessarily opposing it, finally swept him from 
his throne. 

Trial of Sir Edward Hales. 
James felt it necessary, however, to obtain 
some authoritative recognition of his prero- 
gative to dispense with the laws, and the 
judges being completely obedient to his will, 
he resolved to bring the matter before them, 
with the certainty of a decision in his favour. 
Of course, to admit that this dispensing power 
was a definite principle, and applicable to all 
statutes of the realm, would be to render the 
monarchy completely absolute, and repre- 
sentative government a perfect farce. And 
it was upon achieving this result that James 
was resolutely bent. He therefore openly 
proclaimed his determination to dispense with 
the Test Act, and appointed Sir Edward 
Hales, a Papist, to be Governor of Dover 
Castle and colonel of a regiment. He then 
caused the coachman of Sir Edward to bring 
an action, under the Test Act, against his 
master, to recover a sum of five hundred 
pounds for serving in the army without taking 
the Test, intending that the judges should 
rule in Sir Edward's favour. To James's 



surprise and displeasure, four of the judges 
privately remonstrated with him before the 
trial on the illegality of his proceeding; where- 
upon they were at once dismissed, and four 
servile judges put in their places. The 
Solicitor-General, Hencage Finch, was also 
dismissed for the same reason, and an insig- 
nificant creature named Thomas Powis, who 
had no recommendation but his servility, was 
given the post in his stead. 

On the day appointed, the mockery of a 
trial commenced. There were twelve judges, 
all of them prepared to decide in favour of 
James, and a Solicitor-General to argue on 
the King's behalf. Sir Edward Hales pleaded 
the King's power of dispensation under the 
Great Seal; and on June 6th the Chief Justice 
and ten of his colleagues gave judgment that 
there was no law with which His Majesty 
could not dispense. The King was sovereign, 
therefore the laws were his laws, and it fol- 
lowed that in certain cases he could dispense 
with their execution, he alone being the best 
judge as to the suitability of these cases. 

Of course, after this most astounding and 
unconstitutional procedure, James assumed 
absolute power. He would do as he liked, 
in defiance of all law. He appointed Roman- 
ists to numerous important posts, and within 
a few days four openly professed Popish 
Lords were sworn members of the Privy 
Council. Commands were also sent to the 
clergy that they were not to preach on doc- 
trinal points, while in many cases preferment 
was given to Romanist priests. The churches 
of the Establishment were absolutely turned 
into Popish mass-houses, and the revenues 
put into the pockets of followers of the 
"Scarlet Lady." 

The whole of the Established Church was 
placed under the control of a High Commis- 
sion Court of seven judges, of whom the 
villain Jeffreys was at the head. Scotland 
was placed under the control of Drummond, 
Earl of Perth, who seems to have won the 
heart of the tyrant by inventing the steel 
thumb-screw for torturing Presbyterians ; while 
Ireland was delivered up to the iron rule of 
Tyrconnel, a fierce Romanist, of whom the 
popular opinion may be fittingly expressed 
by quoting his nickname, " Lying Dick 
Talbot." 

As time went on, James continued to pursue 
his plans, and to push his pernicious princi- 
ples farther and farther. He appointed John 
Massey, who was notoriously a Romanist, 
to the deanery of Christchurch, Oxford; while 
both the bishoprics of Chester , and Oxford 
having become vacant, he filled them with 
the vile sycophants, Cartright and Parker, 
whose religion, if anything, was purely Popish, 
but whose chief reconmiendation was that 
they would do anything that James bade 
them. 



455 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Indeed, it appeared as though the whole 
government of the English Church would be 
placed in the hands of its most deadly 
enemies, the Papists, and that even as James 
claimed to be the absolute owner and ruler of 
England, so the Church was to be at the 
entire disposal of the Pope. 

James coerces the Universities. 

Of course these proceedings aroused the 
greatest alarm and indignation amongst the 
clergy and supporters of the Established 
Church, and numerous indeed were the works 
then poured forth against the advocates of 
Rome. But the contest soon grew above a 
paper war. The 7th of February, 1686, will 
be ever memoralDle as the day on which 
James endeavoured to coerce the University 
of Cambridge, and the sullen discontent of 
the people began to shape itself into dangerous 
and active agitation. On the day named 
James sent a letter to the senate of Cambridge 
University ordering them to admit Alban 
Francis, a Benedictine monk, to the degree of 
Master of Arts. Thereupon the senate required 
Francis to take the oaths against Romanism 
prescribed by law, which of course he de- 
clined to do, and the senate, of which body 
Sir Isaac Newton was one, was accordingly 
summoned before the Ecclesiastical Com- 
mission for opposing the King, and acting 
strictly in accordance with the laws ! The 
Vice-Chancellor lost his office and his income, 
and James was triumphant. 

But at Oxford he acted with even more 
illegality and despotism. The presidency 
of Magdalen College having become vacant, 
the King appointed Antony Farmer, a Ro- 
manist, a man of immoral life, and one, 
moreover, not qualified by the statutes 
of the college. The Fellows, in the exercise 
of their right, chose instead, John Hough, a 
man in every way worthy of the office. They 
were cited before the Ecclesiastical Com- 
mission, and produced the most unmistakable 
proofs of Farmer's unfitness for the post. 
Nevertheless Hough's election was declared 
void. The Fellows persisted that Hough was 
their lawfully elected president, as he was un- 
doubtedly, and strictly maintained that no 
other should rule over the college. The 
King went in person to browbeat the Fellows, 
but in vain. Hough refused to give up the 
keys of the college when called upon, and 
the doors were broken open and he and the 
Fellows were ejected by soldiery. The end 
of the matter was that a Romish bishop 
was placed over the college, and twelve 
Romish Fellows were appointed in one 
day. 

These were the acts which the blind bigot 
and tyrant thought consolidated his power. 
Foolish man ! They were desperate blows at 
the very supports of his throne. The party 



whom he was now insulting so needlessly 
w^is composed of the very men who had given 
him the crown. But for the staunch support ^, 
of members of the Established Church he ■■ 
would certainly have been prohibited from " 
succeeding to the throne by reason of the 
Exclusion Bill, introduced by the Whigs in the 
previous reign. 

It is' quite easy to understand the intense 
hatred of the English people to the Romanists 
of that day,. Not only did they remember 
the hideous slaughter during the reign of 
Bloody Queen Mary and the iniquitous 
Gunpowder Plot, but the idea of the do- 
minion of the Pope was ever mingled with the 
idea of the Romanist religion, and was just the 
one thing which Englishmen could not bear. 
And still further, the opinion was widely 
prevalent that a Romanist felt it his bounden 
duty to lie like the devil, to increase the 
prestige and dominion of his Church. When, 
therefore, these high-handed proceedings took 
place, even the most zealous royalists began 
to look alarmed and to question among 
themselves as to the soundness of the doctrine 
of "divine right." 

The First Declaration of Indulgence. 
Thus passed the dark and doleful year of 
1686, — a year heavy with the burden of 
despotism. Nearly the whole of the time 
the Parliament was prorogued, and James 
ruled as absolute king. In February 1687, 
he took his next great step in the complete 
subjugation of the realm to Popery by issuing 
in Scotland a Declaration of Indulgence, 
whereby all the various prohibitions against 
Romanists were to be completely repealed. 
Quakers also might meet in any place, and 
moderate Presbyterians only in their own 
houses. But field conventicles were still to be 
put down with the utmost severity. As the 
servile Council of Scotland made no re- 
sistance to this decree, not even pointing 
out that, being issued on the King's authority 
alone, it was absolutely illegal, James resolved 
next to try the same experiment in England. 
He had first thought of summoning a Parlia- 
ment, but on sounding several peers and 
influential commoners, he found so much 
opposition, that he resolved to do without 
their legislature ; the Parliament was there- 
fore prorogued for another six months, and 
James continued to reign as absolute monarch. 
Early in April 1687, James issued the Decla- 
ration of Indulgence, which, as he fondly 
thought, set the coping-stone to the fabric 
of despotic power and Romanist supremacy 
which he had so zealously reared. It proved 
too heavy, however, and toppled over the 
whole building, and buried its founder in its 
ruins. In other words, although at first suc- 
cessful, this Declaration ultimately gave the 
final blow which overturned the throne. 



156 



*f=fc}B=lJ- 



--y=m* 




_™j 



The Battle of Sedgemoor 



457 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



It gave absolute liberty to all persons to 
worship as they pleased, and abolished all 
religious tests ; while it also professed to 
maintain the legal rights of the Church of 
England. The King evidently hoped that 
the satisfaction of the Nonconformists would 
form an important counterbalance to the 
dissatisfied Churchmen. 

But while the Dissenters were anxious to 
profit by the advantages thus offered to them, 
the Declaration was looked at with suspicion 
by all parties except the Romanists. The 
Dissenters well knew the intense hatred of 
James, and, indeed, all the Stuarts, to every 
kind of nonconformity, and they could not 
but suppose that this kindness hid some 
deeply-laid design. Still further, being made 
on the King's own responsibility, it was 
utterly illegal, and the Nonconformists under- 
stood too well the principles of constitution- 
alism to accept even liberty in an unconsti- 
tutional manner. For if the King's caprice 
gave them liberty suddenly on one day, it 
might as suddenly take it away again on the 
morrow. Further, all parties regarded it as 
formed especially to promote the spread of 
Romanism ; and if the liberty were accepted 
at the King's hands to-day, and thereby his 
prerogative and right of legislating without 
parliament acknowledged, there would belittle 
difficulty in the King's making another law 
to-morrow whereby every person must em- 
brace the Romanist faith. 

These were some of the objections raised 
by the Nonconformists, and subtle as was 
the Jesuitical policy which directed the 
Declaration, most of the Dissenters were 
too wary to be caught by it ; by far the 
greater number of them joined with the 
Episcopalians against their common enemy. 

During the year, however, no resistance 
was made to the autocratic rule of the King, 
and James, heedless of the widespread 
discontent, rejoiced at the success of his 
schemes. 

The Child of Prayer. 
James now believed himself paramount, but 
there was one very important thing wanting 
to complete his designs. He had no son to 
whom he could leave his crown, and whom he 
could indoctrinate with his views to perpetuate 
his system of rule. In default of a son being 
born to him, the throne at his death would 
go to his daughter by his first wife, Mary, 
now married to her cousin, the Prince of 
Orange, a great Protestant prince, and the 
chief opponent of Louis of France on the 
Continent. The thought that his son-in- 
law, the Prince of Orange, would succeed to 
his throne was gall and wormwood to the 
Romanist James. But what was to the King 
such a source of sorrow was to his people a 
cause of joy. The King being old, it was 



not anticipated that any more children would' 
be born to him, and therefore the people 
hoped to find speedy relief from his tyrannous 
rule when in due time his Protestant daughter 
and her husband succeeded to the throne. 

But this hope was destined to be quickly 
overthrown, for early in 1688 it was publicly 
announced that the Queen expected a child,, 
and prayers were offered up in all the Roman 
Catholic places of worship that the infant 
might prove to be a boy. On the loth of June 
a son — the child of prayer, as he was called— 
was born, and great was the consternation 
throughout Protestant England. Indeed the 
popular belief then was that the so-called son 
was a suppositious child, and not the true 
son of James and his Queen ; and although 
this was afterwards proved to be false, it was 
made much of at the time by Mary and her 
husband, William of Orange. There is no 
doubt but that the fear of the perpetuation of 
James's evil tyranny under James's son formed 
another reason for the determination of the 
people to drive their tyrant from his throne 
in favour of his daughter Mary ; still further, 
the strong belief that it was a Jesuitical trick, 
set in motion by the disciples of Loyola for 
the purpose of increasing their power, added 
to the extreme detestation with which the 
people regarded the Romanists. The fact 
that such stories were generally believed 
gives us a clear glimpse of the embittered 
state of popular feeling at the time, and also 
affords a clue to the popular hatred of the 
Romanists. "They are always plotting treach- 
erously and in the dark; they cannot be trusted 
or believed." Thus the people thought. 

The Second Declaration of In- 
dulgence. 

We now come to the more immediate cause 
of the revolution in favour of the Prince 
of Orange. This was not the birth of a son 
to James, although that incident without 
doubt increased the popular feeling in favour 
of the movement. It is to be found in the 
outbreak of the discontent between James 
and the Established Church into open war. 

On the 27th of April, 1688, the King, em- 
boldened by the success of his Declaration of 
Indulgence of the preceding year, issued a 
second, which in many respects was a repe- 
tition of the former, but contained certain 
sentences in addition which rendered it more 
obnoxious. He said that it had come to his 
knowledge that designing men had spread 
the report that he might be persuaded to 
change his mind on the subject, and he 
therefore thought it necessary to state that 
his purpose was immovably fixed; only those 
who would concur in his plans would be 
employed in his service, and that for this 
reason many persons had been dismissed, 
from both civil and military appointments 



458 



FROM TORE AY TO ST. JAMES'S. 



A new Parliament would be summoned in 
November, and he relied upon his subjects 
sending him members who would support him 
in his plans. Alas for the mutability of all 
human schemes ! That Parliament was never 
held ; and when November came, James was 
a fugitive, flying from the land over which 
he had ruled with such cruel tyranny. 

At first this Declaration produced but little 
result. People wondered why James should 
issue a second proclamation merely to ac- 
centuate the first, and say that he would not 
be likely to change his mind. 

But it was followed on the 4th of May by 
an Order in Council, commanding that the 
Declaration should be read in all churches 
and chapels throughout the land on two 
Sabbaths in succession, and by ministers of 
all denominations. In the Gazette of the 
7th of May it was published that the 20th 
should be the day of the first reading in 
London and its vicinity, and in the country 
the first reading was fixed for the 3rd of June. 

This command was in very truth the throw- 
ing down of the glove, and challenging to 
open war. It snapped the last link which 
bound James to the Churchmen who had put 
him on the throne. It was a direct insult to 
the whole of the Established clergy, for not 
only was it a most atrocious affront to cause 
them to proclaim the triumph of Father Petre 
and the Jesuits (for so they regarded the Decla- 
ration), a sect which they hated so intensely, 
and from whose professors they had suffered so 
much; but the great point to be noted is that 
this Declaration, being proclaimed by the 
King's authority alone, was utterly illegal, and 
a direct violation of the laws of the realm. It 
was, moreover, a distinct breach of his kingly 
promises, and by obeying the command 
the clergy would be made the instruments 
of spreading, and at the same time acknow- 
ledging, the King's right to absolute power 
and complete despotism. It was therefore 
not only the great detestation of the religious 
toleration of Romanism which caused the 
clergy to object, it was the hearty disapproval 
of King James's tyranny and unconstitutional 
conduct. 

At this moment the action of the Protestant 
Dissenters of London was such as to win for 
themselves a title to the lasting esteem of 
their countrymen. They had been estranged 
by reason of many cruel wrongs heaped upon 
them both by the Church of England and 
the House of Stuart, and at first they had 
witnessed this war between the tyrant Church 
and the tyrant King which it had placed on 
the throne with a spice of spiteful pleasure ; 
but at this time, understanding how much 
was at stake, and sympathizing with their 
Episcopalian brethren in the day of their 
tribulation, they boldly threw in their lot with 
them. We must not forget, moreover, that 



it was partly in favour of the Nonconformists 
that the Declaration was drawn so that their 
action exhibits all the greater self-denial. 
But Baxter, Howe, and others, who had known 
frequently what it was to suffer for conscience' 
sake, now led the way in encouraging the 
clergy to do likewise. Their object was to 
form a coalition among ministers of all 
persuasions to refuse to read the illegal 
Declaration. 

The congregations of these Independent 
and Presbyterian ministers were even more 
enthusiastic than some of their pastors, and 
deputations waited on several of the London 
clergy to urge them to strike a blow for the 
liberties of England and the Protestant reli- 
gion, by not reading the Declaration. 

The outcome of this agitation was that the 
flower of the London clergy held a meeting to 
decide upon their course of action. The feel- 
ing first seemed to be in favour of yielding to 
the King, for there were many who feared the 
power of James. The King could at a week's 
notice turn them out of their parsonages, take 
from them their incomes, and leave them to 
beg their bread from door to door. But the 
fervent words of Dr. Edward Fowler, Vicar 
of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, seem to have turned 
the majority into a minority. He argued 
strongly in favour of a determination not to 
read the Declaration, maintaining that his 
conscience would not allow him to publish 
abroad so illegal and monstrous a proclama- 
tion. The result was that a resolution was 
passed, written down and signed by many of 
the incumbents then present, binding them- 
selves that whatever others might do they 
would not read the Declaration. Dean 
Patrick of Peterborough and Rector of St. 
Paul's, Covent Garden, was the first to sign, 
and Fowler followed him. 

The Prayer of the Prelates. 
The movement thus set on foot gained 
strength every day. The resolution was 
sent round the city, and numbers signed it. 
Fuither, it helped the action of the bishops, 
and on the 12th of May a company of them 
gathered at Lambeth Palace to discuss the 
course they should take. The general opinion 
was that the Declaration should not be read, 
and letters were sent by special messengers 
to several prelates in the country urging them 
to come to London without delay and confer 
with their brethren. These letters were for 
the most part answered in person, and on 
the 1 8th of May another meeting was held, 
at which a number of bishops and eminent 
divines were present. After long deliberation 
and many prayers, it was decided that a peti- 
tion should be drawn up and presented to the 
King, in which all disloyal terms or expres- 
sions should be studiously avoided, but that 
though His Majesty could rest assured that 



459 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the Church was, as ever, loyal to the throne, 
yet as parliament had declared that the 
sovereign could not dispense with statutes 
in matters concerning the Church, the Decla- 
ration was illegal and the petitioners could 
not be parties to it by reading it in public. 

The petition was signed by Archbishop 
Sancroft and six of his suffragans, and was 
then taken to Whitehall, and presented to 
the King. 

When James read it his brow grew dark. 
" This is flat rebellion," he said ; " I will be 
obeyed. Go to your dioceses, and see that 
the Declaration is read next Sunday." The 
bishops maintained their loyalty, but said they 
must obey God rather than man. " But," 
said James, " God has given me the dispens- 
ing power; I am king by divine right; you 
yourselves have preached and maintained 
this doctrine; I will maintain my rights, and if 
you question them, as you are now doing. 



London Bridge. The populace hned the 
banks of the river and cheered them to the 
echo, for the citizens believed they were 
fighting against Romanism, and they dreaded 
a return of the horrors of Queen Mary's 
reign. 

The Trial of the Seven Bishops. 

On the 15th of June the bishops were 
brought before the Court of King's Bench, 
and the legal objections against their com- 
mitment having been over-ruled, they were 
released on their own recognizances until the 
29th of June, when the trial was appointed to 
come on at Westminster Hall. On that day 
the whole neighbourhood was thronged with 
eager and expectant crowds, who begged the 
blessing of the bishops as they passed on to 
the great hall. 

The charge against the bishops was that 




Medal Struck in Honour of the Petitioning Bishops. 



you are trumpeters of sedition; I will be 
obeyed," 

That night, the bishops' petition was printed 
and scattered broadcast all over the city, 
and the prayer of the prelates was loudly 
praised. When Sunday came the churches 
were crowded as they never had been before; 
but in only f 07 ir of the places of worship was 
the order obeyed, and when a week had 
passed and the second Sunday came, the 
same thing occurred. For once in his life at 
least, the tyrant had been completely set at 
naught. 

King James's rage knew no bounds, and, 
acting on the advice of Jeffreys, he ordered 
that Archbishop Sancroft and the other six peti- 
tioners should be brought before the Court of 
King's Bench on a charge of uttering aseditious 
libel. In the meantime they were committed 
to the Tower. The enthusiasm of the people 
on their behalf was so great that they were 
sent by water to the great prison palace below 



of having published in the petition a false 
and seditious libel ; and as the judges were 
nearly all the creatures of the King, His 
Majesty hoped to win a signal victory, and 
either make these high dignitaries completely 
subservient to his will or remove them from 
their sees, so that men more to his taste 
might be placed in their stead. 

So exuberant were the people in their de- 
monstrations of delight on behalf of the 
bishops that it was difficult to maintain order. 
It was quite clear how the people regarded 
the matter, and there were those on the 
King's side who feared a riot when the 
bishops were convicted. For there was but 
little doubt among the King's partisans but 
that they would be convicted ; the King's 
wishes were well-known, and all the forensic 
force at his command had been retained to 
prove their guilt. 

All through the long, hot midsummer day 
the legal conflict raged, and it was dark when 



460 



FROM TORE AY TO ST. /AMES'S. 



the final summing up of the judges was 
ended. The Chief Justice held that the peti- 
tion was a libel. Judge Alibone was of the 
same opinion. The two other judges, Hollo- 
way and Powell, differed from these decisions ; 
and the latter boldly said that the dispensing 
power lately assumed by the King was beyond 
his right, and unless repressed would vest 
the whole legislative power in the king per- 
sonally, a result utterly illegal and unconsti- 
tutional. 

All through that June night the excitement 
and anxiety were most intense. The people 
waited for the verdict as if it were a personal 
matter, and numbers of them paced the 
streets till dawn. The jury were locked up 
till ten o'clock next morning, when, pale and 
haggard, they came into court to deliver 
their decision. 

The jurymen filed into 

their box amid breathless 

silence. The vast hall, 

Palace Yard, and the streets 

around were packed with an 

immense crowd. 
Sir Samuel Astry, the 

Clerk to the Crown, put the 

question to the jury : "Do 

you find the defendants 

<^ilty or not guilty?" Sir 

Roger Langley, the foreman, 

answered , '" Not Guilty ; " 

and even as he spoke a shout 

from a thousand throats 

cheered them to the echo, 

— a shout which was taken 

up by the tens of thousands 

without, and answered and 

reansweredfrom Temple Bar 

to the Tower. Guns were 

fired, bells were rung, and 

everybody everywhere seem- 
ed transported with jo3^ The 

jury were overwhelmed with 

the manifestations of the 

popular praise. They could scarcely make 

their way from the hall,for the people crowded 

round them, shook their hands, and blessed 

them for preserving the liberties of England. 
The good news was soon known at the 

great camp on Hounslow Heath, where the 
King was then staying. As soon as the 

soldiers heard it they took up the joyful 

shout, and cheered so lustily that the King 

demanded to know the cause. " They cheer 

for the acquittal of the bishops, Your Ma- 
jesty ;" to which James rephed, " So much the 

worse for them." 

Even in that hour of humiliating defeat, 
when the temper of the whole nation was 
so unmistakably displayed against him, he 
still meditated on persisting in his folly. But 
even then his hour had come, although he 
knew it not, and the fiat had gone forth, 




William, Prince of Orange. 



" Thou art weighed in the balance and found 
wanting." Even then, while the people were 
giving themselves up to the joy of the mo- 
ment and preparing for the illuminations of 
the night and the burning of the Pope and 
Papists in effigy, while James was meditating 
new schemes of revenge and tyranny, while 
the glad tidings were flying all over the king- 
dom, and steeples everywhere were rocking 
with the ringing of joy bells, — even then an 
invitation was presented to William of Orange, 
the King's nephew and son-in-law, signed 
in cipher by many leading noblemen and 
clergymen, to appear in England at the head 
of a body of troops and drive the tyrant from 
the throne, — an invitation which William then 
and there accepted. 

For Parliament and 
Protestantism. 
The invitation which had 
thus been presented to the 
Prince of Orange has a his- 
tory of its own which is wpII 
worth relating ; but tradition 
has been so much mixed 
with fact that it is difficult ac- 
curately to distinguish the 
one from the other. The 
simple truth, however, ap- 
pears to be this : — Ten miles 
south of Sheffield lies the 
little village of Whittington, 
near which stands a little 
inn known to all the country- 
side as the " Cock and 
Pynot." Now it is a dilapi- 
dated cottage fast falling 
to decay, but at the time 
when King James tyrannised 
over the English people it 
was a thriving ale-house. 
One day, when hunting with 
his harriers on Whittington 
Moor, the Duke of Devon- 
shire met here the Earl of Danby, and 
arranged to send the invitation to the Prince 
of Orange, which, as we have seen, was 
delivered to him on the 30th of June. 
The co-operation of Compton, the sus- 
pended Bishop of London, was then ob- 
tained. Other influential persons joined the 
plot, and many meetings were held in the 
vaults of Lady Place, a picturesque mansion 
situated on the banks of the Thames between 
Henley and Maidenhead. 

Edward Russell had been over to the 
Hague in May, but the Prince desired a 
full and formal invitation, and now it had 
come. He accepted it instantly. With a 
promptitude exceeded only by the secrecy he 
set about the consolidation of a force that 
would be certain to command success if, 
as he was led to believe, ninety-nine hun- 



461 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



dredths of the population would join him on 
his progress through the country. 

But notwithstanding all his efforts news of 
his preparation began to leak out. Louis of 
France, who was the inveterate enemy of the 
Prince of Orange, exhorted James to prepare 
for the invasion. But James, with the most 
incomprehensible obstinacy, refused to believe 
it, and rejected Louis' offers of assistance. 

But on the loth of October William issued 
a proclamation to the people of England, 
setting forth in a singularly clear and calm 
manner the violation of law and liberty 
of which James had been guilty, and also 
pointing out the popular belief that a pre- 
tended heir had been foisted on the country 
to set aside the right of the Princess of 
Orange. In consequence of these things, the 
Prince of Orange, at the earnest request of 
many lords, both spiritual and temporal, and 
of many gentlemen of all ranks, had thought 
fit to come to England with a sufficient army 
to defend him from the violence of the King. 
The proclamation proceeded : " We for our 
part will concur in everything that may procure 
the peace and happiness of the nation which a 
free and lawful parliament shall determine, 
since we have nothing before our eyes, in this 
our undertaking, but the preservation of the 
Protestant religion, the covering of all men 
from persecution for their consciences, and 
the securing to the whole nation the free 
enjoyment of their laws, rights, and liberties, 
under a just and legal government." 

Six days after the publication of this mani- 
festo the Prince of Orange embarked at 
Helvoetsluys, with a large force of four thou- 
sand horse and ten thousand foot soldiers. 
A fleet of fifty men-of-war and four hundred 
transports conveyed his army, while he had 
also many fine ships and frigates. Contrary 
winds delayed their passage, and, indeed, 
compelled them once to return to the shelter 
of their own shores ; but on the evening of 
the 1st of November they were able to sail 
steadily out to sea. 

Too Late ! 
Meantime James had not been idle. The 
publication of the manifesto by the Prince of 
Orange had convinced him beyond any pos- 
sibility of doubt that Louis' apprehensions 
were correct. Then, in a state of panic, he 
yielded in a few hours almost all the points 
for which he had so blindly and so obstinately 
struggled throughout his reign. He dissolved 
the Ecclesiastical Commission which had so 
unjustly judged and unlawfully oppressed the 
clergy ; he restored to London its ancient 
charter, and gave the Bishop of Winchester 
power to reinstate the Fellows of Magdalen 
College, while he restored their ancient fran- 
chises to all the municipal corporations. 
Father Petre was dismissed, and James 



announced his determination henceforth to 
govern strictly according to law. But. these 
reforms came too late. He should have 
thought of them before. The hearts of his 
people were gone from him, and their eyes 
were turned longingly to his daughter and 
her husband from over the sea. On review- 
ing his resources James found that he had 
but a fleet of thirty ships, and an army of 
about forty thousand men. The ships were 
at once ordered to oppose the Prince's pro- 
gress, but were kept in the mouth of the 
Thames by the baffling east winds which 
filled the sails of William's vessels and 
wafted them swiftly onward towards England. 
The greater part of the army was held in 
readiness to march to any point at a mo- 
ment's notice. Some regiments were sent 
northward, as William was expected to land 
on the Yorkshire coast. 

But though at first the Dutch vessels had 
been steered in this direction, the Prince of 
Orange, on the eve of the and of November, 
suddenly gave directions to alter their course 
towards the English Channel; and on the 
morning of the 3rd of November they passed 
the Straits of Dover. The coast of Kent 
was covered with innumerable spectators, 
who could see distinctly the soldiers standing 
on the Dutch decks, and could plainly hear 
their martial music. It was a time of intense 
excitement for England. 

A courier sped post-haste from Dover to 
Whitehall to inform the King of the sudden 
change in William's plans. He found every- 
thing in confusion. James knew not what 
to do. The regiments sent north were 
hurriedly recalled and told to march on Salis- 
bury, while some of the available troops were 
sent to Portsmouth and others to Plymouth. 
The idea never seems to have entered 
James's mind that Torbay would be the 
landing-place. But so it was, and the 
selection by William of this harbour as a 
landing-place gives a signal proof of his 
sagacity and astuteness. On Sunday the 
4th of November, sail was slackened, and 
divine service was held on board William's 
ships ; and on the next day, after passing the 
place in a sea-fog, the wind having changed, 
the fleet steered round and sailed quietly 
into Torbay. 

Among the first to land were the Prince 
of Orange and Marshal Schomberg, and 
they proceeded at once to reconnoitre the 
country. The outlook was far from pleasant. 
The ground was drenched with rain which 
had fallen on the preceding evening, and 
the roads were in a most deplorable state. 
Nevertheless on the next day, when the 
horses were landed, William began to march 
up the country, and a few of his regiments 
advanced as far as Newton Abbot, in the 
centre of which little town a stone still stands 



462 



FROM TORE AY TO ST. /AMES'S. 



to mark the spot where the Prince's mani- 
festo was solemnly read to the inhabitants. 

Four days after his landing, William 
entered Exeter. This town was crowded 
with people who had thronged from all the 
country near to welcome the champion of 
their religion, and shout after shout rent the 
air as they saw on the folds of the Prince's 
banner the words, " For Protestantism and 
the Liberties of England." With his accus- 
tomed sagacity, William ruled his army with 
the most rigid discipline, and restrained 
them from committing the slightest misde- 
meanour. Every item of food and forage was 
duly paid for, and the people, who still re- 
tained a shuddering recollection of the 
excesses of James's troops, regarded these 
invaders with great favour. At Exeter the 
Prince of Orange remained a few days, 
and then moved slowly on Salisbury. He had 
a superlatively difficult part to play, and his 
plan was to wait for the support of the English 
people. A large force had been gathered 
at Salisbury to oppose him, but on the 1 5th the 
King received the news that Lord Cornbury, 
the eldest son of the Earl of Clarendon, had 
suddenly left the camp at the head of three 
regiments and was marching to join the 
Prince. After this, the news of several defec- 
tions reached the wretched despot ; noble- 
men, gentlemen, and officers of all grades 
-were constantly leaving the royal cause and 
joining the Prince. Even his daughter, the 
Princess Anne, left him ; and in the depth of 
despair the King cried : " God help me, even 
my own children have forsaken me ! " 

A humorous story is told of the Princess's 
-husband, George of Denmark. Never bril- 
liant at his best, he was so bewildered by 
the news of the repeated defections that he 
could do nothing but feebly lift his hands 
and, as each fresh report was brought in, 
exclaim in utter astonishment, '■^ Est-il pos- 
sible V (Is it possible.) And when he knew 
that even his wife had deserted her father 
he could only repeat his eternal exclama- 
tion in precisely the same tone. 

But the next day, having in the meantime 
no doubt received private instructions. 
Prince George himself absconded, where- 
upon the King exclaimed, with a slight 
smile lighting up for a moment his sad face, 
"What! est-il possible, gone, too.'"' 

And now James himself thought of ab- 
sconding, for it seemed the only chance left 
him. He had already summoned a meeting 
of the peers then in London, and they 
attended him at Whitehall on the 27th of 
November. The decision arrived at was to 
send commissioners to treat with the Prince 
of Orange, to proclaim a general amnesty, 
and issue writs for the summoning of a Parlia- 
ment which was to settle all matters in dis- 
pute. James's great army had only engaged 



in a few trifling skirmishes, the Earl of Bath 
had put Plymouth into the hands of his op- 
ponent, and every hour fresh adherents 
gathered round the Prince. The negotia- 
tions did not appear likely to proceed as 
James would desire, so on the loth of 
December he sent his queen and infant son 
privately down the river on the way to 
France ; and in the darkness of the wintry 
morning of the next day he stole out of 
Whitehall by a secret passage, and in a 
hackney coach, procured by Sir Edward 
Hales, proceeded to Millbank. Here he 
crossed the Thames in a small boat, and 
landed at Vauxhall, where a conveyance was 
in waiting to drive him to Sheerness. Be- 
fore leaving Whitehall he threw the writ 
summoning a Parliament into the fire, and 
sent an order to Faversham to disband the 
army. While crossing the Thames he threw 
the Great Seal into the water, whence it was 
afterwards dragged up by a fishing net. 
These things he did in the childish hope 
that they would complicate matters for 
his son-in-law. Arrived at Sheerness, he 
went at once on board a hoy, meaning to sail 
to France. But the wind was against him, 
and the vessel was boarded by fishermen 
who had recognized the King and Sir Edward 
Hales and carried them back to Sheerness, 
where he was kept a close prisoner. Re- 
leased by an order from the Lords, he 
returned to Whitehall and then to Rochester, 
whence he made a second attempt to escape, 
which succeeded. 

On that morning (the nth of December), 
when the news spread that the King had gone 
and that for the moment there was absolutely 
no government for England, great was the 
consternation. Fierce multitudes burnt Ro- 
man Catholic chapels and attacked the houses 
of Roman Catholic ambassadors. But at 
this terrible time Archbishop Sancroft came 
forward, and supported by several lords 
spiritual and temporal, drew up a declaration 
that the King, having fled and destroyed the 
writs, thereby stopping the hope that a 
proper parliamentary settlement could be 
arrived at, they were determined to join 
WiUiam of Orange, and until that prince's 
arrival they would preserve order. Thereupon 
the city trainbands were got under arms, 
the wrecking mobs were restrained, and hap- 
pily all loss of life was prevented. On this 
eventful day the hated Judge Jeffreys was 
discovered lurking in disguise in a low ale- 
house at Wapping. The fierce mob rushed 
upon him, and would have torn him limb 
from limb but that the soldiers saved him 
and conveyed him to the Tower by virtue of 
an order from the Lords. On the night of 
the 1 2th, London was convulsed with terror 
at the rumour that a number of rough Irish 
troops, brought over by James, were marching 



463 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



on the town bent on plunder and outrage. A 
satirical ballad named Lillibulero, written by 
Thomas Wharton some months before, in 
which two Irishmen congratulate each other 
on the approaching massacre of the Protes- 
tants, had been sung in every street for many 
weeks past,andthe passionsof the people were 
greatly inflamed against James's Irish troops. 
The alarm spread, the drums of the militia 
beat to arms, and everywhere husbands and 
fathers might be seen equipping themselves 
for the fight. But as the night wore away, 
and the late winter daybreak of the next 
morning dawned, it was discovered that the 
rumour was quite false; but that evening has 
ever since been known as the " Irish night," 
and the occurrence exhibits the state of panic 
into which the ungoverned people had fallen. 

William enters St. James's Palace ; 
Conclusion. 

Our story now draws to a close, for very 
shortly afterwards, on the i8th of December, 
William of Orange marched into London 
amidst the rejoicings of the multitude, and 
quietly took up his abode at St. James's 
Palace. In a few days he summoned a large 
assembly of the Estates of the Realm known 
as a Convention (which differed only from a 
parliament in that the writs summoning it 
were not issued by a king), which declared the 
throne vacant, and after great debate drew up 
and passed the famous Declaration of Rights, 
by which William and Mary were appointed 
King and Queen of England, the chief power 
resting with him. Failing any issue, the 
crown was to pass to Mary's sister, Anne, 
and the son of James II. and his posterity 
were to be shut out from it for ever. Halifax 



offered the crown, which William accepted 
for his wife and himself, promising faithfully 
to observe all the laws of the land, and con- 
firming the great principles of our constitu- 
tion, that no sovereign can make or unmake 
laws, levy taxes, or keep a standing army 
without the consent and co-operation of Par- 
liament. Further it was declared that not 
the meanest subject could be kept in prison 
without a fair trial, and that the judges, who 
before held their of6ce at the pleasure of the 
sovereign, were in future to hold their appoint- 
ments for life or "good conduct." Moreover, 
although the Reformed Church was to remain 
the established religion of the country. Dis- 
senters henceforth were to be released from 
persecution. And finally it settled for ever 
the vexed question of " divine right," by 
declaring that the sovereign simply reigns by 
the will of the people, and a right no more 
" divine " than, and in no respect different 
from, the right of the subject to vote for his 
representative in Parliament. 

Thus ended the great English Revolution — 
that conflict between king and people which 
had been waged with varying success through 
so many weary years, — a revolution which 
ended, not in the establishment of a wild 
democracy, nor in the maintenance of an 
absolute monarchy, but in the formation of 
a free self-government, in which all classes 
are represented, and exercise their due influ- 
ence, —a government which, containing within 
itself the power of reformation without revo- 
lution, is always willing to admit the claims 
of liberty and progress, without being un- 
mindful of the glorious traditions of a storied 
past. F. M. H. 




464 




Glencoe. 



A DARK DEED OF CRUELTY 

THE STORY OF THE MASSACRE OF GLENCOE. 

" Then woman's shriek was heard in vain. 
Nor infancy's unpitied plain 
More than the warrior's groan could gain 
Respite from ruthless butchery ! " 

Scott. 



BattleofKilliecrankie— The Chief of Glencoe— Fall of Dundee— King James's Gift of Brandy— Tarbat and Dalrymple— 
The Burnmg Questions of Scotland— Estimate of Highland Loyalty— Treachery of the Aboriijines- Letters of Fire 
and Sword— Projected Massacre by James VI.— Tarbat's Golden Bait— The Earl of Breadalbane— A Pious Colonel- 
Loses his Patience— Castle of Achallader— A strange Armistice— Glenooe's Quarrel— Brutalities of his Clan- 
Friends of Rob Roy— Dalrymple's Objects in "rooting out" the Thieves— The Royal Indemnity— Dalrymple's 
"Mauling Scheme "—Maclan of Glencoe takes the Oath— Military Preparations— Dalrymple's Letters— The 
Campbells in Glencoe— Merry-makings in the Glen— Orders of the Officers— Maclan slain— Details' of the Massacre 



Threading KiLLiECRANKiE in 1689; 
Glencoe and other Giants. 

ITH fear and trembling General Mac- 
kay made a desperate plunge with 
his four thousand soldiers and 
twelve hundred baggage horses into the 
"infernal defile," as he termed it,— the 
grim and gloomy gorge two miles long, 
now known far and wide over the world 
as the Pass of Killiecrankie, and spoken of 



465 



with calm admiration by gentle tourists as 
highly romantic and picturesque. Although 
it was the hour of noon, scarcely a glint of 
the summer sun could find its way into the 
depths of the mysterious Perthshire defile. 
The " motley rabble of Saxons and Dutch," 
as they crept slowly along the narrow and 
perilous track where a single false step was 
death, imagined that their savage and 
stealthy foes might be concealed in hundreds 

IH 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



behind the gigantic piles of overhanging 
rock, and that those invisible birds of prey 
might at any moment pounce upon their 
baggage or dash them down with one fell 
swoop into the raging torrent of the Garry. 
This dreaded "pass of the withered brush- 
wood " — the same which the Hessian troops 
refused to enter during the Jacobite rebellion 
of 1 746 — having been safely threaded by the 
timid forces, their cautious commander ex- 
tended them in a thin line, only three deep, 
on the rough vale above the flooded river. 

Mackay was unfortunately unequal to the 
occasion. He had been forced into this 
position by the sudden appearance in the 
afternoon, upon the heights above his army, 
of the plaided giants of the Grampians 
under the gallant Graham of Claverhouse. 
It was a splendid host, with heroes that 
might well have graced the field of Troy, 
which had been gathered by the fiery cross 
from the miserable huts and proud castles of 
the Scottish highlands to do battle for the 
unworthy cause of the last of the Stuart 
kings. In the array of blooming tartan and 
blazing brass might be seen the majestic 
figure of Sir Ewan Cameron of Lochiel, the 
Cetewayo of King James's Court, mounted on 
a bright bay horse, and with a blood-red 
plume waving from the crest of his helmet ; 
the rude and dauntless young Glengarry, the 
fierce Keppoch, the handsome boy of Duart, 
the Macdonald chiefs of Clanranald and 
Sleat, both of whom were also of tender years, 
and as yet in the bud of martial fame ; and 
at the head of his small contingent, for his 
poor and ferocious sept was feeble as regards 
number, the venerable chieftain of Glencoe, 
whose appearance is thus described in a 
Latin poem of the period : — 

" Next, with a daring look and warlike stride, 
Glencoe advanced ; his rattling armour shone 
With dreadful glare ; his large, broad, brawny back 
A thick bull's-hide, impenetrably hard, 
Instead of clothes, invest ; and though along 
Twice fifty of gigantic hmbs and size 
The warrior led, fierce, horrid, wild, and strong, 
Yet his vast bulk did like a turret rise 
By head and shoulders o'er the surly crew. 
Round, in his left, his mighty shield he twirled. 
And in his right his broadsword brandished high, 
And flashed like lightning with affrighting gleams. 
His visage boisterous, horribly was graced 
With stiff mustachios like two bending horns, 
And turbid fiery eyes, as rneteors red, 
Which fury and revenge did threaten round." 

The Rush of the Avalanche; Death 
OF Dundee. 
Claverhouse saw at once that his antago- 
nist was in a trap, as safe within the grasp 
of his dashing Highlanders as a feeble deer 
in the coils of the boa constrictor, that one 
fierce and swift rush from the heights upon 
the thin line below would cut it through 
into disorganised groups, and leave it at the 



466 



mercy of the irresistible broadswords. While 
Mackay did his best to comfort his timid 
soldiers with the information that the savage 
mountaineers were accustomed to cast off 
their brogues and plaids and fight in a semi- 
nude state, not because of excessive bravery 
and eagerness for battle, but in order that 
they might be able to take more quickly to 
their heels in case of defeat, Dundee, on the 
other hand, had difficulty in holding back 
his impatient host from the onset. Although 
he had begun to draw out his line on the 
crest of the hill at five in the afternoon, he 
continued till close on sunset to gaze with 
his eagle eye on the doomed and mesmerized 
chickens — "boddachs'' his men called them 
— underneath ; the plated armour of the hero 
glistened in the sunbeams as he rode along' 
on his favourite dun-coloured charger, calling 
out to his tartaned host, " Steady, Claymores I 
we must wait till the sun is lower ; they can't 
run away." The Lowlanders attempted to 
strike terror into their foes by discharging 
three small leather field-pieces, known as 
" Sandy's stoups," but without the least effect 
except smoke and noise, not a single ball 
alighting among the bonnets of Bonnie 
Dundee. It was within half an hour of sun- 
set — the light had crept out of the valleys, 
and was only beating on the lofty peaks of 
Benvracky and the mighty Benygloe ; there 
was just time left for making a complete 
holocaust of the boddachs, when the leader 
of the highland host exclaimed, "In God's 
name, let us go on, and let this be your word, 
King James and the Church of Scotland, 
which God long preserve !" There was a 
terrible pause, like that which precedes a 
thunderstorm ; then from the dead silence 
the furious avalanche of shoeless and stock- 
ingless redshanks swept down the hill with 
their bodies bent forward; rushed across 
the short space of level ground towards the 
embattled line, shielding their faces with their 
targes, but halting not for a moment as the 
bullets whizzed among them on front and 
flank from the wider line of Teutons ; stopped 
for an instant, fired one deadly volley that 
echoed up the mountains like a clap of 
thunder, and then throwing away their guns, 
dashed pell-mell on the foe with their clay- 
mores. "After this the noise seemed hushed," 
say " Lochiel's Memoirs," "and the fire ceasing 
on both sides, nothing was heard for some 
few moments but the sullen and hollow 
clashes of broadswords, with the dismal 
groans and cries of dying and wounded 
men." The rout was complete and instan- 
taneous ; Mackay turned his head and found 
himself alone ; struck with surprise, knowing 
that the day was hopelessly lost, and fearing 
the pursuit of Dundee and his hawk-eyed 
legions, he rode off with the remnant tithe 
of his army across the flooded Garry, con- 



A DARK DEED OF CRUELTY. 



tinuing his flight during the night-time ; and 
late in the next day — Sunday — arrived at 
Drummond Castle as the hero of one of the 
most pitiable tales of blunder and discomfi- 
ture recorded in the annals of his country. 

" It was a famous victory ." At least fifteen 
hundred of Mackay's men were butchered. 
The men of Athole, who had been marched 
out to join them, and instead had drunk the 
health of King James in their tartan bonnets, 
brought in five hundred prisoners who had 
been caught like conies in the Pass of Killie- 
crankie. Highlanders used to roll the narra- 
tive of the ghastly revel as a sweet morsel 
under their tongue : " There were scarce 
ever such strokes given in Europe as were 
given that day." Officers and soldiers were 
cut down through the head and neck to the 
very breast ; skulls were shaven off above 
the ears by a backstroke as if they were 
nightcaps ; the single blow of a claymore 
cleft through shoulder and cross-belt to the 
entrails ; skull-caps were beaten into the 
brains of their wearers ; pikes and small 
swords were cut through as if they were con- 
temptible willow wands. Glengarry mowed 
dovra two men at every stroke of his pon- 
derous claymore. 

But to what purpose all this carnage and 
the magnificent piles of baggage on the 
haughs above the Garry that came into the 
hands of the looting redshanks ? With that 
nightfall there fell the last hope and the most 
heroic spirit of the old cause. There perished 
in the rebel ranks not only Donald of the 
Blue Eyes — the valiant boy of Glengarry — 
the huge Haliburton, who stalked about like 
a moving castle, throwing fire and sword on 
every side, but greatest of all, James Graham, 
" Bonnie Dundee," the man with a woman's 
face and a hero's heart ; his body was found 
upon the field, and buried in the church of 
Blair Athole. " He could not fall," said the 
elegy, " but by his country's fate." His faith- 
ful friend, the Earl of Balcarres, on the Sunday 
morning after the battle, while in prison in 
Edinburgh, saw the ghost of the handsome 
Graham move across the room in stately and 
melancholy silence ; and when King William 
was urged to despatch a strong force to 
retrieve the disaster of the " infernal defile," 
that shrewd Dutchman remarked that "it 
was needless ; the war ended with Dundee's 
life." 

DUNKELD AND CROMDALE ; KiNG JaMES'S 

Tenderness and Brandy. 
The Highlanders were indeed still ready to 
flock blindly around the standards of their 
chiefs, but there was now no supreme spirit 
to launch them at full tide on the soldiers of 
the plains ; there was no name to charm 
more, only an Irish Cannon or an unknown 
Buchan in place of the gallant Graham. The 



fiendish rush of the horde broke and was 
shivered at Dunkeld on the steady pikes of 
the grim and pious Cameronians, and their 
host was finally surprised by night on the 
haughs of Cromdale, when the leaders were 
fain to escape in the scantiest attire into the 
mists of the mountains. 

" The English horse they were so rude, 
They bathed their hoofs in Highland blood." 

The battle of the Boyne, in July 1690, to use 
the words of the Memoirs written by the hand 
of James II., marked " the melancholy extinc- 
tion of the King's hopes and authority." The 
martial fury of the Celts among the picturesque 
hills of Scotland and the green meadows of 
Erin could not win back the throne for the 
feeble Popish despot ; the avalanche of 1689 
had lost its soul, its cohesion, and its force ; 
it was broken up into heartless masses on 
the scattered braes and glens : Buchan was 
content to skulk in the remoter wilds of the 
western Highlands, until the dethroned mon- 
arch could assure his faithful Scots whether 
there was any hope of soon seeing the friendly 
lilies of France floating on the Grampians. "The 
King " and his " subjects " were equally in a 
bad plight. A cordon often thousand soldiers 
hemmed them in from trading with and plun- 
dering the lowland valleys ; the neglect of 
their cattle and of the little tillage that had 
supplied meal for their brose brought them 
to the verge of famine and to the necessity of 
assistance or surrender. The purse of the 
royal exile was also in a state of ebb. In the 
exhaustion of his resources during the last 
determined stand in Ireland he had " made 
a shift " to despatch a ship from Nantes to 
the relief of the destitute and desponding 
patriots, laden with flour, salt, flints, tobacco, 
drugs, and, above all things, larandy — for the 
bibulous proclivities of the Scottish Gael were 
as ravenous as the tastes of Red Indians 
and unconverted negroes, and had been bit- 
terly assailed by Acts of Parliament. More 
he was unable to promise after the wreck of 
the Jacobins (Jacobites we call them now) in 
Ireland. His Majesty was "too tender of 
their lives" to expose them to a desperate 
course ; a trifle of ;^200 was sent across to 
the suffering Episcopal clergy by the Popish 
exile " as a mark of his impartial love and 
charity ; " they might fight if they wished, but 
it would be wiser to make peace with Nero 
and wait for better times, when they might 
shake off the fetters of the unnatural son-in- 
law who had torn the crown from his sacred 
brow. 

Tarbat and Stair ; The Kirk and 
Highlanders. 

At this momentous crisis Scotland had the 
fortune to possess a host of clever politicians, 
who, if they brought around the Court of 



467 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Orange the dangerous and despicable ele- 
ments of duplicity, greed, and ambition, were 
also able to contribute to the settlement of 
the seething elements the better endowments 
of perception, tact, energy, and determination. 
William had the wisdom, or the luck that 
goes for wisdom, to select the men for the 
hour, men it might not be of lofty and un- 
swerving principle, but who, when a certain 
goal was placed before them, would make for 
it with implicit obedience, and were able by 
splendid skill, unscrupulous craft, and unbend- 
ing determination, to grasp the means and 
place the prize in the hands of their master. 
Scotland had two burning questions, either 
with a blood-stained history : the one was the 
Kirk, the other was the Highlanders. The 
Dutch prince, ignorant of these two grave 
and tragic State questions, would not be able 
without the greatest care to hold the crown 
of Scotland on his head, and would probably 
endanger his seat upon the throne of England. 
The two statesmen to whom, perhaps, the 
highest niche of honour is due for consolidat- 
ing the Revolution in Scotland, and working 
out her union to England, were the plastic 
Sir George McKenzie, Viscount Tarbat, after- 
wards first Earl of Cromartie, and more pre- 
eminently still. Sir John Dalrymple, afterwards 
first Earl of Stair. He was the changeling 
son of a reputed " witch " and a pious judge, 
who, too, had been nicknamed a changeling, 
and was the author of a renowned legal 
treatise and a less renowned one on the 
Divine Attributes. So utterly, however, has 
the name of Stair been blasted by his con- 
nexion with one side incident of the Revolu- 
tion, known as the Massacre of Glencoe, that 
he has not even been allotted the dignity of 
a separate mention in the most extended 
dictionaries of Scottish biography. So true 
is Shakespeare's dictum — 

"The evil that men do lives after them, 
The good is oft interred with their bones." 

He was the guide of his sovereign and the 
genial soul of the social circle ; yet, in spite 
of his wit, his imagination, his ready elo- 
quence, against which no Scotsman of his 
day could safely take up the cudgels, and his 
vast success as a statesman, his name is to 
most men now but the suggestion of an 
" infamous " massacre. But, after all, he 
was but one of many — the King and others 
were his fellows ; he was only the ablest repre- 
sentative of old Scotland in the tyrannical 
oppression of a shameless tyranny that, 
to use a homely expression, deserved all it 
got. Clans, be it remembered, exist not now ; 
in those days they were terrible living forces, 
lawless and dangerous associations, not mere 
memorial manes existing only to cherish 
"peaceful pageantry, social enjoyment, and 
family traditions. " 



468 



Estimate of Highland " Loyalty;" 
Treachery of the Aborigines. 

The Highlander was a grievance of the 
worst type to all peacefully disposed Scots- 
men. The clans and septs v/ere as little 
dependent on the Crown as are the Kroumirs 
or Beni Hassan of our day on the Bey of 
Tunis or the Sultan of Morocco. Their 
feuds form a ghastly and appalling tale 
of treachery and bloodshed. The records of 
the Scottish Privy Council during the six- 
teenth and seventeenth centuries are exceed- 
ingly sensational ; the pages bristle with the 
barbarous achievements of the aborigines of 
the isles and highlands. "The inhabitants of 
the Lowlands," says Sir Walter Scott, " were 
indeed aware that there existed in the 
extremity of the island, amid wilder moun- 
tains and broader lakes than their own, 
tribes of men called clans, living each under 
the rule of their own chief, wearing a peculiar 
dress, speaking an unknown language, and 
going armed even in the most ordinary and 
peaceful vocations. The more southern 
counties saw specimens of these men follow- 
ing droves of cattle, which were the sole ex- 
portable commodity of their country, plaided, 
bonneted, belted, and brogued, and driving 
their bullocks, as Virgil is said to have spread 
his manure, with an air of great dignity and 
consequence. To their nearer Lowland neigh- 
bours they were known by more fierce and 
frequent causes of acquaintance ; by the 
forays which they made upon the inhabi- 
tants of the plains, and the tribute, or pro- 
tection-money, which they exacted from 
those whose possessions they spared." 

That is really a gentle and generous picture 
of the Gael. No ordinary adjective can ex- 
press the intense and deserved hatred and 
detestation of them which existed in the 
Lowlands till quite recent times. It is almost 
provoking to a true student to hear a word 
spoken in favour of the Highland Jacobins. 
We admire the staunchness of their loyalty, 
yet it is contemptible from a statesman's 
point of view. It was simply a wider feeling 
of clanship, — a graft on the reverence for a 
chief; only the larger growth of a blind 
barbaric serfdom. They had only for two or 
three decades made the slightest show of 
submission to law when Montrose led them 
out — like the Red Indians in the American 
war a hundred years later — to interfere 
in the constitutional government of Britain 
by true and serious patriots, who and 
whose ancestors had thought and toiled and 
bled for many centuries in the best interests 
of the country ; these Stuart kings, and their 
Claverhouse, had dared to flourish the savage 
plumes of the armed " Highland host " — 
ignorant of all that was national, theological, 
or urbane — for the persecution of the pious 



A DARK DEED OF CRUELTY. 



"hillmen" of southern Scotland; besides, 
the dans were fascinated by plunder, and 
had no particular horror of assassination. 
To decide how to deal with these abori- 
gines m a grave crisis like the Revolution 
of 1688, we must cast aside to-day's senti- 
mental ethics and place ourselves in the 
arena of the time. How were statesmen to 
deal with the bull that rushed from the 
mountains upon the civilization of Britain ? 

No one of the clans could well cast a stone 
at another. Cruelty and treachery, rapacity 
and rebellion, embellish the annals of them 
all. The struggle for the subjection and im- 
provement of the Highlands and the Isles had 
been carried on for centuries, and the policy 
had been to dash the hostile tribes against 
each other, or, to use the old Scotch phrase, 
" set one devil to ding another." King 
James IV. had struck the first effective 
blow by breaking up the lordship of the 
Isles, and by crushing and forfeiting the 
Macdonalds — such as the sept of Glencoe — 
who attempted to revive it. It is unfair to 
single out any clan for specimens of treachery, 
but we may refer to one conspicuous ex- 
ample of that period. Maclean of Duart, 
after taking a leading part in the rebellion 
of 15 13 to place young Donald of Lochalsh 
on the throne of the Isles, offered his service 
to the Government, and promised to act with 
double zeal in destroying " the wicked blood 
of the Isles ; for as long as that blood reigns, 
the kings shall never have the Isles in peace, 
whenever they find an opportunity to break 
loose, as is evident from daily experience." 
A later instance of the savage treachery of a 
Maclean chief is found in a massacre of 1 588. 
On the very night on which Maclan of 
Ardnamurchan (the head of a powerful 
Macdonald sept that was crushed by Argyll 
in 1624, took to piracy, and finally sank 
among the clan Ranald) was married under 
Maclean's own roof to that chieftain's mother, 
the infainous host caused a number of the 
Maclans to be slain ; he marched at dead 
of night into the bridal chamber, and but 
for the eager entreaty of the newly married 
wife would have sacrificed her husband, who 
was then mercifully doomed by his step-son 
to the tortures of a dungeon. 

Letters of Fire and Sword ; Projected 
Massacre by James VI. 

The ordinary process of law was in most 
cases unavailing for the capture of criminals. 
The chiefs of hostile clans were accustomed 
to obtain " letters of fire and sword" from 
the Privy Council, such as the commission 
given to the laird of Mackintosh in 1688 
against Coll of the Cows, the chief of the 
Macdonalds of Keppoch, one of Dundee's 
most vigorous supporters and among the 
fiercest warriors that ever trode the hills of 



Scotland. The order to burn houses and 
corn, and to destroy man, woman, and child, 
was carried out with ruthless severity, and 
the rebel chief was driven among the moun- 
tains. Such tragedies were lamentably 
common. 

Not till the reign of James VI. were any 
serious steps taken by Parliament to bring 
the lawless Highlands more directly under 
the control of the Government. Chiefs and 
landlords were commanded to find sureties 
for the peaceful behaviour of their vassals ; 
the King, in 1596, summoned all the nobles, 
freeholders of a certain rental, and burgesses 
of the realm, under pain of death and for- 
feiture, to assemble with ships and arms at 
Dumbarton in order to proceed against the 
rebels of the West ; all the inhabitants of the 
Isles and Highlands were in the following 
year ordered to "come compear" at Edin- 
burgh and show their title-deeds; the royal 
mandate charged them with frustrating 
His Majesty of his rents and service, with 
"barbarous inhumanity," which caused the 
fertile ground and rich fishings to be worth- 
less, and with "neither entertaining any civil 
or honest society amongst themselves, neither 
yet admitted others ... to traffic within their 
bounds with safety of their lives and goods." 
In 1607 the Scottish Solomon determined on 
a measure of the most dreadful character, 
and empowered Lord Huntly " to extirpate 
the barbarous people of the Isles isjithin a 
year." The moral capacity of the Gordon 
chief for executing this gigantic feat of exter- 
mination had been shown by his vigorous 
execution of former letters of fire and sword 
against the Mackintosh, when he threatened 
even the wife of the chieftain, and uttered 
the rudely humorous menace that he would 
"cut her tail above her houghs." Had not 
an accident befallen Huntly and destroyed 
the compact, the result would have far eclipsed 
the horrors of the Glencoe massacre. Fortu- 
nately for the memory of James, this project 
was superseded by the sweeping but milder 
Statutes of Icolmkill (1609) and other agree- 
ments, by which the northern chiefs were 
called upon to deliver up their strongholds 
and their war galleys ; to submit themselves 
to the jurisdiction of the laws ; to remedy 
the "ignorance and incivility" of the High- 
lands, all gentlemen owning sixty cattle were 
to send their youth to the Lowlands to learn 
to read, speak, and write English, as became 
the children of barons and gentlemen ; the 
household of the chiefs was to be diminished, 
and the hosts of sorners — masterless vaga- 
bonds who lived at free quarters on the poor 
natives — were to be punished as thieves and 
oppressors ; the bards were threatened with 
the stocks and banishment ; the inhabitants 
were not to import for sale any wine or 
brandy, the inordinate love of which was one 



469 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



of the main causes of their poverty and their 
inhuman barbarity ; handfasting (marrying 
for a term of years) was declared illegal ; 
none but the chiefs were to wear armour ; 
the land was to be let to tenants at fixed 
rents ; and the " beastly and barbarous in- 
humanities" were to be assuaged by a more 
solemn observance of the Sabbath, and by 
the devoted services of an increased supply 
of orthodox Presbyterian pastors. 

Tarbat's Golden Bait for settling 

THE Highlands. 
One of the charges levelled against the 
dethroned Stuart by the Scottish Convention, 
when they sent up Sir John Dalrymple and 
two other deputies to London with an offer 
of the crown to William, was that he had 
not taken " an effectual course to repress the 
depredations and robberies by the Highland 
clans." The astute Viscount Tarbat, who 
knew that the haughtiest bosom beyond the 
Grampians was not unimpressionable to the 
argument of a bribe, accepted a commission 
from the King, in which he was authorized, 
"for encouraging the Highlanders to return 
to their duty, ... to offer such honour under 
that of Earl, and such sums of money not 
exceeding ^2000 sterling, to any one chief 
and tribe." The Viscount, however, was 
personally without sufficient immediate in- 
fluence, but he attempted to secure a power- 
ful, insinuating, and unscrupulous agent in 
the person of the Earl of Breadalbane, one 
of the greatest Highland princes, whose vast 
estates stretched far into the wildest districts 
of the north, and were fringed by the glens 
and mountains of several of the disaffected 
chiefs. However broad his acres and nume- 
rous his vassals — of whom he could bring at 
least fifteen hundred into the field — very little 
gold ever found its way into the pockets of 
the semi-civilized prince. Tarbat shrewdly 
suspected that the offer of ^5000 to him for 
the conclusion of a " cessation of arms" would 
be eagerly grasped at. The fair-complexioned 
chief was not likely to have any nice scruples 
on this or any other business, for with all the 
grave and lofty bearing of a Spanish grandee, 
he was " as cunning as a fox, as wise as a 
serpent, and as slippery as an eel," although 
perhaps in some of these qualities he scarcely 
surpassed several other Scottish peers, such 
as Argyll, Hamilton, and Athole. Unfortu- 
nately the " encouragement" was rejected by 
Campbell, greedy and cunning as he was, 
for at that moment Balcarres, Linlithgow, 
and other Jacobites were intriguing with the 
extreme Presbyterian party for the overthrow 
of the new Government ; he was in the thick 
of the plot, and, by the advice of his Jacobite 
comrades, he refused, no doubt with great 
sorrow, the golden bait of Tarbat. The 
scheme, however, does not appear to have 



been long lost sight of by the sinuous Bread- 
albane or the clever politicians who were 
deftly rounding off the corners of the Scottish 
edifice ; after deliberating on the merits of 
other possible agents, like the Earl of Men- 
teith, they decided on the superiority of their 
first love, and pocketing the previous affront, 
they chartered Breadalbane again, in th e 
autumn of 1690, to bring the dangerous High- 
land cargo into the haven of submission. 

Christmas Letter. of a pious Colonel; 
Change of Tone : The Scheme of 
Extermination. 

The Fort of Inverlochy, or Fort William, 
lay at the base of the giant mountain of 
Ben Nevis, in the centre of the nest where 
all the Highland schemes of rebeUion were 
hatched. Sitting there on Christmas Day 
in 1690, its pious and gentle governor, 
Colonel Hill, wrote with evident satisfaction 
of the brighter prospects that had begun 
to dawn ; that the brave Lochiel and the 
ferocious Keppoch had submitted to " the 
associate gentlemen" a proposal of sur- 
render ; that some of the chieftains had ex- 
acted an oath from their people against 
stealing or receiving stolen goods ; and that 
Sir Ewan had given earnest of his honesty 
and zeal by actually hanging a man for 
robbery. Sir John Dalrymple, who had just 
been appointed Secretary of State, and had 
accompanied his royal master to the seat of 
war on the Continent, wrote home in February 
1 69 1, in his peculiarly vigorous and terse 
style, his opinion that there was no chance 
that year of a Jacobite invasion ; he hinted 
that the expectation of French troops by 
them was " a mere delusion with vain 
dreams," and to entertain it was to " aban- 
don the common sentiments of mankind to 
make their native country a cockpit." But 
the fall of Mons in the early spring before 
the arms of the great French general, 
Luxemburg, regarded as a most serious 
disaster by King William, was quickly fol- 
lowed by rumours of an invasion, which 
spread freely through Edinburgh, and awoke 
in the glens of the north the old expectation 
of the triumphant lilies of King Louis. 

Sir Thomas Livingston, commander-in- 
chief of the Scottish forces, the Lords of the 
Treasury, the pious colonel who occupied 
Fort William in the very hotbed of the High- 
land rebels, were thrown into a state of 
fierce excitement, growled at each other, and 
bandied about accusations as to the wretched 
condition of the army. Livingston was posi- 
tive that the north would go to the dogs 
with such a weak and gentle governor as 
Hill at Inverlochy ; he was eager to exone- 
rate himself from the blame of the catastrophe 
that all supposed impending : it was im- 
possible, he said, to concentrate the troops. 
470 



( 



A DARK DEED OF CRUELTY 



The Lords were without funds ; they had 
'only 1800 bolls of meal in store, and they 
Tvere in urgent need of 1000 fresh firelocks, 
300 brace of pistols, and 300 barrels of 
powder. Hill's Christmas hopes and senti- 
ments had altogether disappeared by May- 
day. He breathed out threatening and 
slaughter. Havelock was changed to Crom- 
well. The gentle soldier who was proud to 
speak of his men as sober and God-fearing 
was roused to a thirst for vengeance when 
■Tie saw his Highland hopefuls retreat in dis- 
gusting haste to their old path and look for 
.aid from Irish rapparees and French troops ; 
he had no expectation now of the surrender 
of the great castle of Duart on the Isle of 
Mull, a fortress of many tragically savage 
memories. Glengarry, too, had begun to 
fortify his house of Invergarry. The man 
of peace was driven to desperation. If they 
rose again, he wished that " all the west 
■country and all the clans whom they have 
injured may be let loose upon them till they 
be utterly rooted out." He had abandoned 
his former Christian suggestion of pensioning 
the chiefs during good conduct for the old 
Scottish method of a massacre. But he 
scarcely meant this tall talk in earnest. The 
Privy Council sent him orders to "fall upon 
those Highlanders within his reach" who did 
not forthwith give up their arms and take the 
oath ; he was also to destroy their cows, in 
other words, reduce the natives to a state of 
total destitution. This command made him 
somewhat nervous. He replied that with all 
his eagerness to press forward those methods 
for His Majesty's service " which wiser men 
than I judge convenient," he was not able 
to work miracles and subdue the entire High- 
lands with his handful of soldiers. He 
pointed out that the surrender of arms would 
prove a mockery, as in Mull and Athole, 
where the men had only parted with "some 
old rusty trash;" the men of the glens and 
mountains could not be expected — any more 
than the Basutos of our day — to surrender 
the sword and gun, which were their most 
precious heirlooms, and thus place themselves 
at the mercy of other savages, their hereditary 
foes. 

Breadalbane, provided by Queen Anne with 
the promise of money for bribes, was busy 
with his strange and secret diplomacy in the 
early summer. Hill was recovering once 
more his hopeful attitude, although he had 
his eyes opened to the shameless treachery 
of the Highlander. On all sides he saw that 
the common people, in spite of the report 
that six thousand Frenchmen were coming, 
longed for peace ; in Skye, and on the braes 
of Lochaber, the Macdonalds would welcome 
it ; so would the Cameron men ; Glencoe 
and Appin desired their vassals to take the 
oath from their superior, Maccallum More. 



A number, too, of the chiefs and "gentle- 
men " were willing to submit ; the pride of 
the separate clans was the main obstacle. 
The great Sir Ewan had announced that he 
would not stir to rise in arms, and that the 
gentlemen and people of his name might act 
at their own pleasure ; as for himself, " he 
stood upon a point of honour with his con- 
federates that they should not accuse him as 
the first to break the ice." The news was 
altogether too exhilarating for Hill, too good 
to be true. " I trust in the Lord," he said, 
when he heard that some of the chiefs had 
hastened from their homes to meet the French 
frigates on the coast. 

Castle of Achai,lader ; Glencoe ac- 
cused ; Barbarities of his Sept ; 
Rob Roy's Brother-in-law. 

His ancient castle of Achallader in Glen- 
orchy, now a heap of ruins, was the spot 
chosen by Breadalbane for the delicate and 
mysterious meetings with the rebel chiefs. 
The old fortalice is now in ruins. It stands 
amid the wild and bleak moorlands of Argyll, 
on the Perthshire border, at the north-east 
end of Loch ToUa, near the tremendous soli- 
tude of the Rannoch, and a few miles from 
the desolate region of the Macdonalds of 
Glencoe. It was not a day's walk from Ben 
Nevis, to the west and east of which dwelt 
the Camerons of Lochiel and the Keppoch 
Macdonalds in the Braes of Lochaber. By 
the wayside the tourist passing into Glencoe 
or across the Devil's Staircase towards Fort 
William sees groups of stately deer wander- 
ing through the vast preserve of Corichbad, 
the property of the modern Breadalbane. 

On the 30th of June, 1691, the final con- 
ference was held in the ancient fortalice. The 
harmony of the day was not remarkable : such 
a gathering could at no time be so ; and the 
two sons of old Sandy Macdonald of Glencoe 
heard in the " town " of Achallader that the 
great Perthshire chief had sought a quarrel 
with their father about some cows the Glen- 
coe men were alleged to have stolen from the 
vassals of Breadalbane. The accusation was 
probably a just one. This sept of Macdonalds, 
living in a desolate and dreary glen, could 
not subsist except by " creachs," or predatory 
forays, on their neighbours ; the naked and 
precipitous mountains which shot up from 
either side of the roaring Cona could support 
but a small sprinkling even of wild animals, 
such as red deer, hares, foxes, eagles, ptar- 
migan, and a chance moorcock. They had 
long been the thievish and ferocious allies of 
the broken clan of Macgregor, the most 
" wicked and lawless limmers " that ever 
robbed and murdered in the glens and valleys 
of stern Caledonia. A hundred years had 
rolled by since the Macdonalds had perpe- 
trated a terrible outrage on Drummond of 



471 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Drummondernoch. Some of the young mem- 
bers of the clan, wandering from the wild and 
poor recesses of their own mountains, were 
captured by the royal foresters in the act of 
carrying off deer in the forest of Glenartney, and 
were sent home with their ears cropped. The 
Macdonalds vowed vengeance, slew Drum- 
mond, the chief author of the inhuman act, 
and having cut off his head, proceeded with 
confidence to the house of his married sister 
at Ardvoirlich (the " Darlinvaroch " of the 
" Legend of Montrose ") on the southern shore 
of Loch Earn. It was with no small fear that 
the lady received these formidable strangers, 
whose visits on former occasions had been in 
the unwelcome trade of freebooting ; but in 
the absence of her husband she was obliged 
to make some show of Highland hospitality, 
and placed some bread and cheese before her 
guests. On her leaving the room the savage 
ruffians brought forth her brother's bloody 
head, and placing it on the table, put a piece 
of bread and cheese in its mouth. When she 
returned and saw the ghastly spectacle, the 
poor woman rushed from the house in a state 
of the wildest distraction, and wandered in 
that harvest season over the hills and glens a 
wretched maniac, living on the wild berries 
that grew in the loneHest spots. Her discon- 
solate husband sought fruitlessly for her 
among the woods and mountains. A famished 
female figure was at last seen by some milk- 
maids lurking among the brushwood on the 
higher pastures of Ardvoirlich ; they flew to 
their master with the news that they had wit- 
nessed the apparition of his lady's ghost : and 
the husband, who guessed the truth, succeeded 
in capturing her. The Macdonalds, after 
their barbarous procedure, carried the head to 
their associates at Balquhidder ; and the 
chief of the Clan Gregor, with the whole sur- 
name, " purposely conveined," says the decree 
of fire and sword issued against the enactors 
and abettors of this abominable tragedy, 
" upon the next Sunday thereafter, at the 
Kirk of Buchquhidder ; where they caused 
the said umquhill [whilom] John's head to be 
presented to them, and there avowing the 
said murder, laid their hands upon the pow 
[poll], and in ethnic and barbarous manner 
swore to defend the authors of the said mur- 
der." A century had passed, and the Glencoe 
men were still the allies of the Macgregors. 
Sandy Macdonald, the second son of the old 
chieftain who wore the ferocious horn-like 
moustachios, was married to Sarah Macgregor, 
a sister of Rob Roy, and assisted his father- 
in-law in thievish depredations as far south 
as the vicinity of the banks of the Clyde. 

Old Macdonald did not return to his native 
glen from the conference at Achallader in a 
contented state of mind ; he talked to his sons 
and others of a threat of mischief which 
Breadalbane had uttered, and the menace of 



so powerful a chief against his little sept 
caused him to be alarmed. He was heard to 
speak of there having been " blood " in former 
times betwixt Breadalbane's family and the 
clan. That was true, doubtless, but too much 
has been made of the statement, for the whole 
race of Campbell and the whole race of 
Donald were hereditary foes. It is true, also, 
that Breadalbane, although he had become 
an earl and, moving about among refined 
society, had been slightly veneered by the 
habits of civilized life, still clung at heart to 
the old crafty and revengeful Highland in- 
stincts ; and while he sought to conceal the 
fact, he was as ready as his " ethnic " neigh- 
bours to despatch his vassals on a creagh, 
and take his lion's share of the plunder. 

The Armistice ; Dalrymple's Object. 
The conference at Achallader on the 30th 
of June, 1 69 1, closed with a "cessation of 
arrrs"for three months. Its secret articles 
show the audacity and obstinacy of the High- 
land chiefs : they are defiant even to insult. 
The rebels required permission to ask a warrant 
for their surrender from the Stuart Court at 
St. Germains ; ^12,000 "to refund them of 
the great expenses and losses they had sus- 
tained by the war," otherwise they could not 
prevent their impoverished people from com- 
mitting depredations on their Lowland neigh- 
bours ; the purchase by the King of the 
superiorities claimed over their lands in any 
way by landlords like Argyll and Mackintosh 
•^the most degrading of all circumstances in 
the eyes of a haughty chief ; and among the 
other strange articles, the startling condition 
that Breadalbane, "manager" for the Go- 
vernment, should give his oath and honour 
to bring a thousand men to the side of the 
chiefs if William and Mary did not accept 
the terms offered ! 

Dalrymple, the Scottish Secretary, was 
determined on taking advantage of the 
armistice. " Their doing," he said shrewdly, 
" after King James's allowance is worse than 
their obstinacy, for those who lay down their 
arms at his command will take them up at 
his warrant." A mysterious, and perhaps 
suspicious, game of King and Queen was car- 
ried on at this juncture. Dalrymple ordered 
the commander-in-chief to keep his force of 
ten thousand men close on the Highland 
border and be on the alert for further orders. 
The Queen instantly countermanded its pro- 
gress. Stewart of Appin, young Sandy 
Macdonald (Rob Roy's brother-in-law), and 
others, violating the armistice by seizing some 
of the King's soldiers, were caught napping, 
and conveyed by sea to the Tolbooth of 
Glasgow : they were immediately set at 
liberty by the Queen's order. 

Dalrymple's mind was made up as to 
carrying out the scheme of extermination ; 



47: 



A DARK DEED OF CRUELTY. 



not that he was inspired by the fiendish lust 
of blood which had animated the " Spanish 
bloodhounds/' Alva and Vargas, in their 
massacres in the Netherlands where he now 
lived : he is not to be likened to a King 
Theebaw or an Ashanti despot. He had 
two objects in view : to create abroad the 
impression that all parties had accepted 
William as their sovereign, and for this pui- 
pose it was 
necessary that 
the Highland- 
ers should 
take the oath 
of allegiance ; 
to draw off 
certain troops 
from Scotland 
in order to as- 
sist in the Con- 
tinental cam- 
paign — and 
for this pur- 
pos e it was 
necessary that 
the more im- 
portant of the 
Highland 

strongholds 

should be 

surrendered 

and garrison- 
ed by loyal 

troops, so as 

to hold the 

rebels in awe, 

and that the 

mock submis 

sion should be 

made a real 

one, by stamp- 
ing it on the 

treacherous 

memories of 

the aborigines 

by the simple 

method of 

slaughtering 

every clan and 

every man 

that refused to 

take the oath. 

His plan, and 

the plan of his 

coadjutors, 




Pass of Killiecrankie 



was to obtain a real submission ; but it was 
hoped, and it was believed, that some would 
tiold out through obstinacy ; these septs were 
to be rooted out, hunted from their holes and 
shot down like beasts of prey. Prepara- 
tions were made, and tools secured for 
striking the blow at these banditti. It was 
as thieves, as incorrigible savages born with 
ineradicable instincts that hated industry 



and good order, that they incurred the fierce 
political wrath and vengeance of Dalrymple. 

The Royal Indemnity; The Council 

PUZZLED. 

In the month of August the Lords of the 
Privy Council issued a proclamation as an 
effective supplement to the tardy, secret, and 
'^ii'^Dinous negotiations of Breadalbane.' Its 

piofessed ob- 
ject was to re- 
duce theHigh- 
lands " from 
1 a pi n e and 
ai ms to virtue 
and industry," 
1)\ the extinc- 
tion of ancient 
feuds; it 
offered pardon 
of all robber- 
ies, treasons, 
rebellions, and 
other crimes, 
tosuchas took 
the oath of 
alleg ianc e 
from sheritts 
or sherift"-de- 
putes before 
the first day 
of January, 
1692. Exact 
lists of those 
who submit- 
ted were to be 
sent, at the 
highest peril 
to those who 
were responsi- 
ble, to the 
clerks of the 
Council with- 
in ten days of 
the expiry of 
this time of 
grace ; rebels 
who remained 
incorrigible 
were to be 
punished with 
the utmost ex- 
tremity of the 
law. The pro- 
c lam at i on 



473 



contained one clause which it is well to bear 
in mind in view of the horrid massacre which 
closed the episode : The ministers of the law 
were called upon "to interpret this indemnity 
in the most favourable and ample manner." 
The document was printed, and was pro- 
claimed at every market cross in the kingdom 
of Scotland. 

The royal letter on which this proclamation 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



was based seems to show that for once in 
Scottish history the fiat of government would 
"be carried out, that the threat of punishment 
was not to be the mere empty blast of a 
trumpet. It was a land bill and a coercion 
bill in one. It proposed the purchase of the 
lands and superiorities of the chiefs, so that 
they might be immediately dependent on the 
Crown, and be relieved from the deep degra- 
dation of vassalage to rival chiefs ; but it also 
commanded the Council to order the Governor 
of Inverlochy and other officers to be " exact 
and diligent in their several posts ; but that 
they show no more zeal against the Highland- 
ers after their submission than they have ever 
done formerly wheti they were in open rebel- 
lion." The Lords were staggered by this ex- 
pression ; they thought it "somewhat unclear," 
and asked an explanation from the King as it 
might be misunderstood by the officers. Pos- 
sibly they imagined that the document, which 
was drawn up and subscribed by Dalrymple, 
had been hurriedly superscribed by William 
in the fatigue of the camp. Doubtless the 
fimbiguity was there of set purpose, for Wil- 
liam's secretary was the master of clear and 
forcible expression. There is no reason to 
doubt that the King was completely cognisant 
of Dalrymple's programme : he detested the 
name of Scotland, and once expressed the 
wish that that fractious hot-bed of theology 
were a thousand miles away. 

The Council, in obedience to the royal in- 
structions, issued orders for the surrender of 
the great Highland castles. Dalrymple had 
pointed out the importance of garrisons in 
Ellandonan, Invergarry, and elsewhere ; the 
rebellious clans would not be able to sleep in 
peace with these watch-towers all around as 
stern reminders of their submission. 

Weeks passed, and the chiefs continued to 
higgle with Breadalbane over the amount of 
money each should receive from the treasury. 
Submission was the smallest topic in their 
thoughts. Glengarry was the most hot-headed 
opponent of a surrender ; and while debating 
over his share in the bribe, he was busily 
spreading rumours through the Highlands of 
a fresh invasion ; it was reported even that 
the Pope had presented an immense sum of 
gold to King James. The chiefs knew the 
character of Breadalbane ; the name of Camp- 
bell was synonymous with craft and avarice, 
and they feared that after all they might 
never lay their fingers on a single penny of 
the royal bonus. The wily diplomatist as- 
sured his northern friends that the money 
was safely locked up in a box in London. 
He was even accused of constantly preaching 
to them in public and private that he was as 
faithful to James as any of them, that he 
would show his true colours in the nick of 
time, that his submission to the Prince of 
Orange was only given to save himself and 



his family from ruin. Colonel Hill was quietly 
watching him and reporting the results to 
Dalrymple. Breadalbane stormed at the 
officer as the tool of his ruin, and the ob- 
structor of his country's peace ; and Hill re- 
plied that his "proceedings were bottomed 
on low condescension and mean proposals." 
The Council whispered dark hints of Bread- 
albane's treachery into His Majesty's ear ; but 
the King remarked with his usual brevity that 
men who manage treaties must use fair 
words. Dalrymple cheered his worthy tool, 
and assured him that all the devices of his 
enemies would only strengthen his favour in 
the royal eyes. 

" Dalrymple's Mauling Scheme." 

One evening in October, Viscount Tarbat 
paid a visit to the Earl of Linlithgow, one of 
the Treasury commissioners, at his Edinburgh 
mansion, in deep anxiety about the news that 
the Macdonalds and others were not likely to 
come in. He was distressed about the chief 
of Sleat, and also about Glengarry, and letters 
— not the first — from Tarbat to those deter- 
mined rebels, urging them to make their 
peace, were sent by the Earl to Breadalbane. 
In a few days we find the conclave — Dal- 
rymple, Tarbat, Linlithgow, Oueensberry, and 
others — gathered around the King and Queen 
in London, discussing with them the project 
of extermination, and taking the liveliest in- 
terest in the correspondence that was con- 
stantly arriving from Breadalbane. The 
chiefs continued to grumble at the unfairness 
of the proposed distribution of the money ; 
and the King himself condescended to enter 
into the discussion of this question of minute 
detail. Dalrymple, although he could not 
bear the slightest personal grudge against 
any of the Highland chiefs, warmed the 
Highland blood of his tool, Breadalbane, 
into a thirst for vengeance against the " in- 
veterate enemies" of his clan, more espe- 
cially the Macdonalds. Extracts from some 
of these letters will exhibit the cool manner 
in which those statesmen contemplated and 
hoped for the extermination of the Highland 
rebels. 

"Both Glengarry and Keppoch," wrote 
Dalrymple on the 27th of October, "are Pa- 
pists, and that is the only Papist clan in the 
Highlands. Who knows, but by God^s pro- 
vidence they are permitted to fall into this 
delusion, that they may only be extirpated, 
which willvindicate their Majesty's justice, 
and reduce the Highlands without further 
severity to the rest .'' " Linlithgow wrote four 
days later in the same lively strain about the 
" last standers out" : " I know the King does 
not care that some do it, that lie may make 
examples of them." 

On the 3rd of November Dalrymple in- 



474 



A DARK DEED OF CRUELTY 



formed Breadalbane that he had shown the 
King his letter of the 27th. " I wrote to you 
formerly that if the rest were willing to concur, 
as the crows do, to pull down Glengarry's 
nest this winter, so as the King be not hin- 
dered to draw four regiments from Scotland, 
in that case the destroying him and his clan 
and garrisoning his house . . . will be full 
as acceptable as if he had come in." In 
December the correspondence of Dalrymple 
assumed a tone of fierce eagerness. His 
words were sharpened into a keen edge. 
The pace of his passion increased like that 
-of a stone rolling down a hillside. At the 
beginning of December he speaks with glee 
of what he terms "the winter campaign." 
The smell of war on the Continent had accus- 
tomed him to martial ideas. It is not one 
insignificant sept that is to be swept out of 
existence ; the Camerons, Glengarry, Kep- 
poch, all the rest of the Macdonalds, Appin, 
the Macleans, are to be "rooted out" before 
they can get help from James. " God knows 
whether the ;^i 2,000 sterHng had been better 
employed to settle the Highlands or to ravage 
them." His pen has become restless ; he 
■writes to Breadalbane on the very next day. 
He is maddened that these impecunious 
robber-chiefs should still be higgling about 
a few hundred pounds. "By the next I 
expect to hear either these people are come 
to your hand, or €i.'s>& your scheme formauling 
them. ... I am not changed as to the expe- 
diency of doing things by the easiest means, 
-and at leisure, but the madness of these people 
and their ingratitude to you makes me plainly 
see there is no reckoning on them ; but 
deletida est Carthago. Yet who have accepted 
and do take the oaths will be safe, but deserve 
no kindness ; and even in that case there must 
Tdc hostages of their nearest relations." In all 
this correspondence the Glencoe men were 
never once mentioned ; they were too insig- 
nificant : what he wished was not only a 
terrific example, but the seizure of some 
•castle for a good military post. " Because I 
breathe nothing but destruction to Glengarry, 
Tarbat thinks that Keppoch will be a more 
proper example of severity. But he hath not 
a house so proper for a garrison, and he hath 
not been so forward to ruin himself and all 
the rest. But I confess both's best to be 
ruined." Breadalbane closed his long and 
arduous task in complete failure, left his 
native country and the refractory chiefs, and 
proceeded to London by invitation to enjoy 
the Christmas festivities of the civilized me- 
tropolis. Lochiel might also have gone, had 
he been so minded ; a sum of ^200 was 
offered him by the royal agent to defray the 
expenses of the trip. 

At the same time Dalrymple — for in the 
capacity of Secretary of State for Scotland 
-he was compelled to appear above board, 



and accept the responsibility of the entire 
group of William's advisers, some of whom, 
indeed, had been utterly opposed to the offer 
of an indemnity to the Highlanders — secured 
fit military agents to carry out the scheme in 
its details. Colonel Hill was too gentle for 
the work of "mauling" ; by his own confes- 
sion he did not "like the business." But 
one of Hill's of^cers at Fort William was 
somehow recommended, and Dalrymple 
seems to have been so sure of his man, with 
whom he was hitherto unacquainted, that in 
the very first letter addressed to Lieutenant- 
Colonel Hamilton he writes with vigorous 
transparency and a reckless freedom : " It 
may be shortly we may have use of your 
garrison, for the winter time is the only season 
in which we are sure the Highlanders cannot 
escape us, nor carry their wives, bairns, and 
cattle to the mountains. The Clan Donald 
is generally Popish. Since the King hath 
to demonstration shown his exception, I am 
content that clan doth except itself." It was 
on the 3rd of December that he used the 
word " mauling " in his correspondence with 
Breadalbane. On the same day he wrote to 
Hamilton : " Let me hear from you with the 
first, whether you think this is the proper 
season to maul them in the long, coldmgfits* 
It never occurred to the minister that the 
world would be shocked; and although we 
cannot read these words without a shudder, 
Sir John Dalrymple declared it would be 
^'popular to take severe course" with the 
Macdonalds, the only Popish clan in the 
kingdom ! 

The Chiefs submit; MacIan's Pride 
AND Blunder. 

In spite of the facts that the King's forces 
were on the alert in the Highland garrisons 
and on the confines of the Highland line, 
and that the chiefs must have been perfectly 
aware of the proposed measures of extermi- 
nation, — as the letters of Tarbat, Livingston, 
and Dalrymple show, — the oath was not 
administered by any sheriff or sheriff-depute 
to a single Jacobite chieftain when Christmas 
Day had come. What of the two messengers 
that had been despatched to the Court of 
St. Germains to consult the " tender " King 
James ? Six months had nearly passed since 
the conference of Achallader, and four since 
the proclamation of the royal indemnity. 

The exiled prince withheld his consent to 
the submission of the chiefs until the last 
moment consistent with their safety. His 
letter was dated from St. Germains on the 
1 2th of December. The deputies hastened 
to London in a Government vessel ; the 
original missive was shown to the ministers 
of state, who retained it ; one of the messen- 
gers, Menzies, was provided with a copy, 
and travelled post with it from London, 



475 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



reaching Dunkeld from Paris in the short 
space of eleven days. Overcome with 
fatigue, the eager deputy sent on the royal 
message to General Buchan at Invergarry. 
When Menzies arrived at the Highland 
border, and saw the royal forces ready to 
march, he was in a state of deep alarm ; he 
beseeched Buchan to send immediate ex- 
presses to all the chiefs to submit, and he 
requested Sir Thomas Livingston to suppli- 
cate the Council for an extension of the time 
of grace. The Commander of the Scottish 
forces laid the matter before the Council on 
the 5th of January. The heart of Colonel 
Hill was softened also, and on the 28th of 
December he wrote to Tarbat with a similar 
request. 

On Christmas Day the pious Colonel 
received a visit at Inverlochy from the 
greatest of all the chiefs, Sir Ewan Cameron, 
who was on his way to Inverness to take the 
oath, after which he was going straight to 
London to kiss the hand of King WilHam : 
so that, after all, Lochiel was "the first to 
break the ice " and lower the flag of Highland 
honour. The combination was broken like 
a Rupert's ball, and the other chieftains 
hastened like sheep in his footsteps to their 
respective sheriffs. The last to hold out was 
Alexander Macdonald, chief of the Clan Ian 
Abrach, which owned but the small and bar- 
ren domain of Glencoe, and numbered only a 
hundred fighting men, but claimed the proud 
dignity of representing a special line of the 
Macdonalds. 

The haughty and venerable chief gave way, 
like the rest of his kinsmen, and on the 31st 
day of December presented himself at Fort 
William, some fifteen miles distant from 
Glencoe, in order to take the oath. But the 
governor of that garrison was not empowered 
to administer it. The proper person to do 
so was the sheriff or sheriff-depute of Argyll- 
shire, some eighty miles away, at Inverary. 
Wild torrents, terrific passes, snow-covered 
tracks through desolate glens and over 
mountains lay between the old man and his 
destination. The tender-hearted colonel 
furnished the chieftain with a letter to Sir 
Colin Campbell, the sheriff-depute of Argyll, 
recommending him to mercy. It was good, 
he said, to bring in a lost sheep at any time. 
With this kindly missive the gigantic " lost 
sheep " with the fierce moustachios turned his 
face southward, wending his wild and weary 
way over mountain and glen, through the 
tempestuous weather, not even stopping — as 
his son afterwards declared — when he crossed 
the ferry over the Leven, to visit his home- 
stead, though it lay at only half an hour's 
distance. Captain Drummond detained him 
at Barcaldin for four-and-twenty hours. 
When he arrived at Inverary, three days 
more elapsed before Sir Colin appeared, 

476 



owing to the bad weather that in due course 
was sweeping over those desolate regions. 
At first he declined to accept the offer of 
allegiance from Glejicoe, until the old chief- 
tain besieged him with tears, promising at 
the same time to bring in all his people 
quickly, and have them imprisoned or sent 
to Flanders if they refused to take the oath 
and submit to King William. The sheriff- 
depute despatched the list of those who had 
taken the oath at Inverary, among them the 
name of Alexander Macdonald of Glencoe 
upon the 6th of January, to the sheriff of 
Argyll at Edinburgh : and he accompanied 
the list with Hill's missive about the lost 
sheep. The clerks of the Council, puzzled 
as to how to deal with this case of late sub- 
mission, laid the matter before one of the 
Privy Councillors, Sir Colin Campbell of 
Aberuchill, a Perthshire laird and a lord of 
session. He spoke, or said he spoke, to 
several members of the Council, although he 
did not put the question formally before that 
body, as ought to have been done ; and on 
his authority the clerks scored out the name 
of Macdonald of Glencoe. Meanwhile the 
old rnan had returned to his native glen. 
He summoned his people together, told them 
he had made his peace, and desired them to 
live as faithful subjects of King WiUiani. 

Preparation for the "Rooting Out." 

Dalrymple did not forget the Highland 
thieves amid the festivities with which his 
countrymen welcome the new-born year. It 
never for a moment occurred to him that the 
prey he had been licking for six months 
would at the last moment creep out of his 
clutches. The news as to the submissions 
had not yet reached London ; it was only one 
day after. old Glencoe had sworn at Inverary 
to be a faithful subject to ^ King William, 
when the Secretary, determined on taking 
time and the rebels by the forelock, wrote to 
Sir Thomas Livingston to have his forces 
ready, with grenades, shovels, and other 
warlike instruments for the campaign against 
the "barbarous people," the "deluded devils." 
The v/hole of Lochaber, the lands of Lochiel, 
of Keppoch, of Glengarry, of Appin, and of 
Glencoe, were to be " entirely destroyed." 
Charity would invite us to set down a portion 
of his ferocity to the social excitements of the 
season. " I assure you their [the troops'] 
power shall be full enough, and I hope the 
soldiers will not trouble the Government 
with prisoners. It's true it's a rigid season 
for the soldiers to work, but it's the only time 
they cannot escape you ; for human consti- 
tution cannot endure to be now long out of 
houses." The imagination of the writer is so 
vivid that he forgets for the moment that he 
is in the south of England and not among 



A DARK DEED OF CRUELTY. 



the deep snows and biting winds of the 
Scottish mountains. 

Two days later he wrote to the commander, 
lamenting that Lochiel and others had 
submitted. " I am sorry," he said, " that 
Keppoch and McKean of Glencoe are safe." 
But there were still left the Macdonald of 
Skye, Grant of Glenmoriston, and his chief 
desire, Macdonald of Glengarry : and on the 
I ith of January, orders, superscribed and sub- 
scribed by the King, were sent to Livingston, 
commanding him to march the troops at 
Inverness and Inverlochy against the rebels 
who had not taken the benefit of the in- 
demnity, " by fire and sword and all manner 
of hostility, to burn their houses, seize or 
destroy their cows or cattle, plenishing, or 
clothes, and to cut off the men. '' Several of 
the loyal clans had been ordered out to assist 
in the work of destruction, on the lines of the 
old Scottish policy of setting " one devil to 
ding another" — a sufficient guarantee that 
there would be little mercy. The " yeomen 
and commonalty " might receive quarter and 
indemnity for life and fortune on taking the 
oath and surrendering their arms, but no 
such grace was to be extended to chieftains, 
heritors, and leaders ; and if their lives were 
spared, they were to be treated as prisoners 
of war. On the i6th, additional instructions, 
superscribed and subscribed like the former 
ones, were sent to Livingston and Hill. In 
these Maclan of Glencoe is singled out for 
vengeance. Glengarry was to be spared if 
he took the oath and surrendered his lofty, 
rock-perched castle by Loch Oich ; other 
rebels were to surrender "upon mercy;" 
but " if McKean of Glencoe and that tribe 
can be well separated from the rest, it will 
be a proper vindication of the public justice 
to extirpate that sept of thieves." 

If we turn from these public documents 
to the correspondence of Dalrymple with 
Livingston, whom he begins to pet and cajole 
as " dear Sir Thomas," when pressing on 
him the necessity of stern measures, we shall 
find the instructions interlined with language 
of picturesque ferocity. In it we read the 
secret of the massacre. When he was 
writing to the commander on the nth of 
January, Argyll, who joined in the work of 
blood with the spirit of his race, seems to 
have dropped in upon him with the welcome 
news that after all Glencoe had not taken 
the oath — " at which I rejoice ; it's a great 
work of charity to be executed in rooting out 
that damnable sept, the worst in all the High- 
lands." In correspondence of later date with 
the gentle Hill and " dear Sir Thomas," who 
has had impressed upon him already the 
circumstances that the orders for destruction 
bore the King's own genuine signature at 
top and bottom, and that they gave full 
powers while they left the plan of execution 



to Livingston's own genius, the Secretary 
broadly hints to him what it would be best to 
do : " By no means leave anything standing 
ouL. . . I entreat that the thieving tribe in 
Glencoe may be rooted out in earnest. . . 
To harry their cattle or burn their houses 
is but to render their {sic) desperate, lawless 
men to rob their neighbours ; but I believe 
you will be satisfied it were a great ad- 
vantage to the nation that thieving tribe 
were rooted out and cut off It must be 
quietly done " — not because the affair might 
get wind; oh, no! but "otherwise they 
will make shift for both the men and their 
cattle." Argyll and Breadalbane were ready 
allies in such a pleasant game as the ex- 
termination of these irrepressible foes of the 
Campbells and of all industry : Argyll's 
detachment " lies in Keppoch Well to assist 
the garrison to do all on a sudden. . . . Pray, 
when anything concerning Glencoe is re- 
solved, let it be secret and sudden, other- 
wise the men will shift you, and better not 
meddle with them than not to do it to 
purpose." 

The Campbells quartered in Glencoe. 

The Scottish officers could not fail to grasp 
the intention of the Government. The news 
of the determination to root out entirely the 
Macdonalds of Glencoe was received in 
Edinburgh with warm welcome. But they 
were not the only clan that was doomed, as 
historians persistently assert. They were, 
however, the worst gang of thieves left, and 
were therefore set down as the first article in 
the delicious programme. The Secretary's 
great object of securing Glengarry's castle, 
however, was first attained, and the soldiers, 
under Captain Robert Campbell of Glenlyon, 
moved southwards, crossed the ferry of Loch 
Leven, and entered the valley of Glehcoe. 

The appearance of Glenlyon, along with 
Lieutenant Lindsay, Ensign Lundy, and one 
hundred and twenty men of Argyll's regiment 
on the 1st of February, was calculated to 
cause alarm to the Macdonalds of Glencoe. 
It was an unwonted sight, and perhaps for 
the first time in their long history did the in- 
habitants look upon the army of a Scottish 
sovereign in their sequestered valley. The 
most obnoxious and the most exciting feature 
of the invasion was the fact that the men 
who ventured into the pass were not merely 
soldiers of King William, but, worse than 
that, members of the hated and hostile clan 
of Campbell. The mission could mean no 
good, it might well be thought, under the 
colours of Argyll ; as Burton has expressed 
it, " The boa constrictor might as well be 
expected to visit the tiger's den as a minister 
of peace, as the Campbells to go in force 
into the country of the Macdonalds without 
bloody intentions." Still, when the eldest 



477 



EPOCHS AhD EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



son of Maclan went down to meet the 
invaders with a company of twenty men, saw 
the orders of blunt and honest Hill for 
quartering the soldiers, — the good-hearted 
governor who had written that touching 
letter for the " lost sheep," and was known 
to be incapable of a cruel or dishonourable 
word or action, — and passed a pleasant 
greeting with the captain, whose sister was 
the mother of his brother Sandy's wife, the 
fear was changed into a thorough Highland 
welcome, such as the poet Burns scarcely 
hoped for on his exit from this present 
terrene state. Yet just there lay the depth 
of the treachery : the friendly face of Glen- 
lyon was the smiling mask of the assassin. 
Doubtless, if Dalryniple, or Tarbat, or 
Linlithgow, or Queensberry, could have had 
a glimpse into the distant Highland glen, 
they would have grinned and chuckled at 
the pleasant interview of these aboriginal 
savages ; Argyll and Breadalbane would 
have gazed or shouted with the delight born 
of their native instincts. 

The Macdonalds made merry with their 
strange visitors, — merrier, we might be 
allowed to guess, for in such circuuistances 
as theirs the mirth was certain to be some- 
what hysterical. It was no easy matter for 
the small clan to accommodate so many visi- 
tors under the thatched roofs of their rude 
huts ; yet there was sufficient usquebaugh with 
which they might regale themselves during 
the long, cold winter nights, which Dalrymple, 
by his warm fire in London, had pictured to 
himself as excellent for the purpose of maul- 
ing ; and there were at least one thousand five 
hundred cattle and thousands of goats and 
sheep, which pastured on the greener and more 
sheltered spots of the valley and the slopes. 
Near the mouth of the roaring Coe, where 
the glen has not assumed its aspect of utter 
wildness and nakedness, there is a little bit 
of pleasant woodland scenery : an avenue of 
old ash and plane trees leads the tourist to 
the ruin of Invercoe, marking, it is said, the 
homestead of the old chief. Further up the 
glen there were a few groups of huts, the 
nearest to the mouth of the pass being that 
of Inverigan, where Glenlyon had his quar- 
ters ; close by was the hamlet of Auchnaion, 
where another party was lodged, under the 
command of Ensign Barber. For twelve 
short days and twelve long nights the time 
seems to have passed pleasantly enough, the 
captain calling at the chiefs every day for his 
" morning drink," — something merrier, to 
use the language of an old Irish poem, than 
the cold ale of Fingal : the two brothers 
played cards of an evening by the glow of 
the peat fire in the quarters of Glenlyon. 

There would be no dearth of weird and 
stirring tales. The clear stream that roared 
down the wild glen into Loch Leven was the 



Cona of Ossian, which the old bard or bards- 
had immortalized : he or they had described 
it as fed by a thousand torrents, that after 
a stormy night turned their dark eddies 
beneath the pale light of the morn, — had 
sung of the thunder of night, when the cloud 
bursts on Cona and a thousand ghosts 
shriek at once on the hollow wind, and of 
the high, blue, curling sides of the pass 
beneath which were the winds with their 
wings. On the evening of the 12th it was 
arranged that Glenlyon, Lieutenant Lindsay,, 
and Ensign Lundy should dine on the 
morrow in the house of the chief. The 
captain, at the time he was passing the late 
hours with his niece's husband over the cards- 
and usquebaugh, had the order in his pocket 
for the murder of " the old fox and his sons "■ 
before daylight reached the glen on the next 
morning. 

"His blithest notes the piper played, 
Her gayest snood the maiden tied, 
The dame her distaff flung aside. 
To tend her kindly housewifery. 

The hand that mingled in the meal, 
At midnight drew the felon steel." 

The Wheels that did the Work ; An 
Early Morning Call ; The Hand of 
A Lost Child. 

It is worth while to learn how Captain 
Campbell came to have that infamous order 
in his pocket, how the energy derived from 
the great wheel of State had passed into those 
minuter wheels which were armed with the 
savage teeth of the assassin. On the 23rd 
of January, General Livingston, aware of the 
slowness of Colonel Hill in "the exaction of 
such things," wrote to a gentleman with whom 
we are already familiar through the corre- 
spondence of Dalrymple, that Lieutenant 
Hamilton, at Inverlochy, to whom he had 
suggested the mauling of the Clan Donald 
in the long, cold nights. The commander 
informed the lieutenant that the Secretary of 
State had made special mention of the thiev- 
ing nest of Glencoe in his last three letters : 
" So, sir, here is a fair occasion for you to 
show that your garrison serves some use ; 
and being that the orders are so positive 
from Court to me not to spare any whatever 
not timely come in, as you may [see] by the 
orders I sent to your colonel, I desire you 
would begin with Glencoe, and spare nothing 
which belongs to him, but do not trouble the 
Government with prisoners." 

As we already know, a part of Argyll's 
regiment was quartered in Glencoe about a 
week later, under the command of Glenlyon, 
whose superior officer. Major Robert Dun- 
canson, had his quarters at Ballahulish, on 
the north side of the Leven, and almost, 
opposite the mansion of Maclan. Living- 



478 



A DARK DEED OF CRUELTY. 



ston's orders to Hill might possibly have 
been given, and were probably given, without 
the knowledge that the agents of destruction 
were to be entrusted with the butchery while 
living under the hospitable roofs of their 
victims. The Colonel, who " liked not the 
business," and from whose hands the power 
was virtually taken by his subordinate Ham- 
ilton, gave to this officer an order dated at 
Fort William on the 12th of February, which 
ran in general terms as follows : " You are 
with four hundred of my regiment, and the 
four hundred of my Lord Argyll's regiment 
under the command of Major Duncanson to 
march straight to Glencoe, and there put in 
due execution the orders you have received 
from the commander-in-chief." Hamilton 
then wrote to Duncanson to have his men 
stationed at the posts assigned him by seven 
o'clock on the following morning (Saturday), 
and that he would himself march to his own 
post with the party from the garrison to join 
in the action. He pointed out with due 
emphasis the necessity of Captain Campbell 
securing all the avenues on the south side of 
the glen, which had been set apart for his 
special attention, so that neither " the old 
fox nor none of his cubs get away :" none 
vi?ere to be spared, as the Government did 
not wish to be troubled with prisoners. 

The last wheel was set in motion by Dun- 
canson. He was a sullen, brutal monster, and 
his orders to Campbell of Glenlyon seem to be 
the pantings of a short-breathed ferocity. 
The few lines written by this obscure Highland 
savage, the only evidence that such a person 
ever existed, are sufficient to confer upon him 
an immortal memory of shame. Campbell 
was to fall on the Macdonalds precisely at 
five o'clock in the morning ; by that time, or 
shortly after, the major would be there with 
a stronger party : " If I do not come to you 
at five, you are not to tarry for me, but to 
fall on." There was the King's own special 
hand for cutting off the miscreants root and 
branch, for the good and safety of the country. 
He seems to fear that the heart even of a 
Campbell might fail him before the awful 
task; he remembers the tie of kindred between 
the captain and the chief's family. You are, 
he commands, to put all under seventy to 
the sword, taking especial care that the old 
fox and his sons do not escape ; do it without 
fear or favour, else you may expect to be 
dealt with as a traitor to your King and 
country, as a man unfit to carry a commission 
in the King's service. 

The soldiers were not made aware of the 
work cut out for them until the morning, 
when the order was given them to kill every 
man and woman they met, and shoot down 
every one they saw taking to the hills. John, 
the eldest son of the old chief, was alarmed 
during the night by the sound of soldiers' 



voices outside his window, and went up to 
Inverigan to inquire of Glenlyon what was 
the meaning of the disturbance. " If ill were 
intended," said the treacherous Campbell, 
" would I not have told Sandy and my 
niece ? '' 

It was close on five o'clock when Lindsay 
called at the chiefs house with a party of 
soldiers ; the old man rose out of bed to 
receive his early visitors. He did not have 
time to dress himself before a couple of bul- 
lets whizzed from behind his back and laid 
him dead in his wife's arms. It was stated 
on oath that the brutal soldiers stripped off 
the whole attire of the chiefs widow and 
tore the rings from her fingers with their 
teeth. She expired on the following day. 
At the different centres further up the glen, 
where the other parties were stationed, the 
work of murder went on simultaneously, and 
with equal fiendishness. At the little village 
of Auchnaion the laird of Achtreachtan was 
sitting at his brother's fire Avith eight other 
men, when a volley of balls was poured into 
the group by Sergeant Barber and his com- 
rades. Four fell down dead, and the others 
threw themselves on the floor. One of them 
was Achtreachtan's brother, whom Barber, 
suspecting he was not dead, took hold of and 
asked if he were alive. The poor Highlander 
asked the sergeant to grant him the favour of 
being shot in the open air. " I will do you 
that favour," said the menial officer, " for the 
sake of your meat which I have eaten." Tak- 
ing advantage of the darkness, the powerful 
mountaineer dashed himself on the soldiers 
before they had time to take aim, and fling- 
ing his long tartan plaid in their faces, fled in 
a moment up the mountain with the swiftness 
of a deer. During this short interval the 
other three Macdonalds had risen from the 
floor and escaped by the back of the building. 
A child was afterwards missed from this 
hamlet, and nothing but its hand was ever 
found. 

The tragedies enacted at Inverigan under 
the eyes of Captain Campbell were, if pos- 
sible, of a more savage character than 
those which were witnessed at the other 
hamlets. The men were dragged out of bed 
and killed one by one ; a lad of twelve was 
shot dead, although he ran up to Glenlyon 
declaring with passionate entreaty that he 
would go anywhere with Glenlyon, would 
follow him over the world, if only his life 
were spared ; a woman and a child of the 
tender age of four or five v/ere also among 
the victims. One old man of eighty was mur- 
dered. Inverigan himself, after having been 
left for dead at his own door, crept into 
another house. It was only to suffer a worse 
fate : the building was set on fire by the sol- 
diers, and the old man perished in the flames. 
There was one young man of twenty whom 



479 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Glenlyon was disposed to spare, but an ofificer 
named Drummond, who arrived with ad- 
ditional troops about daybreak, found fault 
with the leniency of his comrade, and ordered 
him to be shot by a file of musketeers. 

Results of the Massacre ; The Fall 
OF Stair. 

Some twenty-five persons had been slaugh- 
tered. Women and children, too, it was 
believed had perished in the storm and deep 
snow on the hill sides, and became the prey 
of the eagles that haunted the lofty spires of 
Buachal Etive. The plot for the extermina- 
tion of the whole clan of Maclan of Glencoe 
had proved a complete failure, and it served 
no other purpose than to brand with infamy 
the name of every man who had art or part 
in the foul thing. The two " cubs," above 
all, had succeeded in escaping together up the 
mountains on hearing the iirst shots fired. 
The severe weather had hindered the march 
of Hamilton, and it was within an hour of 
midday when he arrived with his forces upon 
the scene. It has been remarked with a 
terrible terseness that nothing was left for 
the lieutenant-colonel but an old man to kill 
and houses to burn. All the possessions of 
the Macdonalds of Glencoe were destroyed 
or carried off. 

Tradition and a Jacobite pamphlet which 
Macaulay has used more freely than he 
ought perhaps to have done, assert that Glen- 
lyon and his descendants were haunted by 
the spectre of Maclan and the blood of 
Glencoe ; but the fact is that he lived' long 
afterwards to serve his King and country 
in Flanders and the Highlands. Within a 
fortnight it was widely known and talked 
of in London that the Macdonalds had been 
murdered in bed after taking the allegiance. 
But Stair was not ashamed. He even pressed 
on Hill to continue the work of vengeance : 
" All I regret is that any of the sept got 
away ; and there is necessity to prosecute 
them to the utmost. If they could go out of 
the country, I wish they were let slip." 

In May the Council gave permission to 
the ruined Macdonalds, who had associated 
themselves with other " loose and broken 
men " for pursuing the career of freebooters, 
to return to their native valley under suffi- 
cient securities for good conduct ; and in the 
summer of 1695 the Scottish Parliament, 
under the pressure of the bitter pohtical 
opponents of Dalrymple, appointed a com- 
mission of inquiry as to the authors of the 
dark tragedy. Even Tarbat was frightened, 
and was eager for a full and formal pardon 
for himself, covering the whole of his career : 
he alleged that the high-toned morality was 
a mere sham, assumed for the ruin of himself 



and his associates by another political clique 
that, to use his own words, would put a 
beast's skin on every one not belonging to 
their club and set the hounds on him. The 
King was exonerated by the Parliament ; 
the Secretary was declared to have gone 
beyond his instructions ; Livingston and Hill 
were acquitted of blame ; all the other officers, 
from Hamilton downwards, ought to be 
prosecuted if His Majesty thought fit. 

The matter ended in a mere resolution. It 
was attended by no disastrous consequence 
to any of the persons involved in the actual 
work of blood ; and even the maligned Dal- 
rymple, on whom his political enemies on the 
right and left alike aimed at casting the 
odium of the barbarous massacre, was 
acquitted by the King of having any participa- 
tion whatever in the method by which the 
scheme of extermination was attempted to 
be carried out. So far his connection with 
the Glencoe massacre was fatal to his career 
as a statesman ; he resigned the office of 
Secretary during the summer in which the 
Commission instituted its inquiries. Long 
exiled from the councils of the King and the 
debates of Parliament, he at last weathered 
the hatred and the disgrace. His sovereign, 
remembering the services he had bestowed 
upon the realm of Scotland, exalted him to 
the dignity of an earldom, and he died in 
honourable harness, while fighting with all 
his wisdom and eloquence for the union of 
the two kingdoms. As novi homines^ he and 
his father were detested by the needy and 
less capable patricians over whose heads he 
floated into power, as great men always do, 
in the crisis of his country ; and the screech- 
ing calumnies of his jealous foes have been 
too readily accepted as a basis for the eloquent 
invective of historians. It is no purpose of 
ours to enter into any tedious discussion 
as to the real authors of the massacre. We 
may not approve of the " legal advantage " 
on which Dalrymple insisted in striking a 
blow at the bandits of Glencoe ; we confess 
that he was by no means scrupulous as to 
the possible method of extermination, and 
simply put his hands over his eyes while the 
savage clansmen took their own way of doing 
his work ; but we beg to protest against the 
constant insinuation or assertion that he 
dictated the massacre as it actually occurred. 
His own letter, written in London on the 
30th of January, affords incontrovertible evi- 
dence that he was utterly ignorant of the 
project of treacherous assassination under the 
mask of friendship, and that he was guilty 
only of advising that the work should be 
" quietly done," so that the extermination of 
the thievish clan might be complete. 

M. M. 



480 




iHE Attack on the Bastille. 



THE VENGEANCE OF '89. 

THE STORY OF THE FALL OF THE BASTILLE. 



The Mud-Town- The Merovingian Kin?s-The Carlovingians-The Capets-Pans under the Capets-The House of 
Valois-Troubles in the Jacquerie-Foundation of the Bastille-Growth of the Bastille-lhe Boiirbon Kings— 1 he 
Bastille and the Absolute Monarchy— A Poet's Indignant Denunciation— An Escape from the Bastille— Ihe Beginning 
of the Revolution—" To Arms ! "— " To the Bastille "—Taken— The Sequel. 



TS^ 



The Mud-Town. 
AM writing these words on the top of 
a lofty tower, some one hundred 
and seventy-five feet high. On 
one side, the north, I look down upon 
magnificent streets, the dainty colours of the 
ever-moving crowd set off by the foliage of 



-^81 



the trees, just now in their spring lovehness 
In the garden beneath, mothers and nurse- 
maids in blue garments and white caps 
tend little children also white-capped ; and 
all day long— nearly all night long— the roll 
and roar of carriages goes on without ceasing. 
I turn to the other side, and there is a river 

1 1 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



beneath me, not nearly so wide as the Thames, 
but spreading out opposite to where I am 
standing, and enclosing two islands, with 
more bridges than I am able to count. 
Beyond the river again the busy streets 
continue, with many a grand spire and 
dome rising among them. And all these 
things together make up the city of Paris, the 
most beautiful city, probably, in the world. 
Rome is infinitely greater in historical inter- 
est, London is vaster, Edinburgh is grander 
in situation, but in splendour of streets and 
gaiety of appearance, Paris surpasses them 
all. 

One of these islands of which I have spoken 
is called " the Isle of the City." It contains 
the cathedral and the Palace of Justice. 
When Julius Caesar came here 2000 years 
ago this formed the whole city, and its name 
then was Lntetia Parisiofum, " Mud-Town of 
the Borderers."* The " Borderers," who occu- 
pied the whole district known now as the 
Isle of France, were at first disposed to be 
more friendly towards him than their neigh- 
bours, and he showed his appreciation of 
this by convoking a general assembly of the 
Gauls in this island ; but they afterwards 
turned against his lieutenant, Labienus, and 
shared the usual fate of being conquered. 

When the Romans became possessed of 
all Gaul, Paris for a while disappears out of 
the history. Yet it throve, chiefly in con- 
sequence of its river commerce. It gradually 
extended itself from the islands to the main- 
land, chiefly on the left bank of the river. 
The chief temple, that of Jupiter, was on the 
island, but a great amphitheatre rose up on 
the left bank, and afterwards a palace of the 
Emperors, who began, after a while, to make 
it a favourite residence. 

When Christianity began to make its rapid 
strides towards victory over heathenism, St. 
Denys, or Dionysius, came to Paris with two 
companion preachers. He and these com- 
panions were beheaded on a hill, which was 
consequently called "the Martyr's Hill," — 
Mons Martyru7n. You will find the spot in 
the map of Paris, Montmartre. 

It was Julian " the Apostate " who caused 
the first great advance of Paris to splendour. 
He preferred it to every city in his empire, 
and relics of his baths remain to this day. 
He died in 364, and his successor also dwelt 
a good deal in Lutetia, though it never 
became the official capital of Roman Gaul ; 
that honour belonged sometimes to Lyons, 
sometimes to Treves, sometimes to Aries. 
It was not even the capital of a province ; 
and this explains why its prelates never took 
rank as archbishops until the 17th century. 



* This is Carlyle's interpretation of Parisii, or 
Barisii. Numerous other interpretations, however, 
have been given. 



They were suffragans only of the Bishop 
of Sens. 

Early in the 5th century lived St. Marcel, 
who is said to have " delivered the country 
from a terrible dragon," which, being inter- 
preted, probably signifies that he was the 
means of destroying paganism. In his time 
the temple of Jupiter gave place to the first 
Christian cathedral in Paris. It was dedi- 
cated to St. Stephen. But the chief saint of 
Paris in early times was St. Genevieve, the 
details of whose history are given in many 
frescoes on the walls of the Paris churches. 
Suffice it to say that she spent her life in 
works of piety and self-denial ; that when 
the fierce Attila came into Gaul bringing 
destruction and death in his train, it was her 
prayers, according to popular belief, which 
kept him out of the city ; that when Clovis^ 
King of the Franks, crossed the Rhine and 
conquered Gaul, and formed the new Frank 
monarchy, it was Saint Genevieve who per- 
suaded the Parisians not to acknowledge 
him until he should embrace Christianity ; 
that he was accordingly baptized at Rheim& 
in 496, and entered Lutetia next year ; that she 
died in 512, at the age of eighty-nine, and was 
buried beside him in the Abbey of St. Peter 
and St. Paul, which had been founded by 
his wife Clotilde. The church was from that 
time known as St. Genevieve, though since 
it was rebuilt in the i8th century it is 
more commonly called the Pantheon. The 
National Convention inscribed on it, "To the 
memory of our great men ; " and here were 
brought Voltaire, Rousseau, Mirabeau, Marat^ 
to be buried. Their remains, however, were 
afterwards removed; those of Marat were 
thrown into a sewer. The shrine of St. 
Genevieve is now to be seen in the neigh- 
bouring church opposite, " St. Stephen on 
the Hill." 

The Merovingian Kings. 
Clovis, which is the Latin form of the 
Teutonic Chlodwig, the same name which 
the French softened into Louis, was the 
founder of what is known as the Merovin- 
gian dynasty in France. It had been, as 
we know, a Roman country ; then, as the 
Roman power dechned, it fell under the 
Visigoths, whose chief seat of power, how- 
ever, was in Spain. But the Visigoths were 
I out of harmony with the Church,— they were 
Arians, who denied the divinity of Christ, — 
and therefore, so it is said, the clergy en- 
couraged King Clovis to come from the 
Rhine country, and establish himself in GauL 
He was nothing loth, and, as we have already 
said, he agreed after a while to be baptized. 
It was done by St. Remigius, Bishop of 
Rheims. " Lower thy head with humihty," 
said the eloquent bishop, " adore what thou 
hast burned, burn what thou hast adored." 



482 



THE VENGEANCE OF '89. 



From the time of Clovis, the city has come 
to be called Paris. There are many interest- 
ing relics of the Meroving kings in and 
about Paris, not only coins and implements 
of war, but deeds and charters with the 
kings' signatures. The student of French 
history will find a collection of woiiderful 
interest in the Archives Nationales in the 
Rue Franc Bourgeois, — a collection to which 
we shall have to refer again. One looks 
there upon the very documents which passed 
under the hands of those Meroving kings, 
who rode in their bullock carts with long 
hair flowing ; for it was law absolute as that 
of the Medes and Persians that no king 
could have a razor come upon his head ; 
here are their deeds, grants of lands to 
faithful followers and to churches. In days 
when all else was moving and in unrest, the 
Church remained a permanent institution, 
and all men felt and recognized its power 
and usefulness. "The Church!" exclaims 
Carlyle, " what a word was there ; richer 
than Golconda and the treasures of the 
world ! In the heart of the remotest moun- 
tains rises the little kirk ; the dead all 
slumbering around it, under their white 
memorial stones, ' in hope of a happy resur- 
rection.' Dull wert thou, O reader, if never 
in any hour (say of moaning midnight, when 
such kirk hung spectral in the sky, and Being 
was, as it were, swallowed up in darkness), 
it spoke to thee things unspeakable, that 
went up into thy soul's soul. Strong was 
he that had a Church, what we can call a 
church ; he stood thereby, though in the 
centre of immensities, in the conflux of 
eternities, yet manlike towards God and 
man ; the vague, shoreless universe had 
become for him a firm city, and dwelling 
which he knew. Such virtue was in belief; in 
these words well spoken, / believe. Well 
might men prize their Credo, and raise -state- 
liest temples for it, and reverend hierarchies, 
and give it the tithe of their substance : it 
was worth living for and dying for." * 

There are two monuments of Merovingian 
royalty in the abbey church of St. Denys, — 
King Dagobert and Queen Frdddgonde. 
The greater part, however, of this race of 
kings were buried in the church of " St. 
Germanus in the Meadows." And now the 
city began to grow on the north side of the 
river as well as the south. Two monasteries, 
St. Martin and St. Lawrence, formed each 
a nucleus of population, and a hunting-lodge 
in the midst of a wood was called Lupara, 
from the number of wolves which infested it. 
This hunting-lodge was afterwards turned 
into a castle by King Philip Augustus ; and 
this again was removed to make room for a 



* "French Revolution," I., 8. 



new palace by Francis I., in 1541. This 
has been altered and enlarged by several 
monarchs since ; but what an effort of ima- 
gination is needed to transform the Lupara, 
or " wolf-haunt," of the 8th century into the 
Louvre of the present day. 

The Carlovingians. 
To the Merovingians succeeded the Carlo- 
vingians, or, as Mr. E. A. Freeman calls them, 
the Karlings, the descendants of Charles 
Martel. The greatest monarch of this line 
was Charles the Great, commonly known as 
Charlemagne. This form of his name is 
unfitting for two reasons. First, he did not 
speak French but German ; and secondly, he 
did not live at Paris, or in what is now called 
French territory. His home, and that of 
nearly all his race, was on the banks of the 
Rhine. His capital was Aix-la-Chapelle. 
The period of the Carloving kings, indeed, 
was not a prosperous one for Paris ; they 
treated it as a simple fief, and as far as 
French territory was concerned, held their 
court at Laon. When the fierce Northmen 
came in the 9th century, and sailed up the 
Seine and the other northern rivers to plunder 
and too often to kill, the Karlings almost left 
Paris to their mercy. This was indeed the 
cause of their downfall in France, and of the 
final separation of the empire of Charles the 
Great into the two divisions which we know 
as France and Germany. 

The Capets. 
Whilst the Carlovingian kings were leaving 
Paris and the Seine country to its fate, a 
new family was coming into note destined to 
play a brilliant part in the history of the 
Frankish nation. In 885, Eudes, or Odo, 
Count of Paris, aided by the Bishop Gos- 
selin, briUiantly defended the city against an 
attack of the Normans. They besieged it 
for a year in vain ; then the Carloving king, 
Charles the Fat, came to succour the city 
with an army. And his succour consisted 
in offering the Northmen a large amount of 
gold to go away. Such a method of deliver- 
ance angered both his German army and his 
Frankish subjects. The former deposed him, 
the latter severed the connection with the East 
Franks, preferring to be ruled by their own 
leader. So Eudes, Duke of Paris, became 
King of the Franks. He transmitted this 
crown to his brother Robert, who was unable 
to hold it long ; but his grandson, Hugh 
Capet, was more successful. He was elected 
king at Senlis, June 30th, 987, and solemnly 
crowned at Rheims, the ecclesiastical metro- 
polis of France, on the following day. But 
let it be remembered that this King of the 
Franks by no means held undivided do- 
minion over the whole country which we now 
call France, or even over the greater part of 



483 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



it. If we take Normandy to begin with, we 
must remember that it was ruled by a Duke 
of Normandy, whose dominion, so long as he 
ruled justly, was as much his as that of Paris 
was under the personal rule of the King. If 
there were complaints made of his govern- 
ment, appeal .lay to the King of the Franks. 
He was " overlord " of the country, and the 
peers who ruled the provinces were his vas- 
sals ; they did homage to him on their enter- 
ing upon their inheritance, but with this 
provision for their righteous rule, their pos- 
sessions were like a freehold. There were 
many times when these great fief-holders were 
quite as powerful as he who was called king. 
The first Capets only held as their personal 
heritage the provinces of the Isle of France, 
Picardy, the Orleannois. The rest were fiefs 
which became added one by one to France, 
as we shall see presently. 

From Hugh Capet the French crown de- 
scended directly from father to his eldest 
son for twelve generations, then the line was 
broken. King Louis X. left no son. He had 
a daughter ; but, according to the Salic law 
which prevailed among the Franks, she could 
not succeed, so the kingdom passed to the 
brother of King Louis. He too died without 
sons, so a third brother came, Charles IV. 
He was the last male of the line ; so the 
Crown went to his cousin Philip, son of 
Charles of Valois, who was a younger brother 
of King Philip IV. Hence we know the first 
branch as the House of Capet, the second as 
that of Valois. But as we see, both alike 
sprang from Hugh Capet. 

Paris under the Capets. 
We have now to review the history of 
Paris under the Capet kings. The first four 
of them, Hugh, Robert, Henry I., Phihp I., 
resided not so much at Paris as at Orleans. 
Louis VI. and VII. principally dwelt at Paris, 
but it was the next monarch, Phihp Augus- 
tus, who did more for it than any of his 
predecessors. He it was indeed who defi- 
nitely made it the capital, established the 
officei'S of government there, and built the 
"great tower of the Louvre," in which he 
deposited the State papers and treasures. 
He also fortified the " faubourgs " which had 
grown up on both sides of the river, and for 
the first time made them an integral part of 
the city. He reigned for forty-three years, 
during which the city grew so much that it 
was divided into eight " quarters " instead of 
four. He also paved the streets, which 
hitherto had been impassable in rainy 
weather, built great market-places and seve- 
ral bridges. But he further vastly increased 
the importance of Paris by organising and 
grouping together, under the title of the Uni- 
versity, the lectures in literature, philosophy, 
and theology, which were at that time flour- 



ishing in their strength under the hands of 
those learned men who have given to these 
days the name of "Age of the Schoolmen." 
The University of Paris was founded in 1200, 
and completely organized by 1215. It was 
on the left bank of the river, separate from 
the rest of the city, and called " The Latin 
Quarter,"- — a name which it retains to this 
day. The character which it soon acqiu'red 
for learning, the facilities which it rendered 
to those who sought its benefits but were 
too poor to pay for them, gave it a renown 
surpassing that of any place in Europe. Thus 
Paris now became the political capital of 
France and the literary capital of Europe. 
To have studied at Paris was among the 
highest honours which a literary man could 
aspire to. It is remarkable that in the 13th 
century, which produced the noblest cathe- 
drals, so many of the architects were from 
the University of Paris. The further de- 
velopment of the Sorbonne, named after its 
founder, Robert Sorbon, belongs to the reign 
of Louis IX., A.D. 1250. 

To Philip Augustus also France owed much 
for uniting the monarchy. The original per- 
sonal domain of Hugh Capet, as we have 
seen, included only the Isle of France, Picardy, 
and Orleannois. Normandy, formed into a 
state by Rollo, or Rou, whose name survives 
in its capital, Rouen, where his tomb is still 
to be seen, passed to the kings of England 
when a duke of Normandy became the 
English conqueror. Phihp Augustus wrested 
it from King John. But by his able centra- 
lisation of the administration of justice he in- 
creased his power and influence over the other 
fiefs. The result of this showed itself in a very 
marked way under Louis IX., who established 
a parliament. The Provost of Paris was at 
the head of the municipal administration. 
He was a judiciary, always a royal officer. 
He was a distinct personage from the " Pro- 
vost of the Merchants," who took charge of 
all which concerned commerce and provision- 
ment. He was in reality, though not in title. 
the mayor of Paris. The first town-hall was 
on the left bank of the river, not far from 
St. Genevieve. Louis IX. built a grand 
palace on the Isle of the City. The present 
Palace of Justice is built on the site of it, 
and several portions of the original palace 
still exist, as the kitchens, the great guard- 
room, the round towers which face the street, 
and above all the beautiful Sainte Chapelle, 
a church of two stories, in the upper of which 
is an empty shrine, formerly containing the 
relics which he brought from the East, and 
which are now in Noij'e Dame. This church 
is one of the most lovely specimens of Gothic 
architecture in the world. 

Of all the French kings, Louis IX. loved 
justice most. It was a veritable passion with 
him. Hallam expresses his opinion that his 



484 



THE VENGEANCE OF '89 



is the most beautiful character in history. 
He would go into the Wood of Vincennes and 
sit unr'er a tree, that his subjects might have 
free in tercourse with him and tell their needs. 
But we must not linger on his life, — it is like 
going back to the Age of Gold, — but pass on. 

The House of Valois. 

To this House belong thirteen kings of 
France, beginning with Philip VI. in 1328, 
and ending with Henry III., assassinated in 
1589. It is a period full of activity, full of 
tumult. Two of the kings fell into the hands 
of an enemy : John, at Poitiers, to Edward 
the Black Prince ; Francis I., at Pavia, to 
Charles V. Twice the sceptre was on the 
very point of slipping from the. King's hand : 
once into the hand of the EngUsh king, pre- 
vented by Joan of Arc ; once into that of the 
Guises, prevented by the League. Three 
great foreign wars belong to this period : 
the first with England, begun through the 
unjust claims of Edward III.,* and con- 
tinued through the renewal of them by 
Henry V., in which the kingdom was all but 
lost, but was recovered, as I have already 
said, by the Maid of Orleans ; the second 
with Italy, a source of great evils ; the third 
with Germany, begun under most unhappy 
auspices. 

But further, to the epoch of the House of 
Valois belong also three of the four civil wars 
which sadden the annals of France : that of 
Chajies tJie ^cT(/, under John and Charles V.; 
that of the Arniagnacs and Bnrgundians, 
under Charles VI. ; that of the Protestants and 
the League, under Francis II., Charles IX., 
and Henry III. The most terrible defeats 
and the most glorious victories belong to this 
period; and as if all things concurred to make 
it famous, this was the age of those remark- 
able discoveries which were as a new revela- 
tion to man, — artillery, printing, the compass, 
America, the way to the Indies. And now, 
too, began French poetry and drama. 

But what appears so strange is that not 
only did the misfortunes of the House of 
Valois not impede the progress of its power, 
they even contributed so much to hasten and 
increase it. Every reverse was followed by 
a solid success, and every civil trouble by 
an increase of the royal authority. Philip of 
Valois, who was utterly routed at Crecy, 
added Dauphine to his possessions ; and 
John, the conquered of Poitiers and the 
Black Prince's captive, added Burgundy ; 
Charles VII., who on his accession was left 



* He claimed the French crown on the groiind that 
his mother was the daughter of PhiUp IV. But even 
had there been no such thing as the Salic law, his 
claim would have been bad, because Louis X. had 
left a daughter who would have come before him. 



485 



' seemingly without any resource or hope, had 
i before his death completed the conquest of 
I the English provinces in the west. 
j But what concerns us most, the kings of 
France, who at the beginning of this dynasty 
had, as we have already noticed, possessed 
but a limited authority over a large portion 
of France, found themselves before its close 
lords of a united monarchy. The treachery 
and cruelty of Louis XI. cannot bhnd us to 
his great ability. He overcame the great 
vassals who had bidden defiance to liis power, 
and held themselves almost as independent 
sovereigns ; and from his time France was, 
both in word and fact, a monarchy. To this 
end the fierce civil wars begun by the dukes 
of Burgundy had so greatly tended. 

Troubles ; The Jacquerie, 
When Philip of Valois ascended the throne, 
he found before him the task ot composing a 
kingdom half distracted with the bad govern- 
ment of his predecessors. Philip IV. (the 
Fair) and his three sons had frightfully mis- 
managed the finances of the countr}% ta.xes 
were oppressive, and the frequent alterations 
in the currency brought trouble and confusion 
into every transaction. But this heritage of 
trouble was aggravated by Edward the Third's 
unrighteous claim, and the war that followed 
increased public .misery, and consequently 
public discontent. The fatal battle of Poitiers, 
in 1356, by leaving King John a prisoner in 
the hands of the English, caused Charles the 
Dauphin, afterwards Charles V., to convoke 
at Paris the States-General, as his father 
had done twice before. This convocation of 
the nobles, clergy, and people, only resorted 
to on e.xtraordmary emergencies, invariably 
showed itself on the side of popular rights 
and liberties. On the present occasion the 
presiding spirit was the Provost of the Mer- 
chants, Stephen Marcel, a man of political 
intelligence far in advance of his age, though 
unscrupulous. Under his guidance, aided 
by his friend Robert Lecoq, Bishop of Laon, 
the States-General in 1356 and the two fol- 
lowing years reformed the administration, 
insisted on a just apportionment of the taxa- 
tion, and of a controlling power to be vested 
in elective assemblies. This was the begin- 
ning of a constitutional government, imprac- 
ticable under simple feudalism. The Dauphin 
promised, even put the new provisions into a 
sort of charter, though he found means to 
elude them afterwards. Marcel, foreseeing 
that he would attempt this, placed the bur- 
gesses of Paris under arms. At that time 
was living Charles the Bad, King of Navarre. 
He was a direct descendant of Hugh Capet, 
the great-grandson of Philip IV., but as it 
was through his mother, he was prevented 
from reigning by the Salic law. He deserved 
his unpleasant surname, for he had neither 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



faith nor morals, and passed his life in strata- 
gems and treasons. He came to Paris now, 
harangued the people, and, in concert with 
Marcel, excited them against the Dauphin, 
A body of armed men invaded the Louvre 
and massacred the principal Counsellors of 
State before the Dauphin's eyes, whereupon 
he escaped from the capital, and retired to 
Compi^gne, where he called together fresh 
representatives of the nation, who, jealous of 
the overpowering influence of Paris, showed 
themselves more favourable to Charles, while 
they still insisted on reform of government. 
Marcel, now in open revolt, dreading the 
return of the Dauphin, excited, or at least 
encouraged, the terrible insurrection called 
ihe Jacquerie. It was crushed ; then Marcel, 
in despair, endeavoured to introduce the King 
of Navarre and the English into Paris. But 
this was further than the people of Paris 
were prepared to go ; the plot was discovered, 
and Marcel was slain as, with the keys in 
his hand, he was approaching the St. Denis 
gate to let the King of Navarre in. The 
Dauphin immediately afterwards entered Paris 
as a conqueror. 

When he became king, Charles V. pro- 
fited by the severe lesson which he had 
received in his youth, and though he did not 
see fit to carry out the reforms which the 
excesses of Marcel had now rendered less 
popular, he yet used his absolute authority 
well and beneficently. His administration 
was hailed by the people as the return of the 
happy days of St. Louis. By the help of the 
illustrious Bertrand Duguesclin, — a simple 
Breton gentleman possessed of so few advan- 
tages that he could not even read, but bold 
as a lion and as honourable as bold, — he 
reversed the Black Prince's successes, and 
added the provinces north of the Loire to his 
own dominions. 

Foundation of the Bastille. 

And now we come to the work of the reign 
of Charles V. which more especially concerns 
this paper. The building of the Bastille, so 
far from being a blot on his memory, was 
intended not for a prison, but to provide for 
the defence of Paris. It was one of several 
works of the same character. * 

The first stone of the Bastille was laid by 
Hugh d'Aubriot, Mayor of Paris, April 22nd, 
1370. He was a native of Dijon, who had 
come very poor to Paris, but had prospered 
there, come under the King's notice, and 
attracted his confidence. He built the Pofif 
au Change, then called " the Great Bridge," 



* The name Bastile, or Bastel, was given to any 
erection intended to withstand a military force. 
There were, therefore, many in France, but this 
retained the name longest. 



provided sanitary improvements, and planned 
the Bastille. That is, he built two strong 
towers facing the Street St. Anthony, joined 
them with a strong wall, in the centre of 
which was the gate of the town. But Aubriot 
fell into trouble. After the death of Charles 
v., whether rightly or wrongly we have no 
means of knowing, he was accused of irre- 
ligion both in profession and practice, and 
was condemned to be shut up in one of the 
towers of his own Bastille. He was after- 
wards removed from thence to the Chatelet. 
Fresh riots presently rose, in consequence of 
the taxation caused by the war with England. 
The insurgents went about with clubs {jnail- 
lots) loaded with lead, and therefore were 
called Maillotins. The name of Aubriot 
happening to be mentioned, was caught up 
with acclamation, his prison was forced, and 
he was carried out in triumph, elevated on 
men's shoulders, and even saluted as king. 
But he was too wise to commit himself by 
acceptance of this dangerous title. He with- 
drew privately on the first night of his libera- 
tion, made his way back to his native Dijon, 
and ended his days in peace at an advanced 
age. 

Growth of the Bastille. 
In the next reign two more towers were 
added opposite the first. Then came four 
others, with connecting walls, until the whole 
presented a quadrangular form, somewhat 
bulging out, however, on the east side, the 
long side of the quadrangle being in face of 
the Rue St. Antoine, and the entrance was in 
the narrow end of the quadrangle on the 
south, between the two towers. A broad 
ditch, thirty-six feet deep, was dug round the 
whole, lined with masonry. It was, how- 
ever, dry, except when the Seine was flooded, 
and was used as a garden. The visitor who 
wished to enter the fortress passed through 
a gateway on the right side of the Rue St. 
Antoine, crossed a drawbridge, passed be- 
tween walls within which were offices and 
sutler's shops, and so passed round to the 
southern side of the fortress till he stood 
opposite the gateway. Here, over the fosse, 
was another drawbridge. This being crossed, 
he found himself within the walls. The 
walls were of enormous thickness, and nearly 
a hundred feet in height. As we have 
already said, the ground-plan was quad- 
rangular, the interior was divided into two 
courts, the first 102 feet long, the second 42, 
the width of them was 72 feet. In the first 
court was the great clock, the only sound, 
says one of the prisoners in his Reminiscences, 
that broke the stillness for many an hour 
together. It was a cruel idea to ornament 
the dial with sculptures of a man and woman 
chained hand and foot. The tops of _ the 
towers and of the curtain walls that joined 



486 



THE VENGEANCE OF '89. 



them were flat, with a parapet wall, and on 
the towers were a few pieces of cannon. The 
rooms which were used as prisons are de- 
scribed by some of the prisoners as not 
uncomfortable as prisons go, that is, they are 
said to have been neither damp, nor cold, 
nor ill-ventilated, and the furniture was 
sufficient. It must, however, be said that 
there is discrepancy of testimony on this 
point. Probably treatment varied at diffe- 
rent epochs and under different governments. 
The statement that on the demolition rooms 
for torturing prisoners were discovered is 
entirely a myth, neither places nor instru- 
ments of torture were found. 

The Bourbon Kings. 

The last monarchs of the House of Valois 
were as much under clouds as those of the 
preceding line. The troubles now arose out 
of the Reformation struggles. The last king 
of the Valois line, Henry HI., was assas- 
sinated at St. Cloud by a fanatic monk, 
July 31st, 1589, and the crown then devolved 
on Henry, King of Navarre, whose descent 
was from Hugh Capet, like the rest of the 
kings. He was a ninth descendant of 
Louis IX. 

The House of Bourbon produced some of 
the greatest kings of France, and under this 
dynasty were produced its most famous 
captains. Henry IV. was a man whose 
memory was always deeply cherished. Louis 
XIV. seemed to have arrived at the perfec- 
tion of earthly greatness, yet in his reign 
were gathered together the elements of the 
terrible revolution which swept his House 
away. The slightest sketch of their history 
is all that we can offer. 

Henry IV., though stained with some 
personal vices, was a brilliant hero, and a 
king who strove for the good of the nation, 
and governed it in the spirit of a father. 
Finding that the Reformed faith was at the 
lowest ebb in France, — for, indeed, the St. 
Bartholomew massacre in 1572 had almost 
extinguished Protestantism, — he committed 
the grievous error of abjuring it, though he 
loved it, and of declaring himself a Roman 
Cathohc. He believed that by so doing he 
should best promote peace, and be enabled 
to secure liberty of conscience. The Edict 
of Nantes was the outcome of this policy, 
which provided for equality as to religious 
profession, and admission on equal terms to 
public employments. This was in 1599. 
The original document is in \h.Q Archives Na- 
tionales. So also is the revocation of it by 
Louis XIV., a deed full of evil consequences. 
Henry was able now to devote himself to the 
state of the finances, for France had ap- 
proached nearly to bankruptcy ; he introduced 
order, economy, and good government every- 
where, being much assisted by his wise 



minister, Sully. France had begun to re- 
cover after a long period of misery, when 
Henry Avas stabbed by an assassin in the 
street. May 14th, 1610, and the country was 
again thrown into confusion. His son, 
Louis XIII. , was only nine years of age. 
He was not a great man, but he allowed a 
great man to govern, though he disliked him, 
being honestly desirous for the advancement 
of France. This great man was Cardinal 
Richelieu, and the policy with which he is 
most identified is his determined endeavour 
to humble the House of Austria. What is 
known as the Thirty Years' War (16 18- 1648) 
was a bitter contest between Romanism and 
Protestantism in Germany. Richelieu took 
the Protestants' side in pursuance of his set 
policy. He died six months before the King, 
whose death took place on the thirty-third 
anniversary of his accession, May 14th, 1643. 

The reign of Louis XIV., beginning in his 
fifth year, lasted for seventy-two years. As 
his father's reign was controlled by Richelieu 
so the early part of that of Louis XIV. was 
under Cardinal Mazarin. The long reign 
has three distinct divisions. The beginning 
was troubled with the miserable civil war of 
the Fronde. The middle was full of glory ; 
the King was successful in war, adding 
largely to .his territory on the last at the 
expense of Germany ; he surrounded himself 
with illustrious men, and covered France 
with handsome buildings. The end was 
darkened with troubles. The victories of 
the Duke of Marlborough did much to 
crumble to pieces the power and prestige 
which Louis had gained by his previous 
successes. It was a time when absolutism 
carried all before it ; but a heritage of evil 
was being stored up for those who came 
after. 

Louis XV., great-grandson of his prede- 
cessor, was but six years old at his succession. 
The Regent Orleans, so long as he lived, 
ruled him wisely, but died in 1723. For a 
while Louis was greatly loved by his people ; 
but his life became scandalously corrupt and 
self-indulgent, the nation was ill-governed 
and oppressed, the finances again became 
embarrassed. He died in 1774, and was 
succeeded by his grandson, Louis XVI., the 
best-intentioned of men, the most unfortunate 
of kings. He was not yet twenty years old; 
his beautiful wife, Marie Antoinette, was in 
her nineteenth year. She had been married 
before she was fifteen. 

The Bastille and the Absolute 

Monarchy. 
We have given the above sketch, because 
the attack on the Bastille, which we have to 
relate, was really an attack on the principles 
of absolutism, of which the Bastille was held 
to be a standing symbol. We have seen how 



487 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



it was turned into a prison in its early days, 
though not intended for that purpose. To 
this purpose, however, it was now constantly 
put. Several victims of Louis XL were 
thrown into it: the Bishop of Verdun and 
Duke of Alencon died there; the Count of 
St. Paul, and Jacques d'Armagnac, Duke of 
Nemours, were shut ud until they were taken 
out to the 
Place de 
Greve to 
execution. 
In succeed- 
ing reigns 
many illus- 
trious pri- 
soners were 
shut up 
within the 
fortress; the 
Dau phin, 
who after- 
wards be- 
came Louis 
XIL, and 
the great 
C o n d e 
am o n g 
them. It 
was the 
cruel and 
crafty Louis 
Xl.who first 
made it 
serve exclu- 
sively as a 
State pri- 
son. 

It is not, 
how ever, 
until 1663 
that we 
have any 
comple t e 
and regular 
register ot' 
the prison- 
ers in the 
Bastille 
Fifty-foui 
persons 
were con- 
fined there 
that year, 
mostly for 

writing against the Government. In 1664, 
there were thirteen, mostly confined for 
Jansenism. But let us set down some of 
the charges from the list as it lies before 
us: — "For writing a work, 'Une Histoire 
Amoureuse' ;" "for poisoning;" "for selling 
poisons;" "for sacrilege;" " for pretending 
to foretell events ;" " for having assisted 
persons to go clandestinely to America;" 




To THE Bastille 



" for intriguing with the Spanish ambas- 
sador;" "for intrigues with the Prince of 
Orange;" "for matters touching religion" 
(many) ; (a priest) "for marrying Protestants;" 
"for pretending to make love potions;" 
"for saying that the King (Louis XI Y.) 
oppressed his subjects and only thought of 
amusing himself with his old woman 

( Madame 
de Main- 
tenon), that 
he would 
soon be a 
kmg of beg- 
gars, that 
ins officers 
^^ ere star- 
vmg, and 
that he had 
lumed the 
kmgdom by 
driving 
away the 
H u g u e - 
nots;""for 
disrespect 
to King 
George in 
not m e n- 
tioning him 
m his Al- 
manack as 
King of 
Great Bri- 
tain;" (Vol- 
taire) " for 
writing 
against the 
Reg ent ; " * 
" for selling 
a print re- 
pie sen ting 
the roast- 
1 n g of a 
pope larded 
with Jes- 
uits;" "for 
selling 
drugs, pre- 
tending 
they would 
produce the 
appearance 
of youth ; " 
" for teach- 
convulsions." 



ing persons to counterfeit 



* He was confined here for a year, and composed 
most of his Hcnriade duruig the time. On being 
hberated he was presented to the Regent, who asked 
him if he had any request to make. " Monseigneur, " 
was the reply, " I shall take it very kind if His. 
Majesty will charge himself with feeding me. But 
I earnestly trust he will not again do so with lodging 
me." 



THE VENGEANCE OF '89. 



These are but specimens ; they indicate pro- 
bably that some deserved imprisonment, and 
others not, which is really all that one can say 
'rom the items themselves. 

The plan of imprisoning in the Bastille 
usually was to issue a warrant called letlre de 
cachet, i.e. sealed letter, which empowered 
police officers to seize a man wheiever they 
found hini, 
and at one _ 
carry hn 1 
off to the 
prison. 

Many who 
had been 
prisoners m 
the Bastille 
wrote their 
exp eriences 
of it; but 
the writei 
whose work 
contributed 
most of all 
to its de- 
structi on 
was Simon 
L i ngue t, 
con cernm j 
whose hib- 
tory a fev/ 
words are 
needed. He 
was b 1 n 
at Rhemia 
July 14th 
(the date 13 
remar kabl e 
when con- 
nected with 
the event 
which he 
contrib uted 
so much to 
bring about 
that d a v 
fifty-three 
yearsXi/s"^ 
His father 
was a pio- 
fessor in a 
college, wl 
was druen 

into exile At the Door ! 

and poverty 

for his Jansenist opinions. The youth, having 
found opportunity of studying in Paris, led a 
somewhat roving and unsettled life, travelling 
through many countries and making good use 
of his eyes, and finally settled down to litera- 
ture as a profession. The catalogue of his works 
fills many pages, but the chief of them, "Politi- 
cal,Civil,and LiteraryAnnals of the Eighteenth 
Century," formed by far the most important. 




They were begun in 1777, and fill nineteen 
volumes, and were written from a point of 
view altogether hostile to the French form of 
government, very energetic and powerful in 
style, bitter, trenchant, and not unfrequently 
spiteful. " He burns, but he throws light," 
said Voltaire tersely, after reading one of his 
volunies The volumes \\eie written some in 

Engl an d, 



some m 
S w i t z e r- 
land, some 
In Brussels. 
According 
to his own 
account he 
desired to 
come to 
Paris while 
the publica- 
t i o n was 
going on, 
and wrote 
to the mini- 
sterVergen- 
nes, asking 
for a safe- 
conduct. 
The Min- 
is t e r p ro- 
niised that 
he should 
not be mo- 
lested ; he 
came, and 
was arret- 
ed in the 
street and 
thrown into 
the Bastille, 
Sept. 27th. 
1780. There 
he remain - 
c d until 
I\ray 19th, 
i 1782, when, 
having first 
been com- 
pelled to 
3wear that 
h e w o u 1 d 
" never re- 
veal, either 
directly or 
indirectly 
what he had seen or what he had suf- 
fered," he was allowed to go into exile to 
Rethel. Thence he escaped to London, 
where he wrote his "Memoirs of the Bastille," 
declaring that he did not consider an enforced 
oath binding. From this time he continued 
to write, pamphlets and historical essays 
chiefly. He had, however, fallen into neglect 
until the break-out of the Revolution and the 



489 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



destruction of the Bastille, — as we have said, 
in consequence to a great degree of his 
revelations. Then he went to France again, 
and betook himself to agriculture. But his 
sour and suspicious characteristics seemed 
to have grown with his years, as every page 
of his latter life indicates. In the Reign of 
Terror he was seized and guillotined, June 
27th, 1794. 

In these Memoirs he declares that pre- 
vious inmates have given such rose-coloured 
descriptions of their treatment that ." one 
would think that Tartarus after all was a 
sort of Champs Elysees." And he goes on to 
draw a terrible picture of the misery which 
he underwent himself, — for twelve months 
knowing absolutely nothing of what' was 
going on outside, subjected to cold and pri- 
vation, above all to solitude and silence, and 
he ends his work by a passionate appeal to 
Louis XVI. Recounting what that king 
has done to ameliorate the condition of pri- 
soners and of the poor generally, he exclaims, 
" In God's name give to all Europe the 
spectacle of a miracle which you are able to 
work. Speak! At your voice the walls of 
this modern Jericho will be seen to crumble, 
a thousand times more deserving than the 
ancient Jericho of the lightning of heaven 
and the anathemas of men. The reward of 
this noble work will be the glory of your 
reign, a redoubling of the love of the people 
for your person and your house, the blessing 
of the age which is now, and of all ages to 
come." 

An Escape from the Bastille. 
_ Many are the tq.les of misery and some- 
times of romance which are connected with 
this gloomy prison. Out of them all we 
select the story of Henry Masere de la Tude. 
He was born in 1725, the son of a French 
marquis, and on arriving at manhood entered 
the army. It happened however to be a time 
of peace, he had no occupation, and in an 
evil hour for himself he came to Paris. In 
1749, hearing on all sides the hatred with 
which Madame de Pompadour, the mistress 
of the dissolute Louis XV., was regarded, the 
shameful project occurred to him of gaining 
her favour by pretending to discover a plot 
against her life. The scheme was so shallow 
as to be at once detected, and the schemer 
was sent to the Bastille. He was treated 
kindly, however, by the lieutenant of police, 
M. Berryer, but after-a while was transferred 
to the prison of Vincennes. Here he was 
very miserable for a while, but by wonderful 
assurance and coolness he managed to 
escape, after nine months detention. 

One hardly knows whether to call his next 
act chivalry or folly. From his hiding-place 
in Paris he addressed a letter to the courtesan, 
" I judged," he says, " of Madame de Pompa- 



dour by myself, and idly fancied I might 
pique her into generosity by avowing the 
place of my retreat, and throwing myself on 
her clemency for pardon of the past." But 
she was as revengeful as she was dissolute. 
He was seized, and (so he says) was promised 
mercy if he would explain how he contrived to 
escape from Vincennes. He told, and was 
immediately sent back to the Bastille, and 
no longer allowed any of the mitigations he 
had received before. After six months of 
this, half-maddened by the incarceration 
which was made infinitely worse by "his fiery 
and restless temperament, he revenged him- 
self by writing a satire on Pompadour. It 
was conveyed to her, and her rage was almost 
maniacal. She swore that nothing should 
ever induce her to relent towards him. 

Berryer, however, who evidently felt a 
great interest and pity for him, allowed him 
to have a companion, one AMgre, who had 
also incurred Pompadour's wrath, though in 
a nobler manner, for he had written her a 
letter of remonstrance. To this young man 
La Tude imparted a scheme of escape ! 
They would climb their chimney, descend 
from the top into the fosse, and climb the 
wall on the other side. But what a scheme ! 
The chimney, full all the way up of bars and 
gratings, rose to the height of the topmost 
tower, whence the descent into the fosse was 
a sheer two hundred feet. Where was the 
material to be found for the rope ladder for 
such a descent, or for the wood for the ascent 
from the ditch? And how conceal their 
preparations, watched every hour of the day 
and night? No wonder that to Alegre the 
whole idea seemed madness. 

"As for ropes," said La Tude one day 
when his companion had expressed his sense 
of the impossibility of escape, "my trunk 
contains a thousand feet at least. Don't you 
know that it is stuffed full of linen, — shirts, 
towels, stockings, night-caps, and I don't 
know what besides?" His companion was 
so far moved by such enthusiasm that he 
began actually to have hopes. 

The first object was to find a hiding-place 
for their tools, if they could contrive to get 
any. La Tude knew that there must be a 
prisoner in the cell beneath him, though he 
I could not hear him move. He guessed there- 
fore that there must be some interval between 
the two rooms. To ascertain this he bade 
Alegre, whilst going to chapel, to draw out 
some trifle from his pocketalongwithhis hand- 
kerchief and let it roll down the stairs. Whilst 
he should send the turnkey to recover it, 
La Tude was to take a hasty glance into the 
lower room. The plan succeeded ; the 
glance was taken. La Tude saw by the 
height within, compared with the number of 
steps outside, that there must be a vacant 
space of some five feet. They set to work 



490 



THE VENGEANCE OF 'I 



then ; sharpened the iron clamps of their 
table on the stones of the hearth, wrenched 
up a square of the tiled floor, and formed a 
hollow of four feet between the two stories. 
Here was their secret cupboard then. There 
they ripped up shirts, unravelling them thread 
by thread. Thus slowly they began their lad- 
der. Then it cost them six months hard labour 
to remove the bars of the chimney. These 
bars were fixed in cement so hard that there 
was no way of softening it but by squirting 
ivater from their mouths into holes previously 
bored. " We never left off a single night 
but with bloody hands," he says. Then 
further, when a bar was wrenched out, it had 
to be replaced in its socket for the time, lest 
it should be detected. 

For the wooden ladder they sawed the 
wood delivered to them for firing, which was 
in billets of from eighteen to twenty inches. 
But there were parts of this work for which 
a can was indispensable. They made one 
out of an old candlestick with the help of the 
steel of the tinder-box. They made a single 
rail, boring holes through it, into which the 
steps were to be mortised, each part to be 
tied in its place. Of course it was necessary 
to hide this, and therefore as fast as one part 
was completed, it was numbered and stowed 
away. They knew that they could put it 
all together in a night when they needed it. 

So passed eighteen months ; weary work 
enough, but sustained and cheered by inex- 
tinguishable hope. On the 2Sth of February, 
1756, the attempt was begun. With terrible 
anxiety and cat-like stillness La Tude as- 
cended the chimney with such labour that 
both arms and legs ran down with blood. 
As soon as he reached the top he let down 
a ball of twine, to which Al^gre tied the 
portmanteau containing their effects, and 
it was drawn up, Al^gre following it. They 
stood at length on the top of the tower; 
so far, so good. Then the rope was tied 
securely to a cannon, and La Tude began 
his perilous descent, swaying and fluttering 
in the air at every movement that he made, 
and knowing that there was but this thin rope 
between him and death. He descended in 
safety, then held the rope steady for his 
companion. Another danger passed ! 

Crossing the ditch in the fosse they sud- 
denly heard the sentry pass. Nothing was 
possible but to hold their heads under water 
until he was gone by. The pavement outside 
was swarming with sentries . There was no 
possibility of evading these ; nothing re- 
mained but to dig through the wall between 
the two fosses. It took them nine hours, 
standing in water above their waists. And 
this on a winter's night ! At length it was 
done. As the clock struck five they were in 
the Street St. Atoine, and both alike knelt 
down in the street and thanked God. 



He reached Amsterdam, was there recog- 
nized, and, to the disgrace of the Dutch 
government, was handed over to Pompadour's 
insatiable vengeance, and once more lodged 
in his gloomy prison. His enemy died, and 
after thirty-five years' confinement he re- 
gained his freedom. His words of con- 
clusion are most touching from their very 
simplicity. " We arrived at home. I saw a 
neat though plain apartment, where every- 
thing told that I had been long expected. I 
looked round on all with the interest, almost 
with the curiosity of childhood ; the most 
trifling object gave me enjoyment : all was 
food for happiness. I was restored to free 
intercourse with my fellow-creatures." 

He was present atthe capture ofthe Bastille, 
and saw on that eventful day the implements 
of his wonderful escape, which had been pre- 
served as curiosities in the fortress. He 
lived on till 1 804. 

A Poet's Indignant Denunciation. 

The effect of the work of Linguet was 
almost as powerful for the ultimate destruc- 
tion of the Bastille as " Uncle Tom's Cabin " 
was for the abolition of slavery. Cowper 
had evidently read it when he wrote these 
lines, — 

"Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts, 
Ye dungeons and ye cages of despair. 

There's not an Enghsh heart that would not leap 
To hear that ye were fallen, 

:fc :^ :^ :{: $ic :J: ^ 

Here dwell the most forlorn of human kind, 

Immured, though unaccused, condemned untried 

Cruelly spared, and hopeless of escape. 

Here, like the visionary emblem seen 

By him of Babylon, life stands a stump 

And, filleted about with hoops of brass, 

Still lives, though all its pleasant boughs are lone 

To count the hour-bell and expect no change, 

And ever as the sullen sound is heard, 

Still to reflect that though a joyless note 

To him whose movements all have one dull pace, 

Ten thousand rovers in the world at large 

Account it music, — that it summons some 

To theatre or jocund feast or ball ; 

The wearied hireling finds it a release 

From labour ; and the lover, who has chid 

Its long delay, feels every welcome stroke 

Upon his heart-strings, trembling with delight. 

To fly for refuge from distracting thought 

To such amusements as ingenious woe 

Contrives, hard shifting and without her tools — 

To read engraven on the moulden walls, 

In staggering types, his predecessor's tale, 

A sad memorial, and subjoin his own ; 

To tiirn purveyor to an overgorged 

And bloated spider, till the pampered pest 

Is made familiar, watches his approach. 

Comes at his call, and serves him for a friend ; 

To wear out time in numbering to and fro 

The studs that thick emboss his iron door, 

Then downward and then upward, then aslant, 

And then alternate, with a sickly hope 

By dint of change to give his tasteless task 

Some relish, till the sum exactly found 



491 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



In all directions, he begins again; 

Oh comfortless existence ! hemmed around 

With woes, which who that suffers would not kneel 

And beg for exile, or the pangs of death ? 

That man should thus encroach on fellow-man, 

Abridge him of his just and native rights, 

Eradicate him, tear him from his hold 

Upon the endearments of domestic life 

And social, nip his fruitfulness and use. 

And doom him for perhaps a heedless word 

To barrenness, and solitude and tears, 

Moves indignation, makes the name of king 

(Of king whom such prerogative can please) 

As dreadful as the Manichean God, 

Adored through fear, strong only to destroy. * 

The Beginning of the Revolution. 

We have now to trace out, as succinctly as 
we can, the causes which brought on the 
tremendous revolution, the effects of which 
remain to this day, — a revolution, indeed, 
which affected the political condition of 
every country in Europe, and of which 
almost the first result in France was the 
destruction of the Bastille. 

The causes may be classed under three 
heads : — 

1. The circumstances of the monarchy. 

2. The ideas which had taken possession 
of the popular mind. 

3. The character of the monarch. 

We have already seen how France had 
emerged out of barbarism and become the 
most poHshed nation in the world, and the 
oldest monarchy in Europe. The monarch 
was held to be subject to law, as Bossuet 
declared when preaching before Louis XIV. 
The nobility was a hereditary class devoted 
to the service of the State. The clergy had 
become rich through the bequests of the 
pious, and its ranks were open to all classes. 
The commons, or " Third Estate," who made 
up the body of the nation, comprised bur- 
gesses, artizans, peasants. Many of them 
had become proprietors, and were very 
jealous of their privileges, electing their ' 
municipal officers, and controlling the affairs 
of their parishes. 

In all this there were the elements of govern- 
ment altogether admirable, but abuses had 
come in which needed reform. Thus the 
clergy, though in theory equal, had come to 
be divided into classes, — members of the 
nobility and men born of the commonalty, 
and the rich prizes of the Church too much 
fell to the former. The nobility were many 
of them given to dwelling in Paris, instead of 
on their estates, leading a frivolous life in- 
stead of fulfilling the theory of the constitu- 
tion, that they should be as fathers of their 
neighbours. 

Much indeed which is brought against the 
" old regime " is merely imaginary. Thus 
men talk of serfage, whereas it had ceased 
pver since the 12th century. The right of 
pr'mogeniture was a custom confined to the 



nobility ; it was abolished at the Revolution^ 
not for love of natural right, but as a politic 
measure. There are stories about the 
peasantry having to pass the night in beating 
the ponds to prevent the frogs from croaking 
and disturbing the landlord's sleep. It is a 
fiction out of some romance depicting a 
wretched hypochondriac, like Fairlie in the 
" Woman in White." The more any reader 
chooses to examine into the facts of society 
in France before the Revolution, the more he 
will be convinced that there was need for 
reform, and that there was also every reason to 
deprecate the destruction of a system of which 
the fundamental principles were sound, — 
principles which had through the progress of 
centuries combined to place France among 
the first of the nations. 

For administrative purposes France was 
divided into thirty-eight Provinces, some ad- 
ministered by officers of state in the name of 
the central power, others governed by local 
parliaments of the three Estates freely elected 
in the Province. The former of these two 
classes had been greatly injured by the sel- 
fishness of the stewards,who had sought to ex- 
tend their own authority at the expense of the 
local liberties. This led to serious mischiefs. 

But — and here we touch the real causes of 
the evil days which came — the i8th century 
was an epoch of moral evil. The nobility 
who, as we have said, had done much to for- 
feit their legitimate influence by living away 
from their country seats, had become liber- 
tine and free-thinking. The infidel writings 
of Voltaire and Rousseau had been received 
with the welcome accorded by men whose 
careless living incited them to hope that a 
godless creed was true ; the clergy had gone 
with the multitude into a life of careless ease 
and sloth ; legions of pamphlets embodying 
the ideas of the infidel encyclopjedists fami- 
liarized the people with the idea that all that 
was old was false, and ready to be swept 
away. The character and work of Christ, the 
Sacraments and the Scriptures, Avere treated 
as if they were on the same footing with the 
myths and corruptions of the Middle Ages. 

The catastrophe which ended the reign of 
Louis XVI. almost blinds us to the first 
fifteen years of his reign. They formed an 
epoch of great national prosperity ; agricul- 
ture had been blessed with ten uninterrupted 
years of good harvests, industry had been 
developed, and commerce was extending 
itself abroad. Military glory, too, had not 
been wanting, though for this the King had no 
taste. It must be confessed that the war 
which the French people undertook against 
England in this reign was an unrighteous 
war, and brought a heavy penalty. When 
the American colonies revolted from England, 
the French nation took part with them, partly 
out of spite and a desire of revenge for past 



492 



THE VENGEANCE OF '89. 



wounds, partly with the behef that prestige 
might be won by taking part with the win- 
ning side. But its effect was disastrous to 
the monarchy, both because the expense tjxv- 
barrased the national finances, and also 
because the French soldiery returned home 
enamoured of the spirit of democracy and 
kindled with enthusiasm for successful re- 
bellion. 

Thus the finances fell into confusion ; and 
this was aggravated by the incapacity of 
several ministers, chiefly Calonne, a showy, 
reckless man, who dazzled everybody's eyes 
with his dexterity, but who went on the sys- 
tem of ruinous loans ; " trying to put fire out 
by throwing oil upon it," says Carlyle. The 
King was economical in disposition, and took 
pleasure in personal sacrifices and reforms in 
his household. Not only he, but the wisest 
and truest men in France, believed that after 
the reforms which seemed feasible, — the read- 
justment of taxation, the abolition of certain 
privileges, and a better discipline among the 
clergy, — a happy time would be seen, and the 
nation would continue in the traditions of 
nobleness which it could boast of for ages 
past. The summons of the States-General, 
therefore, filled all hearts with hope. Few 
were able to see that the new system of things 
would be not one oi principles, hut oi ideas. 
And these ideas would have met with the 
usual fate of unpractical dreams but for the 
character of the King. 

Louis XVI., king at the age of twenty, was 
a prince of irreproachable morals, with a deep 
sense of duty, loving peace and always 
anxious for the good of his people, well in- 
structed, economical and yet generous, and 
of a good-heartedness which too often became 
weakness. So distrustful of himself was he 
as to shrink from his own good resolutions. 
Unprincipled men, bent on forcing on an 
upset of government, took advantage of his 
fatal weakness, and so he whom they nick- 
named " Tyrant " lacked courage to be king. 
Long before the troubles began he had shown 
all the world this infirmity of purpose, starting 
one project after another only to abandon 
and reverse them. And by such a course he 
encouraged his enemies and shocked his 
friends until, when his monarchy at length 
had fallen, he was sent a prisoner to the 
Temple. Then his nobler character exhibited 
itself. He set himself steadfastly to face the 
dread realities of the future and to die as be- 
came a Christian. 

His wife, Marie Antoinette of Austria, 
had a firmer character, which excited enmity 
against her at Court. She had made no 
secret of her disgust at the roiie's and courte- 
sans of the Court of Louis XV., and they 
hated her with a hatred that pursued her to 
death. Her mother, Maria Theresa, had 
held firmly the power which was hers by 



birth, and asserted her sovereignty at home. 
Marie Antoinette perhaps believed it her 
duty to follow her example, forgetting that 
in France she was a foreigner, from the very 
nature of the case regarded by suspicious 
eyes as not loving the honour of France. 
This hapless woman, destined to drink to 
the very dregs the cup of bitterness and 
agony, to pass from the condition of the 
most flattered of queens to the most wretched 
of Vvives and mothers, was far from being 
the strong woman which she has sometimes 
been represented. She was truly believed to 
have great influence with the King ; but she 
knew how to win by her grace and loveli- 
ness. Beautiful, flattered gueen of eighteen, 
loving amusement and hating formality, 
endowed with a sensitive and tender spirit, 
she sought outlets of affection, and suffered 
herself to be too readily betrayed into confi- 
dences which compromised hei", and were 
turned against her. Devoted to her friends, 
she let no obstacle stand in the way of serv- 
ing them, and knew not the dangers which 
lie at the door of royalty, worse than any 
others because they are the most exclusive. 
Counselled by unwise friends, who under- 
stood neither men nor the course of events, 
she gave herself up, when the Revolution 
began, to regrets for the overthrow of her 
husband's power, and for the loss of the 
friends who were now removed from her. 
Like her husband, she became the prey of 
cruel uncertainties, but they took a different 
line from his. For whereas he could not 
make up his mind whether he ought to be a 
constitutional king or not, she did know 
that she did not wish him to be. .She hesi- 
tated as to the means to be used, but never 
as to her intentions : she had no system of 
action arranged, and was only firm in her 
repugnances and dislikes. She could not 
tolerate those nobles who embraced the 
popular side, and therefore, in her eyes, had 
destroyed their caste. This explains mucli 
of her action in sometimes throwing herself 
during the Revolution on the side of violent 
leaders rather than making terms with mode- 
rate men. At the last moment she refused 
an offer which might have saved her, of a 
hiding-place at Rouen, because it was made 
by a noble who had joined the Commons 
against the Court. Her personal character 
stands unassailable, though the freedom and 
vivacity natural at her age exposed her to 
shameful calumnies ; the cruel slanderers 
who called her husband tyrant called her 
harlot. 

Of the sixty-two Ministers two require 
special mention, Turgot and Necker. The 
former was a clever financier who had dimi- 
nished the National Debt by 112,000,000 fr. 
(^4,480,000). Necker had created provincial 
assemblies for the redistribution of taxes. 



493 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Both unhappily craved after popularity ; 
they enfeebled the royal authority, and 
disturbed men's spirits. " A king less good, 
ministers more efficient, and there would 
have been no revolution," said the celebrated 
Mayor of Paris, Bailly. 

The Court was greatly divided : the King's 
eldest brother, the Count of Provence (after- 
wards Louis XVII I.), was somewhat in 
favour of the new ideas ; the younger. Count 
of Artois (Charles X.), was opposed to them. 
The Duke of Orleans, a cousin of the King, 
three or four times removed, for he was de- 
scended from a brother of Louis XIV., made 
himself a patron of the most advanced revo- 
lutionists. He hated the Oueen for despising 
his evil life. 

The financial embarrassments of the country 
still increasing in spite of the reforms of 
Turgot and Necker, and all endeavours to 
redistribute taxation by other means having 
failed, the King was persuaded into convok- 
ing the States- General, after an interval of 
one hundred and seventy-five years. On 
previous occasions it had been the custom for 
each order, Nobihty, Clergy, Third Estate, to 
send three hundred members each. This 
custom was now departed from, and the Third 
Estate was called upon to send up six 
hundred representatives, — a number, there- 
fore, equal to both the others together. This 
was not done without angry protests against 
such an innovation. But another question 
had been mooted. Were they all to meet in 
OJie room or in separate rooms ; to vote par 
tete or par ordre, as the phrase was? The 
question was shelved for a while ; " it would 
be time to settle that when they met." This 
proved a fatal omission. 

As the day drew on, all license was allowed 
to the Press. Writers were even invited to 
throw any light on the subject by free dis- 
cussion. At the same time were opened the 
first Cltibs, an English importation, destined 
to play a fatal part in the Revolution. In 
the last three months of 1788, two thousand 
five hundred pamphlets were issued. '' The 
most celebrated was that of the Abbd Sieyes, 
"What is the Third Estate? — Everything. 
What has it been hitherto ? — Nothing. What 
does it wish to be ? — Something." 

The day of opening arrived at length. 
The visitor to Versailles who arrives from 
Paris by the " Left Branch " railway will 
alight near the Church of St. Louis. This 
was the first rendezvous on the morning of 
May 4th, 1 789. They walked thence in proces- 
sion along what is now the Rue Satory, across 
the Place d'Armes to the Church of Notre 
Dame, where there was high mass, and the 
Bishop of Orleans preached a sermon. It is 
said that whenever he mentioned the word 
"liberty" the members cheered loudly. 
Readers of Carlyle's History will not forget 



his marvellous description of that great scene, 
destined to change the whole history of 
Europe. He imagines himself looking out 
of an upper window upon the procession as. 
it goes by, noticing "that large ugly man 
with thick matted black locks," Mirabeau ; 
that insignificant looking man with sea-green 
complexion and spectacles on, tossing his 
nose in the air, " Robespierre, a poor lawyer 
of Arras ; " " an ugly, muddy-faced, dirty 
horseleech, not a member but a spectator,, 
sprawling up ungainly to look over the 
people's heads," Marat, 

Everything seemed to go wrong from the 
first. The King was cheered as he passed 
along in the procession ; the Queen was re- 
ceived with disdainful silence, if not with 
muttered words of hatred towards "the 
Austrianess." And she showed by her sad,, 
proud looks how deeply she felt it, and how 
she struggled to return contempt for con- 
tempt. After the service at Notre Dame the 
first meeting was held in the Salle de Menus- 
Plaisirs in the Palace of Versailles, the 
King making a loving and wise speech. 

But immediately afterwards the great 
struggle began. The nobility and many of 
the clergy were bent on the meeting in 
separate chambers. The Third Estate was 
equally determined the other way. After an 
interval of passive resistance on both sides,. 
the Third Estate suddenly declared themselves 
the National Assembly ; and in a tennis-court 
hard by, they met on the 20th of June, under 
the presidency of Mayor Bailly, and took a 
solemn oath that they would never separate 
till they had made a new constitution for 
France. I have just returned from the room 
as I write. On the spot where Bailly stood 
is an empty pedestal. It is about to receive 
a statue of him. An inscription on the wall 
has the words of the oath. This is the famoua 
Tennis-Coiirt Oath. The original document 
is in the Archives Nationales, with all the 
signatures. Robespierre's struck me as the 
prettiest and gentlest hand there. 

The King and his friends struggled for a 
short time to resist the carrying out of this 
oath, but in vain. When he showed himself 
inclined to yield, his ministers told him it 
would be fatal to the monarchy, and exhorted 
him to use force to compel them to constitu- 
tional obedience. He refused. He " would 
have no fighting." It was his misfortune 
always to fight, and to refrain, at the wTong 
times. He sent his orders to the nobles tc 
join the National Assembly, One noble 
broke his sword over his knee : " Since the 
King does not wish to be a king, he needs 
no sword to defend him," he said. 

This was the first move towards revolution. 



To Arms ! 
Meanwhile the excitement in Paris was in- 



494 



THE VENGEANCE OF 'i 



tense. Multitudes crowded the streets day 
by day to hear what was passing at Versailles, 
and to read the placards which succeeded 
one another without ceasing on the walls. 
But on the 12th of July a climax was reached 
in consequence of its becoming known, first 
that an army of forty thousand men were being 
concentrated in Paris under Marshal Broglie, 
and secondly that Necker,the Prime Minister, 
who was believed to be on the side of re- 
form, had been dismissed by the King and 
ordered to leave France. His busts were 
bought from the shops, enveloped in crape, 
and carried in procession through the streets. 
The Palais-Royal, the residence of the King's 
bitter enemy, the Duke of Orleans, was at 
this time the rendezvous of agitators and 
political disputants. On the evening of Sun- 
day, July 1 2th, while an excited crowd was 
gathered in the gardens, a young man named 
Camille Desmoulins, afterwards to become 
one of the leaders of the Revolution, suddenly 
sprang upon a table, his hair flying in the 
wind, and cried : " My friends, our lives are not 
safe, they are sending armies to murder us, 
if we do not defend ourselves. To arms !" 
The cry was taken up in wild excitement, 
and the night that followed was such as Paris 
had never known before. The mutitudes 
rushed to the Hotel de Ville demanding 
arms, and a charge made upon them by a 
German regiment, under the Prince of Lam- 
besc, inflamed their indignation into madness. 
An assembly was established at the Hotel 
de Ville to direct the movements of the 
insurgents; a "National Guard" was en- 
rolled. Camille, in calling them to arms, 
plucked a bunch of leaves from a tree which 
he bade them wear as a cockade ; where- 
upon there was such a rush for leaves that 
whole trees were stripped bare. But in 
a few hours there was an outcry that green 
was the colour of the Count of Artois, the 
King's unpopular brother ; whereupon it was 
agreed to take the old Paris colours of red 
and blue, and to base these on a ground of 
constitutional white. This was the famous 
tricolor, which remains the republican 
badge to this day. All Monday men were 
hard at work hammering pikes, and women 
making tricolor cockades ; all shops, except 
food and wine shops, were close shut, while 
the tocsin rang out fiercely from all steeples, 
and everywhere the cry went forth for fire- 
arms. Three hundred and sixty firelocks, the 
equipment of the city watch, were found in 
the Town Hall. In the King's repository, 
called Garde Meitble, two silver-mounted 
cannon were found, a present to Louis XIV. 
from the King of Siam ; they were dragged 
out and trailed through the streets. Flesselles, 
Provost of the Merchants, was called upon to 
give up what arms he had, and promised to 
send for some from Charleville, but declared 



he had none by him. His promise was not 
kept, but instead he was detected in the act 
of sending away five thousand pounds of gun- 
powder in a Seine boat. On the morning of 
the 14th a body of the new guard, acting on 
information which they had received, hastened 
to the Hotel of the Invahdes and seized thirty 
thousand muskets and twenty pieces of 
cannon. 

To THE Bastille ! 

The seizure of the firearms had been made 
early. At 1 1 o'clock the cry arose, " To the 
Bastille!" 

The Bastille was execrated. The sombre 
prison, it was true, had never shown itself 
an enemy of the Parisian populace. It was 
mostly a prison for great persons. But in 
its frowning blackness it was taken as a 
symbol of the overshadowing absolutism of 
monarchs which was now held to be the one 
thing deserving hate. The Faubourg St. 
Antoine had "Bastille" both on the brain 
and the heart ; from its towers the cannon 
might be turned upon every street in that 
quarter. Its strategic power was great, but 
its moral influence appeared now infinitely 
greater. It was the concretion of the royal 
prerogative, and so long as it stood there it 
seemed, in the fierce eyes of the revolutionists, 
to declare that prerogative enormous, mas- 
sive, unshaken, founded on a rock. To 
destroy another monument would be noth- 
ing, to destroy this would be like crushing 
absolute power in France. 

The first drawbridge presented no diffi- 
culty. A few determined men at once rushed 
to the chains and broke them. The crowd 
burst into the outer court, men, women, and 
children, the latter busy picking up bullets. 
De Launay had some "ammunition," eighteen 
cannons apparently good for nothing, a dozen 
old muskets, and for men, thirty-two Swiss 
and eighty-two invalids. The governor, how- 
ever, endeavoured to treat with the insur- 
gents : "What do you want?" "We want 
to come in." " Get an order from the Town 
Hall," said he. During the parley, some of 
the besiegers rushed at the second draw- 
bridge, and were received with a discharge 
from one of the old cannons, the only one 
fired during the day. This terrified them, 
and they fell back and occupied themselves 
with burning the buildings around. A girl, 
who was seized in the belief that she was 
De Launay's daughter, was on the point of 
being burnt alive, but was rescued by an 
heroic soldier who rushed upon her and con- 
veyed her to a place of safety. 

Taken. 
It was nearly mid-day when the attack 
began ; at three in the afternoon no progress 
had been made. But the arrival of three 



495 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



hundred Gardes Frangaise with some can- 
nons gave fresh hopes. But these hopes, 
too, were somewhat dashed when it was 
found that the bullets fired went over the 
fortress and hit people on the other side. 
One piece burst under their bad manage- 
ment of it. 

De Launay, it is said, had received this 
letter from Flesselles, "Hold out while I 
amuse the Parisians with cockades." But the 
fierce clamour all around him, the apparent 
hopelessness of succour, the failure of the 
little ammunition that he had had, caused 
him to despair. He resolved to blow up the 
fortress. An invalid struck from his hand 
the torch with which he was approaching 
the powder magazine. A white handkerchief 
was waved through a window ; then a letter 
was passed through: an adventurous be- 
sieger walked across a plank and received 
it. It said, "We have twenty thousand 
pounds of powder ; we will blow up the 
fortress and the whole quarter if you do not 
accept our capitulation." " Lower your draw- 
bridge and you shall have no hurt," was the 
answer. It was lowered. The crowd rushed 
in and filled the courts. The Bastille was 
taken. Those who promised safety to the 
garrison had no power to give it, even if 
they had the will. 

The Sequel. 

The newly-appointed committee were sit- 
ting at the Hotel de Ville at half-past five 
that afternoon, in a state of the utmost anxiety, 
-when a new and pi'olonged murmur was 
heard swelling out into a roar. An excited 
multitude rushed in with shouts of victory, — 
" The Bastille is taken ! " Two ghastly 
objects they bore with them,— the head 
•of De Launay and a severed hand. The 
bodies to which they belonged were hanging 
in the Place de Greve. The hand was that 
of the invalid Bequart who had saved thou- 
sands of lives by preventing De Launay from 
blowing up the fortress. Then the savage 
crowd turned upon Provost Flesselles. " You 
have deceived us," they shouted. He at- 
tempted to defend himself, but turned pale 
with terror as he watched their blood-thirsty 
countenances, and at length exclaimed, 
" Since I am suspected I will withdraw." 
" No, no, you must come to the Palais Royal 
to be tried." He thereupon went down to ac- 
company them. The crowd closed upon 
him ; but on the Quai Pelletier an unknown 
hand laid him low with a bullet. 

And what of Louis XVI. ? He seems not 
to have comprehended at all the gravity of the 
circumstances whichi surrounded him. His 
journal is preserved in the Archives 
Nationales. We will give a few extracts 
from it without comment : — 



"1789. — July 1st, Wednesday. Nothing. 
Deputation of the States. 

" July 2nd, Thursday. Rode on horseback 
to the Maine Gate to hunt deer at Port 
Royal. Took one. 

" July 3rd, Friday. Nothing. 
"July 4th, Saturday. Hunt roebuck at 
Butard. Took one and shot twenty-nine 
head. 

" July 5th, Sunday. Vespers and Benedic- 
tion. 

" July 6th, Monday. Nothing. 
" July 7th, Tuesday. Hunt at Port Royal. 
Took two . 

"July 8th, Wednesday. Nothing. 
"July 9th, Thursday. Nothing. Deputa- 
tion of States. 

" July loth, Friday. Nothing, Answer 
to deputation of States. 

"July nth, Saturday. Departure of M. 
Necker. 

"July 1 2th, Sunday. Vespers and Benedic- 
tion. Departure of MM. de Montmorin, 
Saint-Priest, and Luzerne. 

"July 13th, Monday. Nothing. 
"July 14th, Tuesday, Nothing." 
He had written this last entry, when late at 
night he was aroused from his bed by the 
Duke of Rochefoucald-Liancourt, who came 
to announce to him that the Bastille had 
fallen. "Why, this is a revolt," said thepooi 
man. " Sire," was the answer, " it is a 
revolution." 

How he took counsel with his queen and 
his brother which came to nought ; how he 
hesitated and doubted whether to employ 
force, and resolved to go to Paris and declare 
himself satisfied, and then in terror planned 
to regain his independence of action — all 
this belongs to another chapter of history. It 
only remains to add that seven prisoners only 
were found in the fortress. One was a lunatic, 
who was transferred to the asylum at Charen- 
ton ; four were notorious forgers ; the other 
was a young man of good family who had 
been shut up at the request of his father for 
dissipated life. 

For two years the great fortress was left 
dismantled, then by an order of the Assembly 
it was destroyed. In secret places manu- 
scripts were brought to light, bitterly lament- 
ing the helpless position of the writers, one 
of them furnishing some details, to which 
Dickens added many imaginary ones in his 
well-known narrative of Alexander Manette, 
in his " Tale of Two Cities." The materials 
were in great part used to build the Carrousel 
Bridge. A model of the fortress, as it was, 
made from one of the stones, is at the en- 
trance of the Archiiies Nationales. There is 
a similar one in the museum at Amiens, and 
another in the museum of the Porte de Hal 
at Brussels. 

W. B. 



49G 




Inaugl-ration of the League of the Gueux. 



a 



LONG LIVE THE BEGGARS!" 

THE STORY OF THE REVOLT OF THE NETHERLANDS. 

" Heaven is above all, yet. There sits a Judge 
Whom no king can corrupt ! " — Shakespeare, Henry VIII, 



A Great Inheritance and an Unworthy Heir — Charles V., his Work and his Abdication — The Great Inheritance of Philip II. 
— Power and Importance of" Spain in the i6th Century — The Netherlands, and how Charles and Philip ruled 
There — The Harshness of Charles V. in the !^'etherlands tempered by Policy — The Great Cities — Ghent and its 
Power — " Roland " the Bell of Ghent — Character of Philip II. — His System of Rule by Terror and Coercion — The 
Inquisition ; Its Establishment in Spain, and Development under Philip II. — William of Orange Nassau, the Libera- 
tor of his Country — Lamorel, Count Egmont — Margaret of Parma, the Regent of Flanders— Cardinal Granvella and 
his Influence — How William of Orange incurred the Hatred of Philip II. — Discontent in the Netherlands — The 
Compromise and Its Object — How the Great Petition was presented to Margaret of Parma — "Long Live the 
Beggars ! Vivents les Gueux ! " — The Protestant' Preachers and the Image Breakers — King Philip and his Councillors 
— Alva — The Storm bursts forth at Last. 



A Great Inheritance and an Un- 
worthy Heir. 
N the history of the world there occur 
moments in which the destiny of king- 
doms and principahties seems to 
waver in the balance — moments fraught with 
tremendous issues for the weal or woe of 




millions of people, and with the fate of gene- 
rations yet unborn — in which are to be decided 
the great and momentous questions of liberty 
or slavery, happiness or misery, strife or 
peace, with* the blessings of religious free- 
dom or the horrors of fanatical persecution. 
Such a moment occurred in the year 1555, 



497 



KK 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and again in the following year. For it was 
at the first of these epochs that the splendid 
inheritance of the Netherlands, Spain, and 
Naples, and of the New World was surren- 
dered by the Emperor Charles V. to his son 
Philip ; while at the second the government 
of the Austrian States, with the management 
of the affairs of Germany, was transferred by 
the same potentate to his brother Ferdinand. 
Never were two men of more entirely dif- 
ferent character invested with imm.ense 
authority ; and never in the world's history 
was it shown how greatly the disposition and 
the actions of a ruler may influence the destiny 
of nations. With the rule of Ferdinand, who 
was raised at the same time to the dignity of 
Emperor of Germany, a dignity he managed 
to make hereditary in the Austrian House, 
began an era of splendid prosperity and 
development for Germany. From the acces- 
sion of the gloomy tyrant and fanatic Philip 
II. dates the ruin and desolation of the 
Spanish monarchy ; and it was in his reign, 
moreover, that the spectacle was exhibited of 
a nation fighting desperately and with ultimate 
success for its religious and civil liberties, 
against such tremendous odds that no issue 
seemed possible but utter and inevitable 
defeat. It is with the events that led to this 
struggle, second to none in history in the 
exciting features of the contest and in the 
mighty interests involved, that we have now 
to do. 

Charles V. ; His Work and his 
Abdication. 
The moralist who in search of a proof that 
"the glories of our birth and state are 
shadows, not substantial things," could find 
no more telling illustration than that fur- 
nished in the career of the Emperor Charles 
V. That monarch had succeeded to an in- 
heritance more vast than mortal men had 
possessed since the corpse of Charlemagne 
had been laid to rest in the great church of 
Aachen more than eight centuries before. 
Spain and Austria and the Netherlands, the 
golden Americas and the Indies, acknow- 
ledged his sway. During more than five-and- 
thirty years he toiled with patient energy to 
achieve a great purpose, unity of belief and 
uniformity of practice in the Western Church; 
only to acknowledge at last that the spirit of 
the time was too strong for him; and that he 
had failed in his long battle to maintain 
mediceval tyranny over the human intellect. 
The Reformation was too strong for him; and 
in granting the religious Peace of Augsburg, 
at the Diet of the Empire, on the 26th of 
September, 1555, he acknowledged himself 
beaten. The great contest of his life had 
brought him only defeat. No wonder, there- 
fore, that his spirit sank under the bitter 
feeling of satiety, and he felt that he had 



been " walking in a vain shadow," and dis- 
quieting himself only to find failure and dis- 
appointment. " Nine expeditions into Ger- 
many, six jto Spain, seven to Italy, four to 
France, ten to the Netherlands, two to Eng- 
land, as many to Africa, and eleven voyages 
by sea," were among the labours of his life 
enumerated by the Emperor, as — prematurely 
decrepid and white-haired, for he was only 
fifty-five years of age — leaning on his crutch, 
with feeble and indistinct utterance, he gave 
the reasons that induced him to abdicate his 
throne and to invest with his dignities his 
well-beloved son Philip, there present, whose 
vigorous youth would be able far better than 
his own enfeebled age to support the burden 
of royalty. For himself, inasmuch as his 
broken health no longer permitted him to 
work for the good of his subjects, it was his 
intention to devote what remained of his life 
in this world to meditation and prayer and 
to pious preparation for the next. 

It was a touching scene ; nor were there 
wanting any elements of earthly grandeur to 
give it impressiveness and solemnity. For 
in that great hall at Brussels were assembled 
the knights of the great order of the Golden 
Fleece, the great Counsellors of the Empire, 
the representatives of the various provinces, 
and many men whose names had already 
been or were destined to be written in inef- 
faceable characters on the annals of their 
country and their time. There was Philip, 
the inheritor of the magnificent empire, thus 
put into possession in his predecessor's life- 
time — small of stature, icy and proud in 
demeanour, hardly melted by the sight of 
the feeble, tearful old man whom the posses- 
sion of half the world had failed to render 
happy ; there was the young Prince William 
of Orange, handsome and of lofty height, 
upon whose shoulder the venerable Emperor 
leaned with familiar affection ; there was 
Duke Alva, his stern, cruel features impas- 
sable and scornful as ever ; there were 
Counts Egmont and Horn, great Flemish 
nobles, wealthy, popular, and potent for good 
or evil ; there was Queen Mary of Hun- 
gary, come to lay down a regency of a quar- 
ter of a century in the Netherlands at the 
feet of the fortunate heir. The assembly 
was worthy of the great occasion, with 
"princes to behold the swelling scene." 
Never since Diocletian withdrew from the 
cares and turmoil of the Roman imperator- 
ship, and choosing the better part laid down 
that " ghstening grief," the sovereign rule of 
Rome, had such an empire been voluntarily 
laid down by the possessor. " Other princes 
consider themselves happy" said the feeble 
Emperor, " in endowing their children with 
the crown that death demands them to resign. 
I wish to enjoy this pleasure for myself; I 
wish to see you live and rule. Few will fol- 



498 



''LONG LIVE THE BEGGARS!" 



low my example ; few have preceded me in 
it ; but my deed will be praiseworthy, if your 
future life warrants my confidence. If you 
never depart from the wisdom you have 
hitherto displayed ; if you remain firm and 
unchangeable in the purity of the faith, which 
is the firmest pillar of your throne." 

And then the Emperor laid his hand in 
blessing on the head of him to whose hands 
such tremendous power and such mighty 
interests were entrusted, and the pageant 
was at an end for that time. A few days 
later Philip, in the presence of an equally 
splendid and august assembly, took the oath, 
by which he pledged himself to maintain the 
liberties, rights, and immunities of the various 
classes of his subjects in the Low Countries, 
and to practise towards them that which it 
behoves a good and just lord and prince to 
do. How he kept that oath, history has 
abundantly set forth. 

The Inheritance of Philip II. ; Power 
OF Spain. 

It was noticed that the form in which the 
oath was set up was far more stringent than 
that exacted from Charles V., and from his 
predecessors in the suzerainty of Flanders, 
the Dukes of Burgundy. In this stringency 
has been found an evidence of the sus- 
picion which was even then entertained of 
the disposition of Philip, and of his tendency 
towards tyrannical rule. Such suspicions, if 
they existed, were abundantly verified by the 
subsequent conduct of the ruler. Philip was 
a gloomy tyrant, whose religion was bigotry 
and superstition, and who turned all the 
powers of a mind versed in all the subtleties 
of statecraft towards the task of stifling 
every spark of civil and rehgious liberty 
throughout his wide dominions. Rather to 
descend from his throne than to rule over 
those whom he designated as heretics ; to 
fight religious inquiry with the hangman's 
cord, the faggot, and the stake ; to see in 
every expression of free opinion and every 
tendency towards independent action a 
dangerous treason that must be put down 
by condign punishment, — such were the 
principles from which, during his long and 
bitter reign, he never deviated ; and thus it 
was that from his time may be dated that 
decline of Spain, almost unexampled in its 
rapidity and completeness in the history of 
nations, which converted the mighty country 
that had been the terror of Europe in the 
sixteenth century into the carcase round 
which the eagles were gathered together at 
the end of the seventeenth. 

In extent, revenue, and power, the vast 
empire to which Philip was made ruler was 
undoubtedly the chief and foremost of its 
time. His father had indeed thought fit to 
dissever the German dominions from the vast 



inheritance, and to leave them to his brother 
Ferdinand, painfully conscious by his own 
experience that Spanish and German nation- 
alities could no more unite than fire and 
water ; but at one time during the period of 
his greatest power, Philip's empire included, 
in Europe, Spain, Portugal, the Nether- 
lands, Franche Comte, Roussillon, the Mi- 
lanese, and the two Sicilies ; while in the 
gorgeous East rich settlements on the coasts 
of India, the Spice Islands and the Philip- 
pines, owned his sway and poured wealth 
into his coffers ; and Mexico and Peru, with 
the rich islands of the Caribbean Sea, in- 
creased his revenues, until they are calcu- 
lated to have reached nearly ten times the 
revenue of England under Elizabeth. More- 
over, he held for a time the dominion at 
once of the land and of the sea, and in that 
particular it has been rightly said that his 
power was greater than that of Napoleon. 
Lord Macaulay aptly quotes the words of the 
wise Burleigh, spoken concerning Philip to 
the English Parliament : " The King of 
Spain, since he hath usurped upon the king- 
dom of Portugal, hath thereby grown mighty 
by gaining the East Indies ; so as, how great 
soever he was before, he is now thereby 
manifestly more great . . . he is now become 
as a frontier enemy to all the west of England, 
as well as all the south parts, as Sussex, 
Hampshire, and the Isle of Wight." And 
this was spoken some years after the great 
disaster of PhiUp's reign, the overthrow of 
" that great fleet invincible," which bore in 
vain the richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest 
hearts of Spain, against the indomitable sea- 
dogs of England. And yot, when this man 
died, Spain's power was gone ; and the 
disease of bad government and despotic 
cruelty was eating into her vitals. 

The Netherlands, and how Charles V. 
AND Philip II. ruled there. 
At the present day it is difficult to realise 
in the quiet, sedate Belgian towns, such as 
Ghent and Bruges and Louvain, and even 
in iron-working Liege itself, the idea that 
some centuries ago these were among the 
very wealthiest and most stirring communi- 
ties in Europe ; pre-eminent alike in the 
extent and importance of their commerce, 
the variety and ingenuity of their manifold 
industries, and the constitutional advantages 
enjoyed by their citizens. It is natural that 
regions deriving their prosperity and position 
from trade should incline towards free in- 
stitutions. When Napoleon sneered at the 
English as '' ime nation doutiquikre" a 
nation of shopkeepers, the sarcasm was 
directed quite as much against the common- 
sense of a community that refused to acknow- 
ledge the advantages of a military dictator- 
ship, and insisted on managing its own affairs, 



499 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Holland, Brabant, 
a lari^e share of 



as against the commercial spirit he affected 
to despise. Where a great field is open to 
private enterprise, the citizen, the merchant, 
and manufacturer naturally acquire political 
power ; and thus it was that Flanders was 
almost repubhcan in system and in sen- 
timent during an age of feudal tyranny. 
"Already in the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries," says a writer, " Friesland was a 
republic except in name ; 
Flanders, had acquired 
s e 1 f- g o V e r n- 
ment.'' When 
the provinces 
were obliged to 
acknowledge a 
general master 
in the person of 
the Duke of 
Burgundy, and 
Duke Philip the 
Good founded 
the order of the 
Golden Fleece, 
at that time the 
proudest in 
Europe, he 
found every- 
where a consti- 
tution in full 
working order, 
and citizens 
ready to defend 
their free insti- 
tutions to the 
last extremity ; 
and none of the 
Dukes of Bur- 
gundy, not even 
tire splenetic and 
furious Charles 
the Bold him- 
self, attempted 
the task of over- 
throwing the 
freedom of the 
provinces, or in- 
terfering with 
their laws. 

The great 
wealth of the 
Netherlands 
also, that pro 



vided the princes of the Burgundian House 
with the chief part of their magnificent 
revenues, formed a reason for respecting their 
institutions which did not exist in the case of 
such poor communities as, for instance, Swit- 
zerland ; to offend a nation who could put 
armies in the field for them, and furnish 
them with the means of keeping up splendid 
courts, was manifestly opposed to the first 
principles ofpohcy. Accordingly the Nether- 
i-'nds continued to increase in wealth, con- 



sequence, and in a spirit of independence 
that amounted at times even to turbulence, 
until through the marriage of Mary of Bur- 
gundy, the daughter and heiress of Charles 
the Bold, with the Archduke Maximilian of 
Austria (afterwards the Emperor Maximilian 
I.), they came under a new dominion, and in 
due course passed under the sway of Charles, 
First of Spain and Fifth of Germany, the 
grandson of Maximilian and Mary, and of 
Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile. 

Here was a 
complete 
change of the 
political situa- 
tion. Charles 
was not, like 
the Burgundian 
dukes, depen- 
dent upon Flan- 
ders for his re- 
venues; he • 
could bring a 
loreign force 
into the country, 
in case of ne- 
cessity, to put 
down discon- 
tent and enforce 
despotic enact- 
me nt s. He 
would combat 
Flanders with 
Spain. No 
wonder, there- 
fore, that the 
N ether landers 
looked with ex- 
treme distrust 
and jealousy 
upon the foreign 
power to which 
they had be- 
come subject, . 
and were more 
than ever tena- 
cious of their 
liberties; or that 
Charles should 
endeavour to 
make his power 
felt by curtailing 
those liberties 
in various particulars. The antagonism of 
race had also a powerful influence in prevent- 
ing a good understanding between Spain and 
the Netherlands. Grotius remarks on the im- 
possibility of the unnatural union of two 
such opposite nations turning out well. The 
Netherlanders could live on an admirable 
footing with the nations around them, who 
were of kindred race with themselves and 
had advanced to greatness by the same 
roads. But Spaniards and Netherlanders 
50c 




William the Silent. 



"LONG LIVE THE BEGGARS!" 



were in most things entirely different. The 
martial ardour and warlike proclivities of the 
Spaniards had been kept alive by campaigns 
in Italy and in Africa. Considerations of 
profit and home prosperity had inclined the 
Netherlander to peace, while he was exceed- 
ingly tenacious in defending what he had 
gained. The Spaniards are portrayed by 
Grotius as an exceedingly laborious people, 
dauntless in danger, keen alike in the pursuit 
of wealth and of fame, proud to a degree that 
inspired them with a contempt for foreigners, 
piously inclined, and mindful of benefits re- 
ceived ; but on the other hand, revengeful, 
and so devoid of self-restraint in the hour of 
victory, as to lose all considerations of con- 
science and honour in dealing with the van- 
quished. All this is opposite to the character 
of the Netherlander, who is cunning but not 
vindictive, and who, stationed in the midst 
between France and Germany, exhibits, in 
a mitigated degree, the weaknesses and 
strength of both. Respect towards their 
rulers is a sentiment they have in common ; 
with this difference that the Netherlander 
places the laws above the king. It was a 
difficult task for the ruler of these two nations, 
so different from each other, to so divide his 
care and his favoui's between them, that a 
preference shown towards the Castilians 
should not offend the Netherlanders, while 
the equality granted to the latter should not 
outrage Castilian pride. 

The Harshness of Charles V. in the 
Netherlands tempered by Policy. 
Under the rule of Charles V., the Nether- 
lands soon found that from being a nation 
they had become a province, and were looked 
upon by their ruler as a means of carrying 
out his ambitious views, and a storehouse of 
men and arms, to be used in his warlike ex- 
peditions, and in enterprises that frequently 
brought loss rather than profit to the inhabi- 
tants of the Low Countries. The nobles and 
citizens stood aghast at the innovations made 
by the Emperor, and at his haughty way of 
disregarding their privileges and immunities. 
Thus the Tribunal at Mechlin, formerly an 
independent court, was subordinated to a 
royal council established by Charles at 
Brussels, — a council which was a mere mouth- 
piece of the monarch's will. Spaniards were 
mtroduced into every department of State 
business, and invested with the most im- 
portant offices. Contributions were demanded 
to defray the expenses of the ruler's foreign 
wars, and in many cases the States were 
obliged to put on an appearance of voluntary 
acquiescence to escape the coercion that 
would have followed a refusal. Worse than 
all, as inflicting a deeper wound upon the 
national pride of the Netherlands, foreign 
troops were quartered in the Flemish towns, 



and soldiers were recruited from among them 
for foreign wars. 

" And again the whiskered Spaniard all the land with 

terror smote, 
And again the loud alarum sounded from the 

tocsin's throat, 
Till the bell of Ghent responded o'er lagoon and 

dike of sand, 
I am Roland, I am Roland, there is victory in the 

land." 

For the great and populous city of Ghent, 
whose walls measured nine miles in circuit, 
and whose complement of fighting men old 
Froissart already estimated at eighty thousand, 
— Ghent, that has been rightly described as 
" rather a commonwealth than a city," in an 
evil hour rose up in insurrection against the 
powerful Emperor. The great bell " Roland," 
ihe palladium and emblem of the city's 
liberties, called the burghers to arms ; and 
Charles at once repaired with an army to 
Ghent, and inflicted such a chastisement 
on the rebels as struck terror through the 
whole of the Netherlands. A tremendous 
confiscation, in which even the bell Roland 
was included, taught the citizens that the 
day of their freedom was past ; and that, 
though the Emperor might at times 
graciously please to wear the velvet glove, 
the iron hand was ever present. A hundred 
and thirty persons implicated in the rising 
had to beg their lives, and express their 
deepest contrition for their misdeeds, in the 
shirt of penitence, with halters round their 
necks. Nineteen of the ringleaders were 
beheaded ; and Charles only granted pardon 
to the city on the intervention of the Oueen 
Regent, who begged him of his imperial 
clemency to show favour to the city that 
had witnessed his birth. 

But, though sufficiently inclined to tyran- 
nise over the Netherlands, Charles was a 
politic, if not a just, ruler. He understood 
that in commerce lay the true strength of his 
kingdom, and that for commercial supremacy 
a certain amount at least of municipal free- 
dom is indispensable. Accordingly it was 
not his design entirely to humiliate the 
Netherlands, and to deprive that valuable 
part of his dominions of all political signi- 
ficance. Moreover there was much in the 
moral character of the Netherlanders, with 
their bluff, hearty manners, their magnificent 
banquets, — for he was a gluttonous man, even 
to the days of his monastic retirement at 
St. Yuste, — and in their outspoken pride of 
wealth and trade, that attracted him, and 
proved a welcome relief from the sedate 
gravity of the Spaniards. His frequent visits 
to the Low Countries, and the favour he 
extended to some of their chief men, attest 
this. Moreover he understood and spoke 
their language, and was fond of holding long 
conversations with them, in which he could 



cci 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



infuse a certain grace and condescension; 
and familiar intercourse with monarchs often 
goes far towards pacifying rebellious minds. 
Thus he retained a certain personal popularity 
in spite of the weight with which his exactions, 
his agents, and his recruiting continually 
burdened the land. 

Character of Philip II. 

In appearance and manners Philip was 
very different from his father. He was a 
Spaniard of the coldest and gravest type, 
impassive and ceremonious in manner, un- 
sympathetic, untouched by the joys and 
sorrows of men, whom he was accustomed 
to regard as tools wherewith to work out his 
schemes. He spoke only Spanish, would 
have none but Spaniards about his person. 
A pupil of the monks, he was perfect in the 
art of concealing the workings of his mind 
under an appearance of stony indifference. 
It is told that when his father summoned 
him from Spain to Brussels in his youth, to 
show him to the nation whom he was one 
day to rule, neither the shouts of the populace 
nor the gorgeous magnificence of his recep- 
tion could bring a smile to the youth's 
gloomy face ; and that the first impression 
he made upon the Flemings was the con- 
viction that they would find in him a tyrant 
whose schemes it would behove them to 
thwart by every means in their power. 

The seventeen provinces that made up 
Philip's possessions in the Netherlands were 
in the most flourishing condition when they 
came into his hands. Prosperity and plenty 
were everywhere apparent ; the numerous 
great and important towns had never been 
so wealthy. "No people on earth," says 
Schiller, in his " History of the Revolt of the 
Netherlands," " could have been more easily 
ruled by a sensible prince, and none could 
have been found more difficult to rule by a 
juggler or a tyrant." If Philip could have 
made up his mind to allow even a qualified 
freedom to his Flemish subjects, he might 
have gained the good-will of the nobles, whose 
pride was flattered at the idea of serving a 
mighty prince, and whose influence would 
have gone far to reconcile the country in 
general to his rule ; but it was the peculiarity 
of his character that nothing would satisfy 
him short of the slavish submission of the 
serf or the unquestioning obedience of the 
Jesuit to his superior. Terror was the means 
by which he chose to rule ; and his mind, 
busy and indefatigable in the working out of 
details, had neither the elevation nor the 
breadth to work out a statesmanlike scheme 
of rule, or to read the signs of the times. 

The Inquisition ; Its Development 

UNDER Philip. 
Among the difficulties experienced by 



Charles V. in the government of the Nether- 
lands, and, indeed, of his vast dominions 
generally, one of the chief arose out of that 
greatest of the movements in his century, 
the Reformation. Charles from the first took 
up a position of uncompromising antagonism 
against the Reformation ; for not without 
reason he saw an analogy between an aspira- 
tion for religious and a striving for political 
liberty; and looked upon Protestantism as 
certain to interfere with his scheme of 
universal government. Accordingly he 
stood up with all his strength against Luther 
and the other reformers, and against the 
princes who, like Frederick of Saxony, 
adopted the new doctrines. His opposition 
had at least as much a political as a religious 
character ; and indeed the extravagances of 
the fanatical leaders, the Bockholts and the 
Miinzers, the atrocities of the Anabaptists at 
Munster, and the crimes of the revolted 
peasants, who tried to affiliate their rising to 
the cause of the Reformation, might well 
warrant distrust and suspicion in the brain 
of a cautious and jealous ruler like Charles. 

In the Low Countries, too, the Reformed 
doctrines had established themselves with 
astonishing rapidity among a quick-witted 
and argumentative people, accustomed to 
freedom of speech, and eager to discuss a 
question that affected them so nearly. Sa 
much alarmed* had Charles been by the 
movement, that he introduced, to combat it, 
the most terrible weapon ever employed by 
a government, — a weapon doubly dreaded 
from the secrecy with which its deadly 
wounds were inflicted, — the Spanish Inquisi- 
tion. 

Under every form the Inquisition has been 
a foul blot on the civilisation of Europe, and 
a reproach to every Christian government 
that could establish, and every Christian 
community that could endure it'; but in Spain it 
has always been invested with a darker horror 
of wickedness. The Spanish Inquisition 
introduced by Ferdinand of Aragon, with 
Torquemada for its high priest, far surpassed 
in its fiendish cruelty, in the ingenuity and 
duration of the tortures inflicted on its 
victims, and the utter abnegation of humanity 
in its every proceeding, that older institu- 
tion of the " Holy Office," of which it was 
the logical sequel and outcome. The object 
of the Inquisition in Spain was in the first 
instance to root out the remains of the Ma- 
hometan religion, which had become part 
and parcel of the fife of those Moorish in- 
habitants of southern Spain, whose country 
had been conquered by the armies of Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella, and many of whom sought 
by a nominal conversion to Christianity to 
escape the hard fate of exile, while in secret 
they remained attached to the faith of their 
forefathers, and practised its rites. After- 



502 



"LONG LIVE THE BEGGARS ! " 



wards, under the auspices of the monks, the 
system was elaborated with a completeness 
of fiendish cruelty hardly credible. No rank 



placed by reason, justice, or humanity on 
their proceedings. Not a single one among 
those forms of ordinary judicial proceeding 




was exempt from the overwhelming power 
of the femiliars of the holy office ; no place 
was safe from their intrusion ; no check was 



upheld by the general consent of humanity 
in the interest of accused persons was 
allowed to come between the prisoner and 



503 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the Inquisition, Once entangled in the 
meshes of its horrible net, escape was im- 
possible. The nnhappy prisoner was first 
kept for forty-eight hours in a solitary 
dungeon, without food. Then he was brought 
before the tribunal ; but a definite charge 
was seldom made against him. He was 
told to remember in what way he had 
offended, and was exhorted to accuse him- 
self, and made to beheve that in free con- 
fession lay the only means for pardon and 
reconciliation with the Church. No limit 
was placed on the amount or the frequency 
of the torture emjployed to extort admissions ; 
whatever was extorted from bodily anguish 
was used for procuring condemnation ; and 
denial was looked upon as evidence of 
hardened contumacy, in itself a sufficient 
warrant for condemnation. The Auto-da- 
fe, or act of faith, as the public ceremonial 
at the execution of a number of con- 
demned prisoners of the Inquisition was 
called, was invested with all the pomp and 
circumstance of a public hohday. The vic- 
tims condemned to die were clad in long 
yellow gabardines, on which figures of imps 
and demons were painted in black ; on their 
heads they wore conical mitres or hats 
similarly decorated. Those who confessed 
and abjured their heresy were strangled 
before the flames consumed their bodies ; 
those who persisted were burnt alive. Any 
look of pity or manifestation of sympathy 
for a heretic was sufficient to bring a man 
under suspicion ; and to fall under suspicion 
was enough to consign any one to a dun- 
geon. Even kings and queens, the virtuous 
Isabella of Castille herself not excepted, were 
present. At these executions the Grand 
Inquisitor sat on a higher chair than that 
occupied by the monarch himself, who on 
these occasions, with bared head, acknow- 
ledged the supremacy of the Church ; and 
the solemnity of the occasion was considered 
as enhanced where a large number of 
victims were delivered over at one and the 
same time to the secular arm. For the 
Church, too merciful herself to inflict punish- 
ment of death on the victim, gave him up to 
the executioner, with recommendation that 
he should be dealt with tenderly, and without 
effusion of blood. 

The Inquisition had been partially intro- 
duced into the Netherlands by Charles V. in 
1522 ; but it was more open in its action, 
more like a regular court, and was not pre- 
sided over by Dominicans — nor did it act in 
secret. It was reserved for Philip to esta- 
blish an atrocious tribunal, in the Spanish 
form, in the fair country of the Flemings ; 
and this would in itself be a sufficient reason 
for the revolt which convulsed the land some 
years later. 



William of Orange, Egmont, Margaret 
OF Parma, and Cardinal Granvella. 

That the establishment of such a horrible 
tribunal as the Inquisition should be the 
occasion of widespread anger and disaffection 
can be well imagined ; and to this other 
grievances were added. The quartering of 
Spanish troops in the Netherlands, intro- 
duced by Charles V., had often been ener- 
getically protested against. During the wars 
of the German Emperor there seemed some 
necessity for the burden ; now, however, in 
time of peace, "these troops were looked upon 
as the terrible preparations for oppression, 
and as the instruments of a hated hierarchy." 
There was a general and clamorous demand 
for their departure. Philip, without exactly 
refusing the request, contrived to keep them 
in the country ; and, at length, when the 
Estates protested more energetically than 
before against the retention of these troops, 
as seeming to imply that they, the inhabitants, 
were not competent to defend their own 
country for the King, Philip angrily exclaimed 
that he was a foreigner, and asked whether 
he ought not on that account to be expected 
to quit Flanders without delay ? And with 
these words he descended from his throne, 
and quitted the council-hall in high dis- 
pleasure. 

The various subjects of annoyance which 
the imperious King continually found in the 
independent spirit of the Netherlanders made 
him anxious to quit a country so uncongenial 
to his temperament, and where he was so 
often reminded of a public spirit he was 
determined to crush. But it was necessary 
to appoint a regent for the Netherlands, an 
office second to none in importance during 
the absence of the monarch. It had been 
provisionally administered by Duke Philibert 
of Savoy ; but as the recently concluded peace 
of Chateau Cambresis had restored that prince 
to his dominions, the duty of appointing a 
successor urgently presented itself 

Of those who were entitled to aspire to this 
high office, the first in rank and in merit was 
William, Prince of Orange Nassau, This 
remarkable man, who afterwards earned the 
proud title oi pater pai7'ice, belonged to one 
of the most illustrious of the German houses, 
and one that in the 13th century had given 
a ruler to the Empire in the person of Adol- 
phus of Nassau, who met his death in the 
battle of Gollheim, in 1298, fighting valiantly 
against Albert of Austria, the son of Rodolph 
of Hapsburg. He was brought up at the 
Court of Charles V., with whom he was an 
especial favourite, and who, it is told, per- 
mitted him alone to be present when the 
Emperor gave audience to foreign ambas- 
sadors; which is taken as a proof that already 
at that time he had earned by his discretion 



S04 



''LONG LIVE THE BEGGARS/" 



the honourable title of" the Silent,"' by which 
he was afterwards distinguished. His father, 
the Count of Nassau, was a Lutheran. The 
Emperor, nevertheless, caused the young 
prince to be brought up in the Catholic 
religion, which, in later years, William ex- 
changed for the Calvinistic form of Pro- 
testantism. When Charles abdicated his 
throne, William was three-and-twenty years 
old. The Emperor had twice distinguished 
him by proofs of his especial regard — once, 
when he gave him the honourable office of 
carrying the Imperial crown to Charles's 
brother and successor, Ferdinand ; and again, 
when he bestowed on the Prince of Orange 
the command of the Imperial troops in Flan- 
ders on the retirement of Philibert of Savoy. 
He was enormously wealthy, and exercised 
a great and noble hospitality. 

The second, who had a right by his position 
and services to aspire to the great office of 
Regent of the Netherlands, was Lamoral, 
Count of Egmont and Prince of Gavre. He 
was a descendant of the Counts of Gueldres, 
and, like William of Orange, had been dis- 
tinguished by the favour of Charles V., who 
made him a knight of the great Order of the 
Golden Fleece. The two victories at Grave- 
lines and St. Ouentin had gained him an 
almost exaggerated fame, and made him 
enormously popular among his countrymen. 
He was looked upon as the man who had, 
by his courage and conduct, procured for 
them the blessings of peace. The Nether- 
landers were proud of him, as the greatest 
of their countrymen. The Count himself, a 
man of kindly feelings, and with his heart 
expanded by the sunshine of prosperity, in- 
creased the favourable impression among his 
countrymen by the engaging freedom of his 
manners and address, and by the genial plea- 
sure he evidently took in the expressions of 
good-will with which he was greeted whenever 
he appeared in pubhc. While the acute in- 
tellect of the Prince of Orange looked "quite 
through the deeds of men," and could esti- 
mate actions and motives at their true value, 
the sunny optimism of Egmont refused to 
believe in the existence of duplicity and cun- 
ning, which were entirely foreign to his own 
nature ; and thus not unfrequently was led 
into error by the kindliness of his disposition. 

The claims of the two great nobles to the 
regency were equally balanced, and Phihp 
passed both of them by. He distrusted and 
detested the Prince of Orange, and was con- 
scious that he himself was thoroughly under- 
stood by that astute prince, and, consequently, 
he would not advance the Prince of Oi-ange. 
Egmont, on the other hand, was far too 
popular with his own countrymen to render 
him a fit servant of Philip as ruler of the 
Netherlands ; while his descent from the 
Counts of Gueldres seemed to point him out 



as the natural leader of the Flemings, if it 
should at any time occur to them to stand 
up for their independence against the son of 
the man who had introduced the Inquisition 
among them and had taxed them illegally ; 
and an appearance of impartiality was given 
by the fact that the King passed over them 
both, as if he did not wish to favour one of 
these distinguished men at the expense of 
the other. The truth was, their popularity 
was an invincible obstacle with each of them. 
The person whom the King chose as regent, 
to the exclusion alike of Orange and Egmont, 
was a relative of his own, the Duchess Mar- 
garet of Parma. Margaret was an illegitimate 
daughter of the Emperor Charles V., who 
gave her a royal education, and already in 
her fourth year caused her to be betrothed 
to a Duke of Ferrara. This engagement 
was afterwards cancelled, and after the return 
of the Emperor from Africa, Margaret was 
married to Alexander of Medicis, whom she 
lost a year later ; and again Margaret's hand 
was given away by her Imperial father, this 
time to Alexander Farnese, who received as 
the dowry of his wife the duchies of Parma 
and Piacenza. Margaret was a woman of 
masculine appearance and manners. She 
spoke and moved like a man, and was a great 
huntress, like her ancestress, Mary of Bur- 
gundy. Her masculine appearance was in- 
creased by the moustachio that adorned her 
upper lip. In religion she was a bigoted 
Romanist. 

How William of Orange incurred 

THE Hatred of Philip II. 
It is supposed that Philip considered the 
innovations he purposed introducing in Flan- 
ders would be more easily accepted at the 
hands of a woman, and that this had detei'- 
mined his choice. He veiled his hatred 
against the nobles, and especially against 
the Prince of Orange and Egmont, by the 
bestowal of important offices upon them, and 
by offering to each in turn the command of 
the Spanish troops who were to be left in 
the provinces. At a solemn assembly of the 
nobles and estates of the realm at Brussels, 
he recommended to the loyal consideration 
of his loving subjects the sister whom he left 
with them as regent, recapitulated the benefits 
he claimed to have conferred upon the State, 
promised to send his son Carlos if he him- 
self should be unable to return, and took leave 
of the country he was never to behold again. 
On one occasion only his anger and spite 
against the Prince of Orange burst forth 
through the artificial veil of dissimulation. 
When he was about to embark at Flushing, 
the Prince of Orange was present, with many 
other nobles, to bid him farewell. The King 
took William bitterly to task for the discon- 
tents that had been manifested in the pro- 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



vinces. The Prince respectfully replied that 
nothing had been done except by the autho- 
rity of the Estates. "No, no !" exclaimed 
Philip, his anger for once blazing out, as he 
seized the Prince's wrist and shook it vio- 
lently ; " not the Estates, but you — you — 
you !" In astonishment at this outbreak, 
the Prince turned away, and wished the King 
a pleasant voyage, without accompanying him 
on board his ship. 

A deep-seated distrust of all men was a 
part of the system of Philip II. ; but if there 
was one man whom he looked upon with 
something like confidence it was Antony 
Peranot, Bishop of Arras, afterwards Arch- 
bishop of Mechlin and Metropolitan of the 
Netherlands, better known and universally 
hated in Flanders under the name of Cardinal 
Granvella. He was a man of remarkable 
talents and deep and wide erudition, inde- 
fatigable in the discharge of State business, 
carrying out the smallest details with labo- 
rious conscientiousness. He thoroughly un- 
derstood his master, and would frequently 
put into definite shape a thought but half 
formed in the sluggish mind of Philip, to 
whom he would transfer the credit of the 
invention, illustrating the old proverb, " The 
page slew the boar, the king took the gloire." 
He really led Philip, in the only way in which 
that gloomy and superstitious tyrant could 
be led, by concealing his power and affecting 
to depreciate his own skill. Philip had espe- 
cially recommended Granvella to his sister 
the Regent, impressing on Margaret that she 
should make use of the advice and experience 
of this astute and reliable counsellor on all 
occasions of difficulty. 

Discontent in the Netherlands ; The 
Compromise and its Object. 
The projects of the King at Madrid were 
soon apparent in the actions of his minister. 
During the years that immediately followed 
Philip's departure from the Netherlands, the 
chief efforts of the Regent, seconded, or rather 
divided, by Granvella, tended to the setting 
up of an episcopal tyranny in the provinces, 
and to the carrying out of the edicts against 
the heretics with increased severity by the 
agency of the Inquisition. Gradually a 
clamour of discontent and opposition arose, 
which swelled into an universal roar of execra- 
tion against Granvella, who, as primate in 
Flanders, actively carried out the new system, 
which redounded greatly to his profit ; for 
among the new bishoprics that were created, 
six, namely, Antwerp, Bois-le-duc, Ghent, 
Bruges, Ypem, and Riiremonde, were imme- 
diately subordinate to the archbishopric of 
Mechlin. In the State Council the voice of 
Granvella prevailed against the opinion of all 
the rest ; and even the Regent herself had to 
defer to his opinion. Worse than all was 



the fact that these new bishoprics were asso- 
ciated with the spreading and strengthening 
of the Inquisition ; for to each of them two 
inquisitors were attached, while the Cardinal 
had the title of Grand Inquisitor. Granvella 
himself at last recognized his position as 
untenable in the face of the urgent petitions 
addressed to Philip for his removal ; and at 
length, after he had earnestly himself solicited 
his recall, and the three great nobles, William 
of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, Lamoral, 
Count Egmont, Stadtholder of Flanders, and 
the wealthy and influential Count Horn, re- 
fused to appear at the council-board, Philip 
reluctantly called away his subservient agent, 
and Granvella quitted the Netherlands, leav- 
ing behind him the curses of millions, and 
the reputation of a persecutor and a traitor 
to the country. Even the Duchess Margaret 
disliked him intensely, and felt a relief at his 
departure. 

But "the evil that men do lives after them." 
Granvella was gone from Flanders, but his 
system remained ; and the King was deter- 
mined at all cost to establish religious uni- 
formity in the Netherlands. On his return 
to Spain from the N etherlands he had bound 
himself by an oath to extirpate heresy through- 
out his dominions : the dungeon, the rack, 
and the faggot had been unsparingly employed 
in carrying fulfilment of this oath ; and Philip 
would hear of no mitigation of the penalties 
against religious offenders. Egmont, as a 
man whose loyalty and patriotism were alike 
well known, was deputed, in 1565, to lay the 
state of affairs before the King ; but he could 
get no satisfaction at Madrid, the King dis- 
missing him with that famous declaration, 
that rather than rule over heretics he would 
not rule at all. He would rather lose every 
foot of his territories, and die a thousand 
deaths, than sanction the slightest change in 
matters of religion. 

Such an answer could not fail to inflame 
popular feeling, and create disgust and anger 
among the higher classes. The Prince of 
Orange showed his sense of Philip's conduct 
and of the cruelties and injustice practised 
upon the people by abjuring the Roman 
Catholic faith, in which he had been brought 
up, for that of his ancestors. The nobles 
for the most part belonged to the old religion; 
but they were as antagonistic to the Inqui- 
sition as the Protestants themselves, seeing 
in it the future ruin and desolation of their 
country. Accordingly some four hundred of 
them came together and signed a document 
called the Compromise, wherein they pledged 
themselves to stand by one another in resist- 
ance against the Inquisition, and religious 
persecution generally. This step, in which 
tyranny saw nothing less than a conspiracy 
to subvert all authority, they followed up by 
a petition for the abolition of the laws against 



506 



" LONG LIVE THE BEGGERS ! " 




Procession of Nobles to Margaret of Parii.i 



heretics, and the suspension of the prose- 
cutions undertaken by the Inquisition. 

On the 4th of April, 1 566, the members of 
the league who had signed the Compromise 
met in the Kinlemburg House, the palace of 
Count Egmont ; and here Brederode, one of 



507 



their chiefs, obtained from them a second 
oath, that they would stand by one another, 
if necessary, with arms in their hands. At 
the same time their zeal and indignation were 
inflamed by the exhibition of a letter from 
Spain, which set forth " how" a certain Pro- 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY 



testant, whom they all knew and respected, 
had been burnt alive there by a slow fire. 
It was determined to present the petition to 
the Regent Margaret next day. 

How THE Great Petition was pre- 
sented TO Margaret of Parma. 

On the morrow, accordingly, the 5th of 
April, a company of nearly four hundred men, 
among them many nobles and persons of 
liigh position, and with the Count of Nassau 
and Brederode at their head, marched in 
procession, four and four, through the streets 
of Brussels to the palace, while all the city 
looked on in breathless expectation. The 
Regent Margaret, not a little disturbed to find 
so many of the foremost men in the country 
among the throng of petitioners, received 
them surrounded by her counsellors, and by 
the Knights of the Golden Fleece. Brederode 
addressed her in the most respectful terms, 
assuring her that the petition, of whose im- 
portance the numerous assembly was a suffi- 
cient guarantee, contained nothing that was 
incompatible with the good of the country 
or the dignity of the King. The chief object 
of the petition was to beg that a competent 
person might be despatched to Madrid to 
entreat the monarch to rescind the objection- 
able edicts, and stop the progress of the 
Inquisition ; for their continuance could not 
fail to produce the worst consequences to the 
Netherlands. Margaret gave them hopes 
that the prayer of their petition would be 
granted, and promised to give them their 
answer on the morrow. 

The next day, accordingly, they came in 
yet stronger numbers to receive the reply, 
which was to the effect that though the 
granting of their petition went beyond the 
powers with which the Regent was entrusted, 
one of the nobles should be despatched to 
Spain to lay their case before the King, 
backed with all the influence of the Regent ; 
and that meanwhile directions should be 
issued to the inquisitors to fulfil their office 
in as moderate a manner as possible ; while, 
on her part, she expected that the League 
would show a similar moderation, and under- 
take nothing against the dignity or authority 
of the monarch. This was quite as much as 
the petitioners expected to achieve for the 
time, and accordingly they withdrew not ill- 
pleased. 

'•' Long Live the Beggars ! Vivent 

LES GUEUX ! " 

It happened that Brederode that night 
entertained at a banquet the majority of those 
who had taken part in the procession. The 
events of the day were talked over, and the 
courage of the guests, who were present to 
the number of some three hundred, rose as 



the wine mounted to their brains. Then it 
happened how one of the guests told how he 
had noticed that Margaret of Parma had 
changed colour when the petition was pre- 
sented, whereupon one of the Council, Count 
Barlaimont, had said to her she was not to 
be frightened at a lot of beggars {guenx). 
The designation had a certain grim humour 
in it ; for, as Schiller says, " in truth the 
majority of them had been reduced by bad 
economy in a manner that only two well 
justified the word." The idea of adopting 
the epithet as a name for the League at once 
struck a number of the company, and there 
arose a shout of "Long live the Beggars !" 
which was repeated again and again, amid 
a tumult of applause. What had been first 
started as a jest was adopted in earnest. 
Brederode presently appeared with a wallet' 
such as the mendicant friars and pilgrims 
were accustomed to wear. With this strange 
insignia suspended round his neck, he drank 
to the company, having exchanged " his 
figured goblet for a dish of wood," thanking 
them for joining the union, and vowing that 
he was ready to risk his life and everything 
that he had for each one among them. The 
cup was then passed to each one in turn, and 
each man took the same oath as he drained 
it. Wallets were then passed round, and the 
guests hung them up behind their chairs, as 
distinguishmg marks of the fraternity of the 
Beggars. 

The shouting and tumult of these proceed- 
ings had attracted the attention of William 
of Orange and of the Counts Egmont and 
Horn, who happened to be passing the door, 
and wondered what made Brederode's guests 
so noisy. They stepped into the house, and 
were received with acclamations ; and the 
host would take no denial but they must 
stay and take a glass with their friends. 
This they did amid the frantic applause of 
the guests, who looked upon the proceeding 
as a formal joining of the League by these 
three illustrious visitors. " We only drank 
a single small glass," said Egmont afterwards 
inhis defence, when arraignedfor high treason, 
" and they shouted ' Long live the King, and 
long live the Beggars !' I heard the expres- 
sion for the first time, and certainly it dis- 
pleased me ; but the times were so evil, that 
one had to take part in many things against 
one's inclination, and I thought I was doing 
a harmless thing." And now the festivity 
grew last and furious ; the spirits of the 
company were raised to the highest point of 
triumphant joviality in the pleasure of gain- 
ing three such recruits to their cause ; they 
drank and shouted with redoubled vigour, 
and many were intoxicated, not entirely by 
joy, on the occasion. Never was a national 
league of vital importance more whimsically 
inaugurated. 



508 



''LONG LIVE THE BEGGARS/'' 



How THE GREAT CONSPIRACY WENT ON. 

The zeal of the newly-established league 
did not evaporate with the fumes of the fes- 
tive wine. What had been resolved upon 
in the joyous tumult of a banquet was de- 
liberately carried out when reflection came. 
The members of the new fraternity chose a 
dress, of an ashen grey coloL:r, such as was 
worn by mendicant friars and penitents, 
and in this garb they clothed their servants 
and families ; and whenever the grey gowns 
appeared in the streets of Brussels, some 
wearers, moreover, displaying in their hats or 
at their girdles wooden cups, dishes, and 
similar insignia of the beggar's trade, the 
fraternity increased in numbers and import- 
ance. Then it was that a medal was adopted, 
a gold or silver coin, displaying on one side 
the eftigy of Phihp II., with the legend, 
" Faithful to the King," and on the other a 
pair of folded hands supporting a wallet, 
with the words, " To the beggar's staff." In 
time, the name '" Gueux" was adopted by all 
who, in the Netherlands, separated them- 
selves from the Papacy, and ultimately took 
up arms against the King. 

After a closing interview with Margaret of 
Parma, in which the Regent exhorted the chiefs 
of the confederation to behave peaceably and 
moderately, and above all to abstain from all 
innovation, and from increasing the numbers 
of their union, until the King's answer should 
arrive from Madrid, Brederode, Kuilemberg, 
and Bergen, the three chiefs, quitted Brussels 
at the head of a cavalcade of more than five 
hundred horsemen. But they had no inten- 
tion of limiting their activity ; on the con- 
trary, they wished to extend the confederation 
of the Gueux as widely as possible. Brede- 
rode proceeded to Antwerp, where he ap- 
peared at the window of a tavern with a 
brimming wine-glass in his hand, and told 
the expectant crowd that he had come, with 
peril of his life and property, to relieve them 
from the burden of the Inc|uisition. Mean- 
while Margaret of Parma, with the help of 
her councillors, drew up a document which 
halted half-way between the demands of the 
malcontents and the edicts of tlie King, and 
which was known by the name of the Mode- 
ration. To this document she cleverly ob- 
tained the consent of the various towns and 
districts separately, thus giving them no op- 
portunity for common discussion or remon- 
strance. But there was reason to believe 
that the nation would not be content with 
this " Moderation," even if it were confirmed 
by the King ; for the document hgid been 
drawn up without consultation with the 
Estates ; and this had been made a great 
point. It was also decided, against the advice 
of the Prince of Orange, to keep the docu- 
ment secret until the King's sanction had been 



obtained. The document itself was of a most 
unsatisfactory nature, for it did not include 
the abolition of a single important griev- 
ance, and at a later period was nick-named 
by the angry people the " Murderation." 

William, Prince of Orange, and the Counts 
Egmont and Horn had hitherto maintained 
a position midwny between the malcontents 
and the party of the government. They now 
determined to withdraw from public affairs 
altogether, having no hope that a favourable 
answer would be received from Madrid, and 
conscious that their counsels were systemati- 
cally opposed and overruled. Margaret of 
Parma protested vehemently against this pro- 
ceeding, representing to the Prince of Orange 
especially that as the heads of the conspiracy 
of the Gueux, Prince Louis of Nassau and 
Brederode, were respectively his brother and 
his friend, if William suddenly forsook the 
councils of his king, it would be universally 
held that he favoured the conspirators. For 
a time the Prince of Orange and Count 
Egmont were persuaded by the Regent to 
remain ; but Horn retired to one of his 
estates, declaring he would serve emperors 
and kings no more. 

The party of the Gueux, meanwhile, in- 
creased rapidly in numbers and importance. 
In the provinces they were looked upon as 
the friends and supporters of the popular 
cause, and in various towns merchants and 
citizens of note openly declared themselves of 
their party, and wore their insignia. All who 
were discontented, all who conceived them- 
selves injured by the tyranny and injustice ot 
the government, all who looked to see the ex- 
isting state of things overthrown, gathered 
round them. "To be pointed out as a valu- 
able recruit to the confederacy," says Schiller, 
" flattered the vain man ; the opportunity of 
mingling unobserved and unpunished in the 
great crowd, lured the coward." And now 
there came flocking into the Netherlands a 
crowd of German Protestants and French 
Huguenots, bent on proselytizing, for which 
they saw a favourable opportunity. Calvin- 
ists, Lutherans, and Anabaptists vied with 
each other in the endeavour to win souls ; 
the three sects having little in common ex- 
cept a bitter and inextinguishable hatred 
against the Roman Church and the Inqui- 
sition, and against the Spanish Government 
as its tool. Expecting that the " Moderation " 
would be accepted at Madrid, the Regent 
had given directions to the magistrates of 
various districts that the Inquisition should 
proceed with caution and moderation. This 
recoinmendation had been understood in so 
wide a sense that for a time the operations 
of that tribunal were almost suspended. 
Emboldened by this, the Protestants, who 
until then had ht&n fain to meet for worship 
by night and in secret places, came together 



509 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



openly in crowds to listen to the fiery exhor- 
tations of favourite preachers ; and a magis- 
trate who rashly endeavoured to arrest one 
iA these preachers who was addressing an 
open-air meeting of some thousands, was so 
■furiously attacked by the populace with sticks 
and stones that he barely escaped with his 
life. Hermann Strieker, a quondam monk 
■who had escaped from his convent, and 
Peter Dathan, a monk who had abjured his 
belief, were the most popular and influential 
among the preachers ; and Ambrosius Ville, 
a French Calvinist, excited the Protestants 
of Tournay. 

The boldness of the preachers and of the 
audiences increased with the sympathy they 
found. Besides Tournay, Valenciennes, and 
Antwerp distinguished themselves by the 
audacity with which they defied the laws 
against heresy. They soon got so far as to 
establish camps by making an enclosure of 
carts and waggons, within which their ser- 
vices were held, guarded by armed men ; 
and in many cases these meetings were 
defaced by the wildest extravagance. The 
Romish Church and its ceremonies, the doc- 
trine of purgatory and the various dogmas 
were turned into ridicule, and made the 
subjects of coarse wit and buffoonery, the 
hearers expressing their approval by clap- 
ping of hands, as at a dramatic show. The 
wonted impunity increased the boldness of 
the sectaries ; and after a short time they 
actually made a practice of conveying their 
preachers home in triumph, with a mounted 
escort, in open and contemptuous defiance of 
the law. 

The Storm bursts forth at last. 
The confederacy of the Gueux was mean- 
while becoming stronger and stronger. The 
lower class of people became more and more 
turbulent, and in Antwerp the disturbance 
reached such a pitch that some of the great 
merchants meditated quitting the town alto- 
gether, fearful of being plundered by the unruly 
mob. Urgent messages were sent to Mar- 
garet of Parma, begging her by her personal 
presence to restore order in the distracted 
city, or at least to send the Prince of Orange, 
the only man of sufficient weight to control 
the jarring factions. Though it went against 
her inclination to entrust Antwerp to William, 
the Regent felt bound to comply with the 
latter of these requests, and the Prince was 
welcomed in Antwerp with the utmost enthu- 
siasm. The whole city seemed to have turned 
out to meet him. Again the cry, " Long live 
the Gueux !" was raised with joyful shouts 
in honour of the Prince. " Look at him," 
cried others, " he it is who brings us liberty." 
" He is everything to us !" cried others ; and 
thus, amid a jubilant clamour of young and 
old, the Prince rode into the city, grave and 



anxious, and with Avords of warning on his 
lips to the excited populace, whom he adjured 
to be careful what they did lest they should 
one day repent it. Brederode meanwhile had 
taken advantage of the Regent's request that 
he would aid her in maintaining peace to 
issue a general summons of the whole league 
of the Gueux, in the town of St. Truyea, 
whither Brederode and Ludwig of Nassau 
had betaken themselves, at the head of two 
thousand men, with the intention of obtain- 
ing new concessions from Margaret, who 
negotiated with them through the Prince of 
Orange and Count Egmont, and who bitterly 
complained of this display of force as un- 
necessary, and calculated to produce distur- 
bances. The Gueux, on the other hand, 
defended the step they had taken by de- 
claring that while they thanked the Regent 
for all she had done for them, they feared 
her commands for moderation were but ill 
carried out, so long as they saw their fellow- 
countrymen dragged to prison and to death 
on account of their religion. They declared 
themselves loyal to the King ; but at the 
same time they let it be plainly seen that 
they intended to stand together for their 
own defence, and were as inimical as ever 
to the Inquisition. 

Meanwhile, in Spain, the envoys who had 
been sent to procure the consent of the King 
and Government to the Moderation, were able 
to effect nothing. The Council summoned to 
deliberate on the matter, among whom was 
the Duke of Alva, the most suspicious and 
unscrupulous of bigots, could see nothing in 
the demands of the Gueux but an organized 
attempt to create a rebellion, and a deter- 
mination to overthrow all authority, and to 
obtain what they declared the King could 
not grant, — complete freedom of religious 
belief. The advice of the Council to the 
King was that His Majesty should refuse to 
grant the Moderation in the form demanded, 
but should grant some smaller concessions, 
while a partial amnesty might be given for 
past offences ; and, on the other hand, all 
public preaching, all confederations, meet- 
ings, leagues, should be forbidden under the 
heaviest penalties ; and that meanwhile the 
Regent should avail herself of the garrisons 
in the different towns, and, if necessary, raise 
fresh troops to combat any attempt at insu- 
bordination. The advice of the Council was 
taken. Philip made some trifling and value- 
less concessions that he might at any time 
revoke, but certainly promised some modi- 
fication in the action of the Inquisition. The 
boon, such as it was, came too late, for the 
question had now assumed a new aspect. 

King Philip and his Councillors ; 

Alva. 
The storm of popular fury that had been 



■Iio 



" L ONG LIVE THE BEGGARS .' " 



long gathering had at length burst violently 
forth in various towns in the Netherlands. 
The anger of the populace showed itself first 
in expressions of contempt directed against 
the monks and their teachings, and against 
the worship of images and of sacred symbols, 
from the host downwards. Suddenly in all 
Flanders and Brabant, in all the chief cities 
such as Brussels, Antwerp, Ypern, etc., the 
rage of the people vented itself upon images, 



escape ; in many places the roads were 
strewn with the fragments of broken sculp- 
ture and of objects used in the church 
services. Nor did the convents escape 
uninjured ; and various valuable libraries 
also became the prey of the fanatic mobs, 
and were committed to the flames. 

Margaret of Parma found herself com- 
pelled, in the extremity to which her authority 
was brought by these disturbances, to 




church ornaments, and consecrated vessels 
and implements. Crowds of people belong- 
ing to the lowest classes ranged through the 
towns, breaking in pieces and destroying 
furniture, decorations, and pictures and 
images. It was on the 14th of August, 1566, 
that this carnival of sacrilege began ; and 
within three days more than four hundred 
churches and chapels had been plundered 
and desecrated. Even the crucifixes and 
images of saints by the wayside did not 



negotiate with the league of the Gueux ; and 
again the Prince of Orange and the Counts 
Egmont and Horn were chosen to act 
between the contracting parties. The Regent 
pledged her word that no member of the 
League should be in any way called to account 
for the petition presented to the King, in 
return for this promise of indemnity, which 
was formally signed and sealed by Margaret, 
the League promised to give every assistance 
towards putting down the sacrilegious icono- 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



clasts and restoring tranquillity through- 
out the provinces. Margaret felt deeply 
humiliated at . being thus obliged to treat 
with men whom she looked upon as the op- 
ponents and enemies of the King's authority ; 
and in her letters to Philip excused herself by 
declaring that she had been little better than 
a prisoner in the capital where she nominally 
ruled. She was especially bitter against 
William of Orange, and her complaints were 
not likely to be passed unheeded by the vin- 
dictive tyrant to whom they were addressed. 
For the time, however, the danger was suc- 
cessfully encountered. The Prince of Orange 
did good service in putting down the riotous 
and sacrilegious despoilers of the churches. 
Some of the ringleaders were hanged, and 
various punishments inflicted on others, pro- 
duced a salutary feeling of terror, and put 
an end to the work of plunder and destruction. 
Margaret of Parma, too, showed considerable 
skill and policy in mingling severity towards 
the most ruthless offenders with conciliation 
and compromise where these means could 
answer her purpose. Troops were obtained ; 
and with forces hastily raised the rebellious 
town of Valenciennes, and somewhat later 
Antwerp itself, was reduced to obedience, and 
it seemed as if peace and tranquilhty would 
succeed to the troubles that had so long 



shaken the Netherlands. All depended on 
the course that should be decided on in 
Madrid. 

In the Spanish capital, grave deliberations 
had been held on the state of things in the 
Netherlands. In the royal council, several 
were for a policy of strict justice, and for the 
removal of grievances, for this would deprive 
those who persisted in their opposition of all 
claim to support and sympathy. But the 
opposing faction, headed by the Duke of 
Alva, declared that the King would be show- 
ing culpable weakness by such a course ; 
that it behoved him first to vindicate his 
authority, by the unsparing punishment of 
all who had opposed him, and that afterwards 
there would be time enough to think of the 
redress of grievances. This advice was too 
congenial to the despotic temper of Philip to 
be rejected ; and in an evil hour for himself 
the KuigdespatchedAlvato enforce obedience 
with fire and sword ; and the splendid and 
wealthy provinces, with their turbulent but 
warm-hearted and affectionate inhabitants, 
were at length goaded by the insolence of 
tyranny and oppression into desperate revolt, 

The events of that revolt, its vicissitudes 
and ultimate success, must be told separately. 

H, W. D. 




Ghent. 



512 




The Conspirators at Work. 



GUY FAWKES: 



THE STORY OF THE GUNPOWDER PLOT. 

" Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, 
The Gunpowder Treason and Plot." 



Scene in the Tower— Guy Fawkes— His Examination and Hearing— The King's Questions— English Catholics- 
Origin of the Plot— The Family of Fawkes— Meeting in St. Clement's Danes— Vinegar House— The Mine— The 
Conspirators— Frank Tresham— The Warning— Check by the King— Checkmate— The Springing of the Mine— Arrest 
of Guy Fawkes— Run to Earth— The Executions— Search for the Priests— End of the Jesuits— Garnet's last Efforts- 
Conclusion. 



In THE Tower of London. 

T noon, upon a certain early day in 

November 1605, the inhabitants of 

the city of London were surprised to 

see some of the highest nobihty of 

the land hurrying with anxicus mien to the 



513 



Tower. But their visit was not unexpected 
by the Lieutenant of that frowning pile. Sir 
William Waad was awaiting them ; he met 
them as they arrived, and these great person- 
ages passed through to his house directly 
across the Green. They met in a small 

I,L 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



apartment, now covered with inscriptions 
and "plated" with records, — The Powder 
Plot Room ! 

This room is a small one, and the window 
looks upon the Thames. The apartment is 
constructed curiously upon the wall ; and 
around it are (or were) certain inscriptions 
in Latin — one a prayer for "James the Great, 
King of Great Britain, his Queen and 
children, and for their protection." Other 
records are inscribed upon the wall, for this 
little chamber is the Powder Plot Room, and 
the great men have hurried from Whitehall 
to the Tower to examine a prisoner captured 
in Parliament Place upon the previous 
evening. 

The prisoner was Guido Fawkes, his inter- 
rogators the Secretary of State, the Lord 
High Admiral, the Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland, and the Lord Privy Seal, — offices 
holden by men whose names carried with 
them all the weight of the English nation, 
viz., Cecil, Earl of Sahsbury, Charles Howard, 
Earl of Nottingham, Charles Blount, Earl of 
Devon, and Henry Howard, Earl of North- 
ampton. These noblemen had been instructed 
to question the man, who had given his 
name as John Johnson, and his master's as 
Thomas Percy, but whose identity had been 
discovered from a letter found upon the 
prisoner, written by Anne Vaux, of Har- 
rowden, daughter of Lord Vaux, and whilom 
of White Webbs, in Enfield Chase, where 
English Jesuits and English ladies lived 
under assumed names, and in questionable 
relationship. 

Sir William Waad was despatched to bring 
in the prisoner ; and in a few moments he 
entered the room and confronted his accusers 
boldly, — as boldly as he had joked the night 
before when caught all grimy and black 
from coal and dust in Parliament Place. 
This was the man whose name has been 
handed down to execration by generations 
as Guy Fawkes. It is with this man and his 
associates, his aiders and abettors, that we 
have now to do. 

Guy Fawkes examined. 

The prisoner entered calmly, and seemed 
not alarmed nor dismayed at the reception 
he had met with, or the fate that impended. 
He waited boldly and defiantly before the 
Commissioners. He had played for life or 
death, and lost the stakes. He was an 
upright, well-bearing soldier, bronzed and 
sandy of hue, with grey hair; his appearance 
— notwithstanding the circumstances in which 
he was placed — being that of a man of no 
low lineage. Even Cecil testified to his 
bearing. "He is no more dismayed," said 
he, " than if he were taken for a poor robbery 
upon the highway. 

The King had set down certain questions, 



and given certain instructions concerning 
the examination of the prisoner, "The 
gentler tortures are to be first used unto 
him," writes the King, ^^ et sic per gradus ad 
ima tendatur, and so God speed you in your 
good work." The good work was not long 
in beginning, and a number of questions 
were put to Fawkes. The King's exami- 
nation was as follows, as written by James 
himself: — 

" (i) Quhat he is, for I can neuer yett heare 
of any man that knowis him ? 

" (2) Quhaire he uas borne ? 

" (3) Quhat uaire his parents' names ? 

" (4) Ouhat aage he is of? 

" (5) Quhaire he hath lined ? 

" (6) How he hath lined, and by quhat 
trade of lyfe ? 

" (7) How he ressaued those woundes irti 
his breste ? 

" (8) If he was euer in seruice with any 
other before Percie, and quhat they uaire,. 
and hou long? 

" (9) Hou came he in Percie's seruice, by 
quhat meanes, and at quhat tyme ? 

"(10) Quhat tyme was this house hyred 
by his maister ? 

"(11) And hou soone aftir the possessing 
of it did he begin his deuillishe prepara- 
tions ? 

"(12) Quhen and quhaire lernid he to 
speake frenshe ? 

"(13) Quhat gentlewoman's lettir it uas 
that uas found upon him ? 

" (14) And quairfore doth she giue him ati 
other name in it than he giues to himself? 

"(15) If he was euer a Papiste, and if so- 
quho brocht him up in it ?" 

Then follows a long list of other questions 
which the King wished to have put to Guy 
Fawkes. 

The prisoner answered them all in the 
way that suited him best. A great many of 
his answers were untrue, and others only 
partially true. Some few were answered 
truly. But the Commission and the King 
were not satisfied ; and Sir Edward Coke 
came down, and soon put Fawkes out of 
countenance. The rack was hinted at, and 
then Fawkes, though steadily refusing to 
bear witness against his accomplices, told 
the truth concerning himself. He confessed 
his birth, parentage, and cccupation, of 
which more hereafter. 

When he was told that his friends had es- 
caped, and that the very fact of their attempted 
flight condemned them, Fawkes said it would 
be superfluous for him to declare them. But 
next day we find Sir William Waad, the 
Lieutenant of the Tower, writing to Lord 
Salisbury as follows : — 

" This morning, when Johnson was ready 



SH 



GUY FAWKES. 



(who hath taken such rest this night as a 
man void of all trouble of mind), I repaired 
unto him, and told him if he held his resolu- 
tion of mind to be so silent, he must think 
that the resolution in the State was as con- 
stant to proceed with him with that severity 
which was meet in a case of that conse- 
quence ; and for my own part I promised 
that I would never give him over until I had 
gotten the inward secrets of his thoughts, 
and all his complices, and therefore I wished 
him to prepare himself. He confessed he 
had made both a solemn vow and oath, and 
received the Sacrament on it, not to disclose 
it, nor to discover any of his friends. He 
knew not what torture might do, but other- 
wise he was resolved to keep his vow." 

It was evident from this letter* that Sir 
William Waad was under the impression that 
Fawkes would betray all he knew ; but next 
morning the prisoner was as stubborn as 
ever, and would say nothing. There are 
sensational and romantic accounts of the 
tortures to which Fawkes was afterwards 
subjected ; but though it is probable he was 
racked to make him divulge the names of 
his accomplices, we do not find any authority 
for the statement that he was hung up by 
his thumb, put upon the "hot-stone," or 
imprisoned for a night in the horrible pit, 
the dungeon amongst the rats, which may 
or may not have been a form of torture 
applied to refractory prisoners. He probably 
made acquaintance with the " Scavenger's 
Daughter'' and the "Little Ease," if the 
rack failed to extract his information. 

However, the torture succeeded, and Guido 
Fawkes made full confession; but he stipu- 
lated that it must not be in writing. " From 
the Tower of London, the 9th of November, 
1605," Sir William Waad wrote to the Earl of 
Salisbury, signifying that the prisoner (" my 
prisoner" the Lieutenant calls him) had 
" faithfully promised me by narration to dis- 
cover to your Lordship only all the secrets 
of his heart, but not to be set down in 
writing." So the Earl came quickly to the 
Tower, and in the little "Powder Plot" 
chamber he obtained a full and complete 
history of the Gunpowder Treason from the 
lips of one of the chief conspirators. 

The words were copied, and subsequently 
offered to Fawkes to sign. We have now 
the proof that the man had been tortured. 
He made an attempt to sign his name; but 
ere he could complete the signature the pen 
fell from his nerveless hand, having traced 
only the Christian name, GuiDO. 

His first narrative, dated the 8th of No- 
vember, was added to ; and when his accom- 
plices were arrested, the whole tale of the 
memorable Gunpowder Plot was written. 



* MSS. British Museum. 



There is one narrative in the Harleian Mis- 
cellany, dated 1678, to which we are in- 
debted for some of the circumstances herein 
set forth. This, with other papers, have been 
consulted, and now we will piece together the 
various histories of the Treason. 

The English Catholics. 

The Gunpowder Treason has been ascribed 
to the Roman Catholics as a body, but that 
statement is not wholly true. No doubt the 
idea of the plot was first communicated to 
Catesby by a pupil of Owen the Jesuit, 
named Morgan, but the conspirators were 
originally of the Protestant faith. If we 
examine the records we shall find they were 
perverts or converts to the Romish Church, 
and receiving little or no support from the 
Pope or the high Catholic authorities or 
from the secular priests. The Jesuits were 
scarcely in favour of it ; but there can, on the 
other hand, be no doubt that the English 
Catholic families had been treated with great 
severity by Elizabeth. Their houses were 
searched, and many indignities were put upon 
them and their families. The Jesuits were 
driven from house to house, and concealed in 
secret passages and behind the open chim- 
neys, and these proceedings enraged them. 

The Jesuits had been banished by EHza- 
beth ; and the penalty for entering England 
was death ; and it was also proclaimed that 
all persons harbouring priests were guilty of 
a "capital felony." So all the English 
Catholics were more or less affected ; and it 
appears that the families and houses or 
the conspirators of the "Popish Plot" had 
all suffered directly or indirectly from the 
strict Acts of Elizabeth's reign. Even those 
who had entertained her right royally were 
not exempted, and some families were ruined 
by the payment of fines. 

But the priests were actually driven about 
in real terror of their lives. The many nar- 
ratives and romances of the period do not 
exaggerate the shifts and disguises to which 
the Jesuits had recourse to avoid discovery 
and death. There are some old mansions 
now extant, and there were many more then,, 
which were full of hiding-places ; and when, 
the hunted ecclesiastics were warned from 
one by the faithful spy, they hurried to an- 
other, like rabbits from hole to hole before the 
dogs. At Enfield, at Henley, at Erith, near- 
Woolwich, were houses which sheltered these 
priests ; and " White Webbs," in Enfield. 
Chase, is a celebrated instance. 

James being of Romish descent, the Eng- 
lish Catholics entertained great hopes that 
he would favour them on his accession ; but 
he disappointed them, although after his. 
proclamation he had made some advances, 
towards conciUating them, and removed 
their "recusancy'' fines, and made some 



515 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



high and lucrative appointments from their 
body. 

But scarcely had he ascended the throne 
than James changed his opinions, and the 
Catholics who had been led to expect 
toleration were hardened into treason by the 
enactments and the increased severity of the 
penal laws directed against them. Any pro- 
mises that James had made were now thrown 
to the winds, and the English Catholics re- 
opened negotiations with the court of Spain 
for placing a Catholic sovereign upon the 
English throne, and for the embarkation of 
a Spanish army for the purpose. But the 
idea fell through, and the discontented and 
harassed Catholics had to strike out in 
other directions. 

The Origin of the Plot. 

At the close of the year 1601, Thomas 
Winter, a younger brother of Robert Win- 
ter, of Huddington, in Worcestershire, was 
sent over into Spain by the Jesuits Garnet 
and Tesmond to treat with the King respect- 
ing the levy of an army to espouse the 
Catholic cause in England. Thomas Winter 
was a pretty shrewd fellow ; he had already 
seen considerable service, and was afterwards 
employed by Lord Monteagle as secretary, or 
in some such capacity. He was a Roman 
Catholic at that time, and related to Catesby 
and Tresham. He had been variously em- 
ployed in intrigues, and delighted in them. 

Such a mission was very acceptable, and 
the promise of an army was given. But the 
death of Elizabeth in 1603 put a stop to the 
negotiation. Wright was at once despatched 
to Spain, and on his way Christopher met 
Guy Fawkes, who had been sent by Father 
Owen from Brussels on the same errand. 
Fawkes was no stranger to Wright, and 
when these worthies had been rebuffed 
by the Spanish monarch, who was treating 
with the King of England, they returned to- 
gether. 

But while Fawkes and Christopher Wright 
were travelling and plotting abroad, a much 
more serious project had been set on foot at 
home. Catesby, a man of very considerable 
position and influence, was the son of Sir Wil- 
liam Catesby, a convert of the Romish Church, 
and a man possessed of large estates in 
Warwickshire and Northamptonshire. To 
Robert Catesby, his son, the idea of gun- 
powder seems first to have occurred as an 
useful agent in destroying the obnoxious 
James. By gunpowder they could at one 
fell stroke demolish James and his associates. 
Gunpowder had killed Darnley his father ; 
was it not quite in the fitness of things that 
powder should destroy the son as easily? 
The precedent was a good one from the con- 
spirators' point of view. 

With soldiers such as they were, to men 



so well accustomed to the use of powder, 
and mining, entrenching tools and sub- 
terranean engineering, the most powerful 
and secret agent was gunpowder. They 
were familiar with it, and trusted to its 
qualities as a sure and swift destroyer which 
would " leave not a wrack behind." Whether 
Catesby was the actual originator of the idea 
is not material. He communicated it to 
Winter, and boldly stated his intention to 
blow up Parliament with gunpowder, for " in 
that place " (Parliament) " they have done us 
all the mischief." 

The man named by Catesby as the per- 
son best calculated to assist them in their 
design was Guy Fawkes ; and Winter crossed 
to the Netherlands and brought him back to 
England " as a fit and resolute man for the 
execution of the enterprise." As we shall 
have to mention Guido or Guy Fawkes very 
often, we must give some particulars con- 
cerning him : for these we are mainly in- 
debted to a small volume entitled, " The 
Fawkes of York." 

The Family of Fawkes. 

When interrogated after his apprehension, 
Guy Fawkes said he had been born in York. 
He was the son of Edward Fawkes, a notary 
of York, and the second of four children. 
He was born on i6th April, 1570. His 
father died when the children were still young, 
but " Guye " was educated at York school, 
which was under Church patronage, and we 
might conclude that the parents were of the 
Protestant faith, even if existing evidence 
did not prove such to be the case. 

Somehow the young Guye displeased his 
wealthy uncle ; and when he died he left 
little to his nephew ; " my golde ring, and my 
bedde, and one payre of shetes," seem to be 
all that Thomas Fawkes bequeathed to the 
lad, though his sisters were well provided for. 
Mrs. Fawkes had married a second time, 
and Guye was living with his stepfather at 
Scotton,v/here he no doubt became acquainted 
with Percy and the Wrights his relatives. 

These young men were all very religious ; 
and they being rigid Catholics it is no wonder 
that Fawkes went over to their faith. Green- 
way the Jesuit describes Fawkes as a man 
of great piety, of exemplary temperance, or 
a mild and cheerful demeanour, an enemy of 
broils and disputes, a faithful friend, and 
remarkable for religious observances. Such 
a character is not at all what we are accus- 
tomed to attribute to Guy or Guye Fawkes. 

The future conspirator and would-be regicide 
had a little property left him by his father ; 
but he seems to have left England in 1593, 
after disposing of his land. He enlisted as 
a soldier of fortune {i.e. without it) in the 
Low Counti-ies, and soon obtained a com- 
mand. As already stated, he accompanied 



516 



GUY FA WKES. 



Winter to Madrid in 1601 ; and in 1603 he 
went with Wright to Philip of Spain. In April 
1604, he was serving with the Archduke's 
army in the Netherlands, and was brought 
to England by Thomas Winter, according to 
Robert Gatesby's desire. 

At this time Fawkes was "about forty-six 
years of age, though from the whiteness of 
his head he appeared to be older ; his figure 
was tall and handsome, his eyes large and 
lively, and the expression of his countenance 
pleasing though grave; and, notwithstanding 
the boldness of his character, his manners 
were gentle and quiet." * 

Such was the man who stands forward 



talking and doing nothing ?" he had said. 
But Catesby assured him that this time at 
any rate something was to be attempted, and 
something done ere long, enough even to 
satisfy his homicidal tendencies. However, 
before he entered into particulars, he desired 
those present to take an oath not to divulge 
the secret. This oath was administered by 
Gerard, a Jesuit, and was as follows : — 

"You shall swear by the Blessed Trinity, and by 
the Sacrament which you now purpose to receive, 
never to disclose directly nor indirectly, by word or 
circumstance, the matter which shall be proposed to 
you to be kept secret, nor desist from the execution 
thereof undl the rest shall give you leave." 




Conspirators' House at Lambeth. 



most prominently from his fellow-conspirators 
in the Gunpowder Plot. 

The Meeting at St. Clement's. 

Percy had volunteered to assassinate the 
King, but Catesby was too wary to accept 
this too zealous assistance. "That would 
be too dear a purchase when his own life 
would be hazarded in it." So a meeting was 
arranged in a small house in Butcher's Row, 
St. Clement's Danes, between Catesby, Percy, 
KitWright, Thomas Winter, and Guy Fawkes, 
in May 1604. 

Thomas Percy appears to have been im- 
patient for action. "Are we always to be 

* Greejiway MSS. 



This oath was taken, and the Sacrament 
was then administered to those present ; but 
it does not appear that the secret of the plot 
was ever imparted to Gerard the Jesuit. 

Catesby then made a clean breast of the 
project, and explained that when Parliament 
next assembled they would all have their 
revenge. He explained his design to strike 
one fatal blow at the Parliament, and destroy 
the King and his family; "for so long as 
there were these branches of the Royal 
Family remaining, to what purpose would 
it be to make away [with] the King?" The 
others all concurred ; the blow was to be 
struck at the Houses of Parliament ; and the 
means being already decided on, the way 
alone remained to be considered. 



517 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Ihe conspirators then left the house, which 
had been taken by Catesby for a Mr. "John- 
son." This Johnson was none other than 
Guy Fawkes, who had assumed that name 
when he quitted the Netherlands. He gave 
out that he was Percy's servant. The upper 
chamber was the one in which the Sacrament 
was administered before an extemporized 
altar. The room underneath was the cne in 
which the actual disclosure of the secret was 
nade. 

All was now ready. But how should they 
proceed? How could they drive a mine? 
They must get possession of some tenement 
close by. Catesby had a house in Lambeth, 
nearly opposite the Parliament House. If 
they could only get possession of some place 
to which they could at once convey the pow- 
der, and where they could work unperceived, 
they felt assured of success. Such a tene- 
ment they found in Vinegar House. 

"Vinegar House." 

This " small stone tenement" was situated 
in Parliament Place, and was a portion of the 
House of Lords. Underneath Catesby had 
found there were vaults in which the powder 
could be stored. But how was the house to 
be obtained ? Percy undertook to get it ; and 
this is the way he proceeded to carry out his 
part. 

The house was held by a person named 
Ferris or Ferress, who had been living in 
Warwickshire, and as a neighbour of Cates- 
by was known to Bates, his serving-man. 
This Ferris was under-tenant to Whinneard, 
or Whinyard, the keeper of the wardrobe, at 
whose disposal the house was during the 
intervals between the prorogation and assem- 
bling of Parliament. There was some diffi- 
culty attending the possession. The tenant 
was out of town, and Mrs. Whinyard did not 
like to proceed in the matter without her 
husband's consent. But Percy having been 
formerly about the Court, and not being sus- 
pected, managed by promises and money to 
overcome the dame's scruples. She gave up 
the keys. The house was taken in Percy's 
name, and Fawkes, as his servant, by the 
name of Johnson, was to remain in posses- 
sion. Ferris secured twenty pounds for his 
under-lease, and a certain payment every 
quarter was agreed upon. 

Thus the first step was successful, and as in 
other and less treasonable matters, " ce liest 
que le premier pas qui coute." Vinegar 
House was occupied, and a small place next 
door, inhabited by "Gibbins, the porter," 
was to be at Percy's disposal. No suspicion 
was aroused as Percy, being connected with 
the Earl of Northumberland, was enabled to 
declare his comings and goings were all on 
his business, and were known and approved 
by him. 



So far so good, and all promised well. But 
there was one great difficulty, How were they 
to convey the powder into the vaults ? A 
great quantity had been stored at Catesby's 
house in Lambeth, on the opposite side of the 
river, and that was in the care of a house- 
keeper. She must be got rid of. Accord- 
ingly a creature named Kay or Keyes was 
chosen to look after the magazine. Here 
a number of planks and combustibles were 
concealed, and subsequently transported 
across the river in the night. No one took 
any particular notice of the conspirators, and 
the operations were concluded in safety. 

A very small space separated them from 
the vaults under the Houses of Parliament, 
and preparations were made to begin the 
mine. But many weeks had elapsed, and 
sometimes the rumour that the house was 
required for the Crown threw the conspirators 
in confusion and alarm. During the intervals 
the fell purpose of the band was whetted by 
the treatment experienced in the provinces 
by the priests and Jesuits, who were con- 
demned and executed, and Mr. Pound, who 
ventured to address a protest to the Crown 
on the subject, was put in the pillory and 
nearly deprived of his ears. Priest-hunting 
became quite a pastime, a kind of sport where 
the game was human, and this recreation was 
greatly enjoyed by certain officials. 

In the midst of the conspirators' prepara- 
tions news came that this government house 
was required for the purposes of a Committee. 
There was no time to remove the powder and 
faggots, the only thing was to leave them 
covered up and trust that the committee 
would not think of descending into the cellar. 
So there day after day the Commission as- 
sembled until their labours were finished, the 
members little dreaming that they were sit- 
ting daily over a mine which might at any 
moment have blov/n them into eternity. 

The Mine. 

As soon as the Commissioners had finished 
their sittings, the real excavation commenced. 
Armed and fully equipped, the workers 
crossed stealthily to the house in Parliament 
Place one dark December night, and the re- 
maining arms and implements were con- 
veyed to their destination. As soon as they 
arrived. Garnet knelt down and offeredprayer 
for the success of the undertaking. When 
this " pious " duty had been performed, the 
party descended to the cellar and there placed 
the barrels of powder in as dry a corner as 
they could find. They were then covered 
over with wood and coals so that in the event 
of any sudden investigation the barrels might 
remain undiscovered. 

All day the windows were kept closed, and 
no one went out. The conspirators had pro- 
vided themselves with hard-boiled eggs, dried 



518 



GUY FAWKES. 



meats, and " baked pies," so that there was 
no necessity for them to leave the house to 
procm-e food. They were at one time 
alarmed by an intrusive lad who came over 
the wall, and this incident, absurd and trivial 
as it was, greatly terrified them. At night 
the rest of the working party arrived, and 
then the mine was commenced in earnest, 
Christopher Wright being admitted to the 
confederacy. There were seven employed in 
the digging and mining ; JFawkes stood 
sentinel generally, and they all worked with 
determination until Christmas Eve, discussing 
their plans when they rested from their 
labours at intervals. 

This mining was no child's play. Fav/kes 
;and Keyes both threw all their strength into 
•the task but made little impression upon the 
scarce yielding stones and mortar. With 
immense labour one stone was loosened, and 
then another. The rubbish when removed 
was buried in the garden at the dead of 
jiight ; but the necessary secrecy, and the fear 
of being heard at work, caused them much 
annoyance and greatly impeded their pro- 
gress. Notwithstanding that the proceedings 
had been opened with prayer and the wall 
sprinkled with holy water, the obdurate 
stone, as hard as many a human heart, did 
not yield to the prayers and solicitations of 
the Church, as represented by Garnet. 

For three days and nights the men laboured 
to make the excavation, and at the expira- 
tion of that time they had dug out a hole 
sufficient to admit one of their number. 
They worked in relays, Fawkes keeping 
watch when his turn for rest came, and by 
these means some progress was made. The 
gravel was buried as soon as excavated. 

One night when they were working as 
usual, a most mysterious sound was heard. 
Fawkes is said to have been working at the 
time ; and when it became evident that the 
sound was not an echo, he leaped from the 
hole, and throwing down the pick, declared 
lie could do no more. At the same time he 
lield up his hand for silence. 

Nobody spoke, all listened intensely. 
Suddenly the tone of a bell, clear and solemn, 
was heard proceeding apparently from with- 
in the wall. Its weird tones struck the con- 
spirators with a superstitious awe. They 
looked at each other — they were all speech- 
less for a moment. 

" Try holy water," said Catesby to Garnet ; 
■^'if they be evil spirits that will quell them." 

The holy water was brought, and the wall 
and flooring of the vault were sprinkled. The 
sound ceased, but was again heard. A sub- 
sequent and copious application of holy water, 
however, quite quenched it. At any rate it 
was not heard again for some time. 

But more serious difficulties awaited them. 
Though they could not entirely silence the 



bell they worked continually nearer and 
nearer to the river. At length the water 
percolated the soil, and masses fell in, fol- 
lowed by the water. When they were all 
considering what this portended, a loud 
rushing noise was heard, and even as they 
listened, the roaring and falling as of stones 
forced itself upon their ears. Garnet im- 
plored the protection of the saints, and a 
general feeling of dismay and a conviction 
of failure came upon the party. Heaven 
evidently disapproved of their enterprise, 
and even while they were conversing the 
terrible roaring came again. 

They were all greatly alarmed at the con- 
tinued noise, and looked upon it as a device 
of the Evil One. But Fawkes, who went out 
to reconnoitre, made inquiry, and observed 
that the alarm had proceeded from the vaults 
overhead (immediately underneath the House 
of Parliament and the throne), where a sale 
of coals was proceeding. Here was indeed 
an opportunity not to be neglected. What 
was the use of their driving a shaft three yards 
long through a wall and floor to find only a 
vault which could be had for purchase ? 

Great joy was manifested at the turn things 
were taking. Parliament had been prorogued 
from the 7th of February, when it had been 
appointed to assemble, until the 3rd of Octo- 
ber ; and the conspirators had therefore 
ample time to mature their plans, and when 
they had gotten possession of the vaults now 
vacated, they had only to wait events. 

Butjhow was the vault to be obtained.'' By 
universal consent the arrangement was left 
to Percy. Bright, the late occupier, had 
disposed of his lease to a person named 
Skmner, and with this worthy, or rather with 
Mrs. Whinyard, Percy had to make his bar- 
gain. In these transactions on behalf of his 
companions and himself, Percy appears to 
have appealed to the ladies, and as he bore 
the character of a gallant in former days, 
probably he understood the fair sex better 
than the rest. 

So this scion of the House of Northumber- 
land and a pensioner of the King went to 
Mistress Whinyard, and induced her by 
liberal offers of money to influence Mrs. 
Skinner of King Street to part with the 
lease. She persuaded her husband to do as 
Mrs. Whinyard requested, and so the vaults 
were leased for one year to Percy. This 
accomplished, the conspirators believed them- 
selves specially favoured by Heaven. 

While things were thus being got into 
train, several discussions had taken place 
respecting their respective friends in the 
Houses of Parliament. Was it right that 
acquaintances should be destroyed with the 
strangers and the hated King 1 There were 
many in the House of Lords who were 
staunch Catholics, and to blow them up 



519 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



would be inconvenient if not wrong. But no 
decision was arrived at on this point, and the 
question remained in abeyance in con- 
sequence of the difference of opinion that 
existed. 

The fate of the Royal Family was then dis- 
cussed. There was no doubt concerning the 
fate of the King and Prince Henry, who would 
be in the House, but Charles they thought 
would be absent, "for he was but four years 
old." Percy undertook to take charge of the 
royal child, and agreed to wait at the cham- 
ber door until the blow had fallen, and then 
convey him away. The Lady Elizabeth, who 
was with Lord and Lady Harrington in War- 
wickshire, was to be seized by the adherents 
of the conspirators, who were to organize an 
ostensible "hunting match " for that purpose. 

Thus all being prepared, — the powder and 
faggots and wood having been carried into 
the vaults underneath the House, which were 
low and spacious, — the conspirators departed 
on their several ways to avoid suspicion. 
The combustibles were covered with coal 
and stones, and then the cellars were locked 
up, and the plotters left London till the 
assembling of Parliament should again 
aummon them to town. 

The Conspirators. 

We have already given some particulars 
concerning Catesby, Fawkes, and Winter. 
We may supplement our brief account of 
them with a few remarks concerning the 
other chief plotters, as we trace their move- 
ments until they again returned to Parliament 
Place. 

The conspirators had all got themselves 
out of the way as quickly as possible. 
Fawkes went abroad to Sir William Stanley 
and Hugh Owen, carrying with him letters 
from Garnet to Baldwin the Jesuit in 
Flanders. Sir William Stanley was not then 
in the Low Countries, he had gone to Spain ; 
but when Fawkes communicated his news to 
Father Owen that dignitary was greatly 
pleased, and offered to make things smooth 
with the Pope. 

Catesby rode home with John Wright. 
The latter was of Yorkshire fa^nily, but lived 
in Lincolnshire at that time. He, Winter, 
and Catesby had been friends for many 
years, and he was also related by marriage 
to Thomas Percy, for Wright's sister had 
married that reckless rake. So well and 
intimately was he known by Catesby that he 
was persuaded to leave his own residence 
and take the old manor-house at Lapworth, 
in Warwickshire, and thither he, with Winter 
and Catesby, rode when they left London as 
aforesaid. The two latter proceeded on to 
Oxford. 

At Oxford they enlisted Winter's brother 
Robert, and one John Grant, whom they 



had appointed to meet them there. Grant 
was a Worcestershire squire, and had a nice 
place at Norbrook ; he assented to the plot, 
and was sworn in But: Robert Winter ob- 
jected and declined. He was at length per- 
suaded, however, and Bates, Catesby's body- 
servant, was also included. They were now 
nine in all : Catesby, Percy, two Winters, 
John and Christopher Wright (both ruined 
men), Kay, Bates, and Guido Fawkes. But 
these were not sufficient, neither were the 
means at their disposal enough to carry them 
through, and raise adherents. To effect their 
object they proposed to communicate the 
plot to anyone likely to join in it, if the 
disclosure were made in the presence of one 
already in the secret. Catesby made provi- 
sion of horses and arms and ammunition, and 
when he found money getting low he made 
an appointment to meet Percy at Bath, where 
the latter was undergoing a course of the 
waters. These worthies talked over their 
plans respecting the disposal of the royal 
children ; and it was also decided that cer- 
tain Catholic gentlemen should be invited to 
join the plot. These were Sir Everard 
Digby, Ambrose Rookwood, and Francis 
Tresham, a relative of Catesby, and brother- 
in-law of Lord Monteagle, who had married 
Tresham's sister. 

Sir Everard Digby was a very wealthy 
man, possessed of large estates. He was 
very enthusiastic, and a great friend of Robert 
Catesby. Ambrose Rookwood, of Coldham 
Hall, in Suffolk, was the head of a very 
ancient family. One great advantage he 
possessed in the eyes of the conspirators, he 
had a magnificent stud of horses, which would 
be very useful to them as mounts for their 
men, or as relays if pursuit were made. 
Rookwood required some persuasion to unite 
with the fanatics, but he yielded to Catesby's 
arguments and powers of guidance. He 
accordingly removed his family to Clapton, 
near Stratford, in order that he might be 
near his leading spirit. Notwithstanding 
that he, like many others, had suffered fines 
and persecutions, he had ample means. 

Francis Tresham was the third addition to 
the party. His father. Sir Thomas Tresham, 
had been severely punished under the penal 
laws of Elizabeth, and the Star Chamber 
had held him in its grip. He said he had 
undergone twenty years of restless adversity 
and deep disgrace only for testimony of his 
conscience. Francis Tresham had been 
mixed up with the revolt of the Earl of Essex, 
and narrowly escaped with his head. A 
heavy bribe to, and all the influence that 
could be brought to bear upon, a "very 
great lady," were the means whereby Sir 
Thomas released his son. 

Tresham's personal character is not a high 
one. He engaged in many plots, but never 



520 



GUY FAWKES. 




The Arrest of Guy A'awkes. 
521 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



commanded or enjoyed the confidence of his 
fellow-conspirators. In the case under con- 
sideration Catesby repented of his confidence 
with Tresham very quickly, and became a 
prey to alarm and misgiving in consequence. 

But about this time the intelligence that 
Parliament had been again prorogued gave 
rise to some anxiety in their minds. So 
anxious were they, that Winter, who was one 
of the household of Lord Monteagle, made an 
endeavour to ascertain whether any suspicion 
existed in the minds of the Lords commis- 
sioned to prorogue Parliament. But no 
.anxiety was evident ; all was reported well. 
Money was promised by Tresham ; but when 
■Catesby studied him more closely he repented 
that he had ever entrusted the secret to such 
a vacillating character. Sir Everard Digby 
advanced fifteen hundred and Tresham con- 
tributed two thousand pounds. 

The conspirators agreed to assemble in 
London at the end of October, and when a 
rumour arose that Prince Henry would very 
Jikely be absent from the ceremony, a plan 
was devised to carry him off. The old diffi- 
culty again also arose about the destruction 
of the Catholic Lords, and Catesby appears 
to have had some scruples on the subject 
which he communicated to Garnet, but the 
Jesuit over-ruled the plotter's objections. 

Still others were anxious. Tresham wanted 
to save Lords Monteagle and Stourton, his 
brothers-in-law ; Kay objected to blowing up 
Lord Mordaunt; and Fawkes had friends in 
the House. Percy, too, adv-anced his claim ; 
h)ut Catesby, now reassured, sneered at these 
suggestions and combated his friends warmly ; 
he declared he had himself already endea- 
voured to dissuade some, and did not think 
•others named would attend at all at the 
opening of Parliament. But it was resolved 
that indirectly their relations should be dis- 
suaded, in general terms if practicable. 

This arrangement did not suit Tresham at 
all. He determined to warn Lord Monteagle, 
and the manner in which he set about it will 
now be related. 

The Warning. 

As October drew towards its close some of 
the conspirators met and had frequent con- 
sultations at White Webbs. The final 
arrangements for the firing of the mine were 
made. Guy Fawkes undertook to do this 
Avith a slow match, and a boat had been 
hired to lie in wait close by to carry him to 
a ship which Tresham's money had procured. 
It was here that Tresham appeared and 
demanded security for his relative Lord 
Monteagle. 

Catesby hesitated ; and Tresham said that 
they had better defer the execution of their 
design till Parliament had ended their 
labours. He declared he could not furnish 



the money required, and thought the interval 
should be passed in Flanders. But the 
seniors would not alter one iota in their 
plans. Fawkes and Catesby had made all 
the arrangements, and were not men to 
swerve from their determination. 

There can be little doubt that many people 
were warned of the impending blow to be 
struck at the Parliament, though in such a 
way that no real clue was obtained by them. 
But the Government, or rather Cecil, was 
perfectly well aware of all the circumstances, 
and we may conclude that Tresham was also 
cognisant of the knowledge possessed by the 
Secretary of State. 

Tuesday, November the 5th, was the day 
upon which Parliament had been summoned 
to meet, and all the conspirators — except 
Percy, who was in the country ; and Catesby, 
who remained at White Webbs — were in 
London. Fawkes was at Butcher's Row, 
biding his time with grim determination. 
The others were in lodgings in various parts 
— at Lambeth, at Clerkenwell, or in St. Giles' 
Fields, waiting for the signal. 

Lord Monteagle was at Southwark, but 
upon the afternoon of Saturday, October the 
26th, he, without apparent reason, suddenly 
determined to ride up to Hoxton, where he had 
a residence as well as his house in Montague 
Close, where Winter was also domesticated. 
He did not often go out to Hoxton, but that 
evening he took with him an attendant 
named Ward, a friend of Winter, who was 
cognisant of the plot. With him Lord 
Monteagle sat down to supper, and nothing 
worthy of comment occurred until the meal 
was nearly over. 

As Monteagle was finishing his supper, 
a page arrived and desired to see his lord- 
ship immediately. He was admitted, and 
handed his master a note which he declared 
had been given to him in a most mysterious 
manner. 

" As I was coming by the lane just now," 
he said, "a man muffled in a cloak came 
suddenly forth, and demanding if I were one 
of your lordship's servants, handed me this 
letter, enjoining me as I valued my existence 
to deliver it to your lordship without delay." 

Lord Monteagle took little notice of the 
epistle. His assumed indifference might 
have imposed upon his servants, but he was 
evidently conscious of the contents. Toss- 
ing the note to Ward, he desired him to read 
it aloud. The letter had neither date nor 
signature, and was written in a feigned hand, 
as follows :* — 

" My lord, out of the love I bear to some 
of your friends I have a care for your preser- 
vation, therefore I would advise you as you 



* A fac-simile of the letter is now before the 
writer. 



522 



GUY FAWKES. 



tender your life, to devise some excuse to 
shift from your attendance at this Parlia- 
ment, for God and man have concurred to 
punish the wickedness of this time. Think 
not slightingly of this advice, but retire into 
the country, where }'0u may expect the'event 
in safety ; for though there be no appearance 
of any stir, they will receive a terrible blow 
this Parliament, and yet they shall not know 
who hurts them. This counsel is not to be 
contemned. It may do you good, and can 
do you no harm, for the danger is past as 
soon as you have burnt the letter. God, I 
hope, will give you grace to make good use 
of it, to whose holy protection I commend 
you." 

" A singular letter ! " exclaimed Mont- 
eagle, when he had heard it. He then pre- 
tended to take counsel from his attendants, 
most of whom had heard it read. The 
mystery that surrounded the affair was not 
lessened when Monteagle called for his horse 
and rode into London, going direct to 
Whitehall with the mysterious document in 
his pocket. 

It is a disputed point as to who wrote the 
letter, and the authorship of this celebrated 
epistle has been attributed to many men — 
even to women ; but all probability points to 
Tresham himself as the dictator, if not the 
actual penman, of the warning note. But at 
any rate Monteagle, who was on good terms 
with all the Court, proceeded immediately to 
the Secretary of State. 

Check. 

It was past two o'clock at night when the 
apparently alarmed and anxious peer dis- 
mounted at Whitehall Yard and desired to 
see Cecil in his private chamber, if the 
Secretary of State had not retired to rest. 
Salisbury had not retired ; quite the con- 
trary, he had a small reception in his 
apartments. By the most curious coinci- 
dence in the world, several noble and 
Catholic lords had been supping with Cecil, 
and they had not yet left him. This was 
extremely fortunate ; and as the attendants 
were not aware that the whole thing had 
been planned and rehearsed beforehand, they 
looked upon it with awe and fearful appre- 
hension. 

The Earl of Salisbury pretended to be 
greatly alarmed at the intelligence which was 
communicated to the guests, such men as 
Suffolk, Northampton, and Worcester, who 
were discreet members of the Council, and 
could be trusted to keep the secret of the 
affair which had been cleverly brought about 
by Salisbury. The King was at Royston, 
" hunting the fearful hare," and under these 
circumstances the Friends in Council deter- 
mined to remain silent until their sovereign's 
return. On Sunday morning the man who 



had read the letter at Lord Monteagle's house 
went and warned Thomas Winter that the 
note had been put in the possession of the 
Secretary of State. But the conspirators 
were not alai'med. The Government were 
proceeding with extreme caution, and work- 
ing up for a dramatic finish to the farce of 
the Gunpowder Plot. Salisbury could at any 
moment have put, his hand upon the men, 
but he preferred to make a sensation, and so 
he bided his time. 

Ward, Monteagle's attendant, probably 
urged by his master, went to Winter early 
upon Sunday and begged him to warn 
Catesby and fly the country. Winter, be it 
remembered, was at Montague Close, which 
was Monteagle's residence in Southwark, 
and he left it to see Wright and Oldcorne, 
and tell them the news. They all hurried 
down to Enfield Chase, and found Catesby 
at White Webbs. He was almost upset by 
the intelligence, but endeavoured to put a 
bold face upon the circumstances, though full 
of the most intense anxiety. 

The advice so honestly sent by Monteagle 
was not acted upon. Catesby professed to, 
if he did not, believe in the success of his 
schemes. He could scarcely constrain him- 
self to realize the fact that his pet project, 
the great design which had been so carefully 
kept, could have been betrayed, much less 
discovered by such a man as Robert 
Cecil, for whose abilities the chief conspi- 
rator professed a supreme contempt. But 
Cecil was an adversary not to be despised. 
He was only playing with Catesby and his 
confederates as a cat plays with a mouse. 
He could at any moment dart at them, 
seize them, destroy them. 

However, Catesby determined to proceed, 
and Guy Fawkes was equally firm in his 
resolve to fire the mine. No stir was 
apparent, though instructions for the search 
of the vaults were being issued to Cecil's 
most trusty creatures. Fawkes went up to 
Westminster to make an examination of the 
fastenings and marks. He can-ied out this 
dangerous duty on the Wednesday, and found 
all secure; and upon that day, the 30th of 
October, a meeting was held at White Webbs, 
where Fawkes attended to report that all was 
quiet at Parliament Place, and no signs of 
any disturbance could be perceived. At 
this meeting Catesby and Winter boldly 
charged Tresham with perfidy, and de- 
clared he had betrayed them all to Mont- 
eagle. 

Tresham swore the accusation was base- 
less. ''It is false," he cried; "I have only 
just been made acquainted with the facts, 
and have com.e hither to warn you." 

" Why did you leave us in that secret 
manner?" demanded Catesby, pointedly. 

But Tresham was furnished with answers 



523 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and excuses of so very plausible a nature, 
and displayed such apparent frankness, the 
excess of which was in itself suspicious, that 
the fears of his comrades were allayed, 
though they distrusted him. He was so bold 
and apparently fearless that he — though 
narrowly — escaped death at Fawkes' hands. 
After a consultation, pending the result of 
which Tresham must have suffered exquisite 
mental torture, the plotters suffered him to 
depart, he declaring that the enterprise had 
failed. 

On the next day, Thursday, 31st of Octo- 
ber, James arrived in London from Royston, 
and the mysterious letter was laid before 
him and the Privy Council by Salisbury, who 
called his attention to the words "a terrible 
blow," which the astute statesman emphasized 
so as to give the King the idea of gunpowder 
without exactly telling him the nature of the 
plot. 

James rose to the bait like any jack ; he 
seized the line, and at once took the idea. 
" I should not wonder if these mischievous 
Papists mean to blow us all up with gun- 
powder," said the sagacious monarch. 

At this remark Salisbury declared that 
" His Majesty must have received an inspi- 
ration from heaven." Such an idea had never 
occurred to him (Salisbury) ; and the wily 
minister flattered the monarch to the top of 
his bent. Although all the circumstances 
had been well known to the Council for days, 
the noblemen united in praising the wisdom 
of the King, and the sharpness of the royal 
nose which could scent powder in Parliament 
Place. 

"Where does Your Majesty think gun- 
powder may be hidden ? " asked the Secre- 
tary deferentially, as one who addresses a 
superior intellect. 

"Are there any vaults beneath the House ? 
Gude guide us ! " ejaculated James, " we 
have walked over the mine ! " 

This important clue having been given to 
the men who had given His penetrative 
Majesty the original idea, the delight of the 
Council at the King's sagacity was almost 
unbounded. James rose in importance, and 
acquiesced in Salisbury's suggestions (which 
he was about to make himself !) that the 
denouement should be postponed till the eve 
of the meeting of Parliament. 

The discovery was entirely attributed to 
the King, and Coke, at the trial of the con- 
spirators, held up His Majesty as an example, 
and a medium of divine illumination. So 
James was regarded as the special mouth- 
piece of an offended Deity who inspired him 
to the discovery. 

Checkmate. j 

November came, and nothing had occurred I 

to alarm the conspirators afresh. Tresham | 

524 



had promised a sum of two hundred pounds 
to Catesby to purchase arms, and paid half of 
it to Winter on the Friday ; but when the 
remainder was demanded, the vacillating 
conspirator agreed to pay, in the hope that 
Catesby would meanwhile escape with the 
money already received. 

Tresham and Winter met next night in 
Lincoln's Inn Walk, and then the former 
disclosed many things indirectly. He de- 
clared they v/ere all well known, and that 
the plot was an utter failure. It were better 
that the conspirators should fly and take 
their chances abroad. There was a boat in 
the river, let them take his vessel so that 
they only saved themselves ! 

This importunity did not escape the pene-. 
trating Catesby. He was now assured that 
Tresham was in communication with the 
Secretary of State, and knew what steps 
were to be taken, and yet he determined to 
remain and see what the next day would 
bring forth. Fawkes, with the stern deter- 
mination of his character, made up his mind 
to remain in Parliament Place, and if need 
be, to die at his voluntarily assumed post of 
danger. 

On Sunday morning, November 3rd, Ward, 
Lord Monteagle's attendant, again called 
upon Winter, and gave him very serious in- 
telligence : the King had seen the mysterious 
letter, and had penetrated its meaning ap- 
parently, but the result of his cogitations 
had only been communicated to the Privy 
Council. The man also added that search 
was to be made beneath the vaults of the 
Houses of Parliament, particularly in the 
cellar underneath the throne, and if any- 
thing were there hidden it would be surely 
discovered ! 

This was plain enough, and one would 
have thought that the conspirators would 
have profited by the intelligence and the 
hints thus vouchsafed to them. But nothing 
appeared to move Catesby. Incapable of 
fear, he either scorned the danger or did 
not credit its existence. Although Winter 
hurried away to White Webbs with the news, 
Catesby would not stir. Let them search ! 
They would find nothing if only Guy Fawkes 
were there to put them off the scent. Unfor- 
tunately for himself Catesby did not understand 
that the net had been woven around him 
by a hand more cunning than his own, and 
that the meshes could be drawn at any 
moment. 

Percy, too, who came up, was in favour of 
waiting one day more, the last day of doubt 
and bitterness, to lead up to so many more 
of danger and distress. Fawkes was still at 
Vinegar House ; nothing could have happened. 
No search had been made by the Court, and 
the '' I told you so" feeling was uppermost 
in the mind of Catesby. In thirty hours all 



GUY FAWKES. 



would be over — the King dead and the con- 
spirators triumphant. And Fawkes, too, 
resolute as ever, kept watch and ward in the 
vault, provided with a time-piece, which, set 
truly, would tell him when to fire the mine. 
The Wrights and Catesby rode away to join 
Sir Everard Digby at Dunchurch ; Winter 
remained with Monteagle ; Percy dined at 
Sion House with his august relative ; Rook- 
wood had his relays ready — five horses 
saddled, and equal to any emergency. And 
so on that Monday afternoon the conspi- 
rators separated, to await the springing of 
the mine on the morrow, in doubt and in 
fear. 

The Mine is Sprung. 

And the mine was ready ; not only the 
gunpowder and the faggots in the vaults, but 
the mine prepared by Salisbury, and towards 
which he had been leading the blinded con- 
spirators. His time had come ! 

Monday afternoon, November 4th, 1605, 
saw the conspirators dispersed to wait the 
fatal 5th; and in the course of the day, while 
it was yet light, Suffolk, the Lord Chamber- 
lain, whose duty it was to see all the arrange- 
ments for the meeting of Parliament properly 
carried out, came, accompanied by Lord 
Monteagle, to the House. They examined 
and inspected the chamber, and thence they 
proceeded, " as a matter of form " no doubt, 
to see that all was right underneath the Par- 
liament House. 

The two noblemen came with a light 
excuse, quite unattended, laughing and talk- 
ing as they proceeded from cellar to vault, 
and to inner vaults, till they reached the 
part immediately beneath the throne. 
Fawkes was present, and the Chamberlain 
carelessly inquired who he was, and his 
business. 

"I am Mr. Percy's servant," replied 
Fawkes, " and am looking after my master's 
coals ; " when Suffolk caused a smile by a 
remark concerning Christmas fires and 
timely preparation. Nothing could be plea- 
santer ; there was no suspicion ; the merry 
gentlemen saw nothing, suspected nothing, 
brought no guard to effect an arrest, and all 
was well. Fawkes was a judge of faces, and 
watched his visitors narrowly, but no trace 
of fear, no shade of suspicion crossed their 
features. The time was almost come. The 
dreaded search had been made and was over. 
All was well ! 

Fawkes could not restrain his impatience, 
and in his satisfaction at the result he at 
once rode to Isleworth to tell Percy what had 
occurred, and how well their plans had 
succeeded. This so affected Percy that he 
came away from Sion House with Fawkes, 
and accompanied him to London. Fawkes 
bade him farewell in Westminster, and 



descended to the vault. Percy rode to St. 
Giles' Fields and told Rookwood and Kay 
that all was well, and the deed would be done 
upon the morrow. 

The hours passed — ten o'clock struck. 
Surely there would be something stirring at 
Westminster if there were any suspicion. 
So excited and restless were the men that 
they left their hiding-place in the darkness 
of the night and hurried down to Westminster 
to see what was going on. Nothing ! All 
was quiet and still as the grave in which 
they hoped the King would, in a few hours, 
be lying. Not a sound of preparation broke 
the stillness. The royal residence was 
slumbering ; all lights were extinguished ; no 
sign of alarm or suspected danger. The 
three conspirators breathed more freely, 
though with quivering lips ; and as quietly 
as they had paced the deserted roads, they 
returned again to their lodgings to sleep, and 
then to listen for the terrible explosion which 
they hoped, yet feared, would come next 
day. 

While they were sleeping, tossing restlessly 
from side to side with muttered thoughts of 
the expected tragedy escaping in their 
dreams, Guy Fawkes was acting and wide 
awake. He had made all his sinister pre- 
parations — the watch was wound up, the 
lanthorn lighted, the train laid. Fully aware 
of the desperate nature of the attempt, 
Fawkes, booted and spurred, was ready for 
flight by land or by water if the boat were at 
the stairs. 

The vault was close and warm even that 
wintry morning, and about two o'clock Fawkes 
left the inner chamber and came into the 
further room. He ascended the stairs to 
pass into Vinegar House, where were the 
porter and Robartes the priest. He came 
slowly forth ; all was quiet. He advanced 
more cautiously, and reached the court, 
when he was suddenly seized and bound. 

" What are you doing here ? " demanded 
Sir Thomas Knyvett, a magistrate of West- 
minster. 

" Had you but taken me inside," was the 
bold reply, " I would have blown you all up 
with the house and myself." 

Sir Thomas directed the prisoner to be 
searched at once, and found tinder, slow 
match, and some " touch "-wood on his per- 
son ; the lanthorn was lighted in the vault, 
and the top of a barrel of powder was stove 
in ; the train was ready, — but Salisbury had 
sprung his mine first. The prisoner was 
taken, i.nd then carried to the King at 
Whiteitall, to be interrogated by His Majesty 
in Council. 

Thus while Catesby and his friends were 
quietly riding to Ashby, their luckless ac- 
complice was cursing his fate on his . straw 
pallet in the Tower. 



525 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Run to Earth. 

Fawkes declined to reveal anything more 
than what concerned himself. In reply to 
the King, he confessed his object and the 
means he had taken to attain it. When asked 
how he had the heart to destroy the Sovereign 
and his children, the bold man replied 
that " Dangerous diseases required desperate 
remedies," and told the Scottish courtiers he 
wanted to have "blown them all back to 
Scotland!" Such hardihood appeared in- 
credible to the King, and Fawkes was quickly 
removed to the Tower. 

Early in the morning of the 5th of Novem- 
ber, a report ran like wildfire through the 
city that a man had been arrested in the 
vault beneath the Parliament House, with a 
dark lantern. The gunpowder which had 
been discovered put aside all doubt as to 
his object, and public indignation was aroused 
with public curiosity. The rumour reached 
St. Giles's Fields and its occupants, who were 
greatly stirred, and the three conspirators 
hurried away to find that all was known, and 
that flight was only possible. 

Percy and Wright immediately fled ; the 
former, who had made his arrangements, now 
found the benefit of his foresight, and they 
journeyed to Fenny Stratford unharmed, 
while Cecil's messengers were seeking them 
in other roads. Here they met the others, 
who were also flying for their lives ; Catesby 
and John Wright having only heard the news 
from Rookwood, who had come fast with his 
relays. The friends then proceeded through 
Dunstable, and thence to Towcester, and 
to Ashby St. Leger, where Lady Catesby 
resided. 

It was six o'clock in the evening when the 
dusty and travel-stained troop entered the 
house where many members of the great 
"hunting party" which had been convened 
had already assembled at supper. The new- 
comers did not take long to acquaint them 
of the failure of the enterprise, which their 
condition and presence so fully endorsed. 
"To horse!" was still the cry, and accom- 
panied by many members of the party, the 
fugitives rode to Dunchurch to Sir Everard 
Digby. 

But cool air and cooler reflection rapidly 
thinned the ranks of the adherents. All was 
lost; there was no hope for those who resisted ; 
and in the darkness many a horseman drew 
rein and turned aside for home to wait events. 
Kay had long ago quitted his friends and 
made for his home, where he was afterwards 
captured. 

Arrived at Dunchurch, the dread news was 
received in silence, and a deep gloom fell 
upon those assembled there. The result was 
that many fell away notwithstanding the 
determination of Catesby; and on the morrow 



a small but desperate band continued their 
headlong flight to Leamington Priors, where 
they rested and attempted to recruit their 
band, but without success. Men looked upon 
them with suspicion, and resented the manner 
in which they sought to appropriate arms 
and steeds. Thus they raised up opposition 
instead of making friends. 

They proceeded across Warwickshire and 
Worcestershire, and made for the residence 
of Stephen Littleton at Holbeach, after en- 
listing a few adherents at Norbrook where 
Grant resided. As they proceeded they 
called upon the country people to take up 
arms and join them, but not one man did so. 
Whatever idea the people had respecting a 
change of ruler, the condition of the con- 
spirators was not one to inspire much confi- 
dence in any one just then. 

Sir Richard Walsh was by this time upon 
their track ; and without attempting further 
flight the conspirators and their adherents 
awaited the arrival of the troops at Holbeach, 
determined to defend it. But Littleton left his 
house, and during the night many servants 
stole away also. On the morrow, after much 
consultation, Sir Everard Digby quitted his 
friends to procure assistance, and Catesby 
made preparations for defence. 

' They had been harassed across the Stour 
by the royahst troopers, and the arms and 
ammunition had got wetted. The powder 
was most valuable to them, and Catesby pro- 
ceeded to dry it by the fire, in the hall, on a 
platter. A large bag of gunpowder was also 
left, at a safe distance as was conjectured, 
while Catesby pursued his dangerous task. 

Percy watched this proceeding, and ex- 
pressed a wish respecting its effects — that the 
powder would prove more destructive than 
the quantity stored beneath the Parliament 
House, and Catesby joked grimly upon the 
subject as he continued his work. The others 
had scarcely quitted the hall when a tremen- 
dous explosion occurred. A coal had shot 
from the fire, and the powder had exploded, 
though the large bag had been blown bodily 
through the roof uninjured. Four of the men, 
Catesby, Rookwood, Percy, and Grant, were 
hideously wounded and burnt, but staunch to 
the last. 

The attack began in the forenoon, and pro- 
ceeded with spirit. Robert Winter and Bates 
escaped early in the morning. Tom Winter 
was quickly disabled by the assailants. The 
sheriff directed some of his men to fire the 
house, and the rest to attack on the opposite 
side ; and thus the fight proceeded. 

"Stand by me, Tom," cried Catesby, "and 
we'll die together." As they were standing 
back to back they were shot through, and fell 
side by side. Catesby crawled into the 
vestibule and expired, embracing an image 
of. the Virgin. The Wrights were also shot 



526 



GUY FAWKES. 



dead; Rookwood and Percy were severely- 
wounded. Digby was afterwards captured 
near Dudley, and the others were betrayed 
in their hiding-places. The wounded in the 
house died miserably; and within a week all 
the plotters, except the priests, were dead or 
in the Tower of London, where Guy Fawkes 
had already confessed his crime. 

Torture and Confession. 

The Government made every effort to get 
at the truth by question, rack, and pressure ; 
but although much was said, there was a 
great difficulty in sifting the chaff from the 
grain. What was said one day was contra- 
dicted or explained away the next, and every- 
one concerned in the plot seemed quite 
oblivious or incapable of speaking "the truth, 
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth." 
The determination of the Secretary of State 
had almost given way under the repeated 
disappointments, but through Tresham a 
clue was at length obtained to the priestly 
adherents of the plot. 

Tresham, though he was implicated by the 
tardy confession of Guy Fawkes, was not 
arrested for some days after the public an- 
nouncement of the discovery of the plot. 
But at length Master Frank, a past master 
in the art of duplicity and Jesuitical cunning, 
was committed to the Tower, and told all he 
thought it worth while to tell. Monteagle's 
name was frequently mentioned, but it was 
not the intention of the Secretary of State to 
impeach his colleague. 

From Tresham and Winter information 
was received concerning Garnet, Gerard, 
and Oldcorne, and more definite action was 
taken when the servant Bates had been per- 
suaded, with more or less force, to reveal all 
he knew. His information was very useful, 
and the priests Garnet and Oldcorne, who 
were at Hendlip, were sought for. Mean- 
time Tresham was suddenly taken ill after 
his confession. Romancers tell us that 
Monteagle visited the unhappy man in the 
Tower, and with the connivance of the gaoler, 
poison was administered to " Cousin Frank," 
who died from the slow effects. Be that as 
it may, there is no doubt that after his com- 
mittal and confession he was taken ill and 
died in the Tower in great agony. Finding 
the hand of death press closely upon him, 
his wife and confidential servant were sought 
and permitted to visit him. In their presence 
he made and signed a statement contradict- 
ing all he had said about the Jesuit priests. 
Tresham signed this document, and had it 
attested by Vavasour, his servant. Frank 
died that same night, leaving the document, 
which was entirely untrue, and which had 
been written by the servant, to the care of 
his wife for the information of the Council. 



The Executions ; Search for the 
Jesuits. 

On the 15th of January, 1606, a proclama- 
tion was issued against the English Jesuits,, 
and pending their arrest the trial of the sur- 
viving lay members of the Gunpowder Plot 
had been postponed. But on the 27th of 
January, the Spaniards having declined to 
deliver up those Jesuits in their dominions 
who had been implicated, the conspirators 
were arraigned. Their trial did not last long, 
nor was any mercy shown them. On the 
30th of January, Sir Everard Digby, Robert 
Winter, Grant, and Thomas Bates, were 
hanged at Paul's Cross. Guy Fawkes, Kay,. 
Rookwood, and Thomas Winter were hanged, 
drawn, and quartered in Palace Yard, West- 
minster. But for ^ the presence of a strong 
armed force the conspirators would have 
been dragged from the ignominious hurdles 
and torn to pieces by the crowd. 

Digby was the first to suffer, and kneeling 
down he desired the prayers of all good 
Catholics. " Then none will pray for you," 
remarked an individual in the crowd as the 
young man was launched into eternity. 
Robert Winter came next, and he ascended 
the blood-stained scaffold. The executioner's 
assistants had already dismembered his late 
associate, but Winter remained firm and 
died defiantly. Grant and Bates were soon 
despatched ; but the crowning tragedy was 
enacted in Old Palace Yard on the 31st of 
January. 

Every available position which commanded 
a view of the scaffold was occupied. The 
Abbey roof was crowded with spectators, the 
pinnacles and buttresses black with clinging- 
figures. Thomas Winter was the first to 
ascend the scaffold and die firmly. Rook- 
wood and Kay came next. The latter 
threw himself off with such violence that the 
rope broke, and he was despatched like a 
dog. Guy Fawkes, the stern soldier, was 
the last of all. 

As this brave but misguided man ascended 
the steps of the scaffold his firm foot slipped 
upon the bloody surface, and had he not 
been supported he must have fallen. He 
ascended deliberately and then turning to 
the multitude, said : " I ask forgiveness of 
the King and the State for my criminal inten- 
tion, and trust that my death will wash out 
my offence." He then ascended the drop, 
and ere his heart had ceased to beat, his 
quivering frame was cut down and hacked 
to pieces by the savage knives of the execu- 
tioners. 

While the conspirators were being led tc^ 
execution, the search for Garnet and Oldcorne 
had been busy and unremitting. The other 
Jesuits had escaped, and the pair might 
easily have got away in safety. But they 
7 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



preferred to play the old game of hide-and- 
seek, and at Hendlip Hall they found an 
asylum. Like many other old mansions, 
Mr. Abingdon's house was a perfect " rabbit 
warren" of passages and hiding-places. 
Secret stairs and panels, holes and corners, 
abounded. Wide chimneys with duplicate 
flues, and cunning recesses for priest or 
plotter were in many rooms, while hollow 
walls and fissured wainscots were general. 
To such a house the Jesuits were glad to 
retreat and hide. 

But Sir Henry Bromley had orders to 
track them out, and to Hendlip came he in 
due course and suddenly, to search the 
house. He surrounded it closely and then 
proceeded to examine the interior. From 
room to room he sounded the walls, and 
discovered many a secret passage and 
hidden panel. Measurements were made 
inside and out ; and so suddenly had Bromley 
come upon the Hall that no provisions had 
been stored in the recesses for the priests. 
But no success at first attended the Knight's 
efforts. Day after day passed and no real 
discovery was made, though all evidence 
tended to confirm suspicion that the men 
were there. 

At last one night, towards the witching 
hour, two ghostly figures appeared to the 
guard in the hall of the mansion. These 
were the priests' servants, Owen and Cham- 
bers, who had had no food for two or three 
days. Gaunt, grimy, and hollow-eyed, they 
tottered along, and surrendered themselves 
to Bromley's men, but would confess nothing 
— not whence they came nor who they were. 

Mr. Abingdon and his wife were at once 
put under arrest by Sir Henry Bromley, and 
every exertion was made to ascertain the 
hiding-place of the priests, for no doubt 
existed in Bromley's mind now. They were 
sought for, but unsuccessfully, and at last 
even Sir Henry lost patience and issued 
orders for retiring. 

But soon afterwards, acting on informa- 
tion of a condemned prisoner, Garnet and 
Oldcorne were found in the recess of a 
chimney, cramped and starving. They were 
carefully tended — as fowls are fed for killing 
— and brought to London and the Tower. 

The Jesuits' End. 

On the 13th of February the Jesuit priests 
were confronted by the Council at White- 
hall, and Garnet was received with all the 
" treacherous courtesy " he had already enjoyed 
as he was being conducted to London. A 
good impression was left upon the priest's 
mind, though he was closely questioned. His 
cell at the Tower was changed for a better, 
and, as he subsequently said in a letter to Ann 
Vaux, whose reputation he had so seriously 
compromised, " I am allowed every meal a 



good draught of excellent claret wine, and I 
am liberal with myself and neighbours for 
good respects, to allow also out of my own 
purse some sack, and this is the greatest 
charge I shall be at." 

But before long this interesting correspon- 
dence came to an end. Cecil questioned and 
received many damaging answers from the 
Jesuit leader, and before very long Mistress 
Vaux was herself committed to the Tower as 
a participator in the Gunpowder Treason. 

By this time nearly all the English Jesuits 
had been arrested and put in the Tower; and 
the kind Lieutenant was so obliging as to put 
Garnet and Oldcorne into adjacent rooms, and 
caused a communication to be shown to them 
by means of which they could quietly con- 
verse when the warders were out of the way. 

This was an opportunity not to be neglected. 
The Jesuits held many interesting conversa- 
tions through the panel, curiously oblivious of 
the danger they incurred. The craft of Cecil 
does not appear to have been suspected by 
either, but spies were so placed that the 
dialogue was heard and transmitted to the 
Secretary of State. These conversations 
tended to clear up much that had been before 
obscure. Ann Vaux was closely questioned, 
but nothing against the Jesuits could be ob- 
tained from her. The queer, if not unusual, 
relationships lately existent at White Webbs, 
and the meetings of the plotters there, were 
disclosed by the dame ; and then Cecil sent for 
the priests, and told them he was well aware 
of their conversation through the panels. 

This was too much for Oldcorne ; he con- 
fessed his share in the dialogue, and added 
various other words which proved very in- 
jurious to him and his associates. Garnet, 
on the contrary, firmly denied the facts until 
threatened with torture, when he confessed, 
and was ordered for trial in March 1606. 

When Garnet had confessed it was of no 
use to keep Oldcorne any longer in prison. 
He was therefore sent to Worcester with Mr. 
Abingdon of Hendhp to be tried before a 
special Commissioner. Mr. Abingdon was 
pardoned, and yet Lord Monteagle, with the 
priest Oldcorne and others, were executed. 
Gerard had esc3.ped. 

A volume might be written concerning 
Garnet's latter days, his correspondence with 
Ann Vaux, whose character he defended at 
the last, and his interviews with Cecil. By 
degrees, as we have seen, enough was found 
to criminate him, and by means of spies and 
such devices, proof was adduced against all 
the priests. Henry Garnet was then con- 
demned and executed. So the active principle 
of the terrible plot died out, and there remain 
but a reproach and a by-word and a doggerel 
rhyme, to bring prominently before us the 
great " Gunpowder Treason, which should 
never be forgot." H. F. 



528 




The Spanish Armada attacked by the English Fleet. 
(From the Ancient Tapestry in the House of Lords, destroyed in the Fire at the Houses of Parliavient in 1834.; 

HAND IN HAND FOR ENGLAND, 

THE STORY OF THE DEFEAT OF THE SPANISH ARMADA. 



A Nightof Suspense-England's Hour of Trial-The Growth of the Bitter Feehngs between England and Spa.n-The Policy 
^f the Vatican-" Singeing the King of Spain's Beards-Drakes Expeditions at Cadp and Corunna-Pla^ng at 
Peace-making-Hand in Hand for England-The Spanish Scheme-The First Day s Fighting-The Fight off Poit- 
land; Plucking the Feathers of the Spaniards one by one-Correspondence between ^ledina Sidonia and Parma- 
The Fire^Ships-The Action off Gravelines-The Flight through the Straits-Home round the Orkneys ! -The 
Western Storms— The Return to Spain. 




A Night of Suspense. 
HE long, hot summer day was draw- 
ing to a close, and the level beams 
of the setting sun were lighting up 
with resplendent beauty the dancing 
waters of Plymouth Sound, when suddenly a 
small armed vessel, with all sails set, ran 
smartly in from the Channel, before the wind. 
A few minutes more, and down rattled her 
canvas, the anchor was thrown out, and the 
vessel's head swung round. Another minute 
passed and her captain sprang ashore, and 
quickly made his way to the bowling-green 
on the Hoe, where a group of officers and 
sea-captains were engaged in the old English 
game of bowls. 

Seeking out one of the officers who from 
his appearance seemed to be a person of 
some distinction, and who, in fact, was none 
other than Lord Howard of Effingham, High 
Admiral of England, the new-comer exclaimed 



excitedly, — "My Lord, the Spaniards are 
upon us ! I saw the Armada this morning 
off the Cornish coast, and I have cracked 
on all sail to let your Lordship know in time." 

Instantly there arose shouts for the ships' 
boats, and some of the captains hurried away 
to the water ; signs of excitement and haste 
began to manifest themselves on every side ; 
but there was one there, holding a large ball 
in his hand, who coolly checked the excite- 
ment of his colleagues, and insisted that the 
match should be played out. " There is time 
to beat both you and the Spaniards too," he 
said. A hearty laugh was the response, and 
then Drake (for the last speaker was that 
famous captain) and his friends played out 
their game as coolly as though the invading 
Spanish ships were thousands of miles away. 

But while they were concluding their game, 
the news of the Spaniards' arrival had spread 
far and wide. Fire-signals, ready to burst 



S29 



M M 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



forth into lurid flame, had been prepared on 
every eminence, and one by one the hill tops 
blazed forth into beacons of warning, sym- 
bolical, indeed, of the sturdy English spirit 
which leapt forth to meet the invader. In 
every southern seaport, ships and boats were 
on the watch, and in every shire and city, 
horses and men were waiting ready to fight 
for hearth and home. 

A great camp had been formed at Tilbury 
to guard London, and from every side troops 
were pouring in to swell the numbers already 
gathered there. Thus, when the warning 
light shone out, it found England well pre- 
pared. 

Meantime Drake and his companions on 
the Hoe finished their game and went on 
board their vessels. The wind was dead 
against them, therefore they were obliged 
to warp the ships laboriously out of harbour ; 
they stood westward under easy sail, waiting 
for the Spaniards to appear. But though the 
wind was in the Spaniards' favour, the vessels 
of the Armada were so huge and vmwieldy 
that they made but little progress, and it was 
not until the night of suspense had passed, 
and the July sunlight of the next morning 
gUnted on the glad waters of the Channel, 
that the huge fleet hove in sight. It appeared 
like a crescent seven miles wide, and the 
vast vessels seemed more like floating castles 
than ships of war. First of all, two white 
wings were visible, clearly defined against the 
western sky ; then by degrees, as the day wore 
on, others loomed above the line of the sea, un- 
til the broad crescent was complete ; and as the 
high hulls appeared, the keen-eyed watchers 
could count at least one hundred and fifty 
invading vessels. On they swept, those 
magnificent ships, slowly and proudly, and 
perchance they did not see those few light 
vessels, closely hugging the shore, which 
were lying in wait for them, and ready to 
pounce upon them at the first opportunity, 
even as the lithe-limbed tiger springs upon 
his prey. So passed Saturday the 20th of 
July, 1588, and another night drew on. 

England's Hour of Trial. 
The news of the presence of the Spanish 
ships in the English Channel was now 
known over the greater part of the island. 
The blaze of many beacons and the tidings 
taken by mounted messengers had told most 
Englishmen that their country's hour of trial 
had come. We can well imagine the feelings 
of many a family, at that time hidden in the 
depths of the country. They had seen the 
warning fires flash along the lonely hills 
for many a mile, and mayhap the father, 
husband, or son had gone days before to 
join the masses of troops then being mar- 
shalled throughout the land. But the summer 
sun would rise and set many times before 



these poor people would know more of the 
stirring events then happening round their 
coasts. Through the long, hot days they 
would sit and think of those who were gone, 
and wonder what had befallen them ; whether 
the Spaniards were victorious, and " Good 
Queen Bess " was to yield her power to the 
hated Philip, and they themselves were to 
bow their necks to the conqueror's yoke 
and suffer all the horrors of a vanquished 
people; whether these fields, which now 
waved white with harvest, were to feed the 
haughty Spaniards ; and their lands, which 
now smiled with the rich beauty of summer, 
were to be stained with bloodshed and burn- 
ing ; — all these things doubtless passed 
through the 'minds of those who, silent and 
inactive, had to pass those sunUl: summer 
days in the agonies of suspense, not knowing 
from hour to hour what might, or had already 
happened for their country's weal or woe. 

It was the crucial moment of a long period 
of suspense. For eighteen months it had 
been known that Philip of Spain was pre- 
paring an immense army and fleet to 
invade England, and for some years the 
bitter feelings between the two countries had 
been increasing until at last they had broken 
forth into open war. 

It is not difficult to account for these bitter 
feelings. Ever since the day when Queen 
Mary had caused absolute panic in the 
country by reason of her marriage to Philip 
of Spain, and he with her had endeavoured 
to re-establish the Pope's supremacy in Eng- 
land and to consolidate his own hold on the 
island, a hatred against Spain as the chief 
aggressive power in the world, and the 
principal persecutor of Protestants, had been 
steadily growing. Englishmen of all parties 
were agreed that no foreign despot, whether 
he were Pope or prince, should tax or toll in 
their dominions, and in the Spanish marriage 
and the Spanish policy Englishmen saw not 
only the overthrow of the Protestant religion 
and the opening up of fearful persecution 
(fears which had been onlytoo surely realized), 
but also the loss of their lands and posses- 
sions. That England should become a mere 
appanage or province of Spain was not to 
be thought of; and though at the death of 
Mary Tudor this disaster had not happened, 
and so far Philip's plans had not been 
accomplished, yet the fear that he was bent 
upon this scheme naturally excited the feel- 
ings of Englishmen against him. Moreover, 
the calamitous French war, into which Philip 
had forced England for his own benefit, did 
not tend to soothe the hatred ; for it had 
greatly reduced the resources of the country. 
But up to the present time the Spanish king 
had been able to accomplish a part of his 
designs. He had kept England and France 
at enmity with each other. France was his 



530 



HAND IN HAND FOR ENGLAND. 



great rival on the Continent, and most of all he 
feared that France and England should be- 
come united against him, .and his way to his 
•dominion in the Netherlands be thus barred. 

When, therefore, at the death of Mary, he 
lost the crown of England, sheer necessity of 
keeping intact his vast possessions led to his 
wish to still keep England under his thumb. 
He therefore proposed himself to Elizabeth 
as her husband, but the young Queen — re- 
solved on no account to repeat her half- 
sister's mistakes — courteously refused his 
offer. But still the politic Philip resolved 
to keep England to his side, and to reduce 
her to his will by seeming kindness ; and the 
■apparent alliance between the two countries 
might have continued, and the final colHsion 
averted, but for the interference of the Pope. 
When he heard that Elizabeth had succeeded 
•to the throne of England, his rage knew no 
bounds, for between the Oueen and the 
Vatican lay the fatal dispute of her own 
illegitimacy. That she, whom the solemn 
judgment of the Holy See had asserted to 
have no legal claim, should succeed to the 
throne of England without consulting the 
Pope's views on the subject was not to be 
borne, and he summoned her instantly to 
submit her claims to his jurisdiction. But 
if Elizabeth had been prepared to submit to 
so arrogant a proposal, which she certainly 
was not, she well knew the English people 
would never yield to it ; and from the moment 
of receiving that message the hope of the 
English Romanists that Elizabeth would 
prove herself a true daughter of the Romish 
Church was irretrievably lost. She decidedly 
and definitely refused to acknowledge the 
supremacy of the Pope. And from that hour 
he and his successors were her dire enemies ; 
especially so after it was known that she had 
given her subjects a measure of religious 
toleration, and had revived the Reformed 
Prayer Book. Therefore he never ceased 
to urge upon Philip the necessity of purging 
England of her heresy with the sword. 

Philip, however, waited the course of 
events, and endeavoured to mitigate the 
wrath of Rome, although he was in truth 
much vexed at the course events were taking 
in England. He might well be vexed, for 
these events threatened the entire subversion 
of his most cherished schemes, although at 
that time we can hardly imagine that he 
foresaw all the mighty consequences that 
would spring therefrom. But this was one 
of the most critical periods of the history of 
Europe. Everywhere the new religion was 
struggling against the might and bigotry of 
the old ; and at this most critical period 
England ranged herself in the Protestant 
ranks. In a few years Elizabeth became the 
most powerful Protestant sovereign in Europe, 
and the aid she and her subjects gave to tl.e 



Netherlands enabled them eventually to throw 
off the gaUing yokeof Philip and estabhsh their 
civil and religious freedom. The English 
Queen's support of the Huguenots enabled 
Henri IV. to save French Protestantism by 
the Edict of Nantes, and it gave free play to 
that sturdy English spirit which was to break 
the power of Spain and establish Britain as 
Mistress of the Sea. 

The Increase of Bitter Feelings 
BETWEEN England and Spain, 

As England and England's Queen became 
more decidedly Protestant, and Philip saw 
the realization of his schemes recede farther 
and farther from his view, his anger greatly 
increased. In fact, when he heard of Eliza- 
beth's support of the Huguenots, he flew into a 
violent passion, for he feared, and not with- 
out reason, that it would give an impulse to 
"heresy" in his dominions in the Nether- 
lands. These were among his richest pos- 
sessions, and the fabrics of Flanders at 
that day were justly esteemed throughout 
Europe. But the Flemings and Dutch 
already resented his rule, and claimed to 
worship God in their own way, nor could 
their Protestantism be purged out with fire 
and sword. And when at last it came to 
open war between them and their Spanish 
tyrants, Elizabeth sent over the Earl of Lei- 
cester and a body of troops to assist them 
in their efforts to establish a Protestant re- 
public. This was a well weighed political 
scheme, and executed simply to keep "war 
out of our own gate;" for while engaged in 
suppressing the "heresy" and revolts in 
Flanders, it was thought the Pope and Philip, 
having enough to do in Europe, would be 
prevented from the invasioQ of England. 

The great policy which ran thi-ough all the 
tortuous acts and diplomacies of the early 
part of Elizabeth's reign was to keep Eng- 
land from war and out of foreign complication. 
To keep England out of Philip's schemes, and 
yet to prevent an open war with him, to 
prevent the Pope from having authority in 
her realm, — these were Elizabeth's plans, and 
steadily and unfalteringly she pursued them. 
For Elizabeth loved England, and her whole 
heart and mind were bent on developing the 
resources of the country and fostering the 
national spirit. " Nothing, no worldly thing 
under the sun, are so dear to me as the love 
and goodwill of my subjects." These were 
the words she spoke to her first parliament, 
and she certainly had the love and goodwill 
of her people. She laughed to scorn the 
Bulls of Deposition which the Pope launched 
at her devoted head, and secure in the 
affections of her people she could view with- 
out alarm the turmoils and strife around her. 

The policy of the Vatican remained un- 
changed. Pope succeeded Pope, but there 



531 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



was still the same fiery zeal to reduce the 
whole world to own their sway. They were 
determined to depose Elizabeth, and re- 
estabhsh their supremacy in England ; and 
it was money of the Pope's treasury tifet finally 
helped to furnish Philip's great Armada. It 
seemed as if nothing would reduce this little 
stubborn western island. Jesuit priests had 
been sent over in great numbers to stir up 
Romanist revolts and to indoctrinate the 
people in the teachings of the Vatican, and 
conspiracies were formed to place the Ro- 
manist Mary Stuart on the throne. Bulls of 
Deposition were issued, but all to no purpose. 

By means of the Test Act the popish pro- 
pagandists were debarred from taking any 
office ; and an Act was passed whereby they 
were commanded to leave the realm within 
forty days on pain of being treated as traitors. 
Had it not been that the Pope so much in- 
sisted on Ehzabeth's deposition by reason of 
the illegality of her mother's marriage, it may 
have been that the Queen at this time would 
not have been so determined to thwart the 
Papacy. But to acknowledge this was of 
course just the one thing that Ehzabeth 
would not do, and her subjects supported 
her loyally and chivalrously, until at last 
it became clear to the Pope that only by 
force of arms could he regain his power over 
his lost domain ; and the greatest pressure 
was now put upon Philip to bring back the 
heretics with fire and sword into the fold of 
the true Church. 

And now Philip himself began to show 
signs of yielding to the Holy See, for he be- 
gan to fear the growing power of England, 
and longed to crush her spirit of naval daring. 
He regarded the whole of the newly dis- 
covered Western World as his property, and 
he resented the incursions thither by Drake, 
Hawkins, Frobisher, and other English 
rovers. He would not allow them even to 
trade with those rich shores, and laid an em- 
bargo on English vessels and property 
throughout the extent of his wide dominions. 
In reply to this decree Ehzabeth gave her 
sailors permission to make war on Spanish 
ships and seize their merchandize ; and she 
and her subjects treated with undisguised 
contempt the Papal decree which gave the 
New World absolutely to Spain. 

The daring English adventurers of those 
days were quite as willing to trade as to fight, 
and the bhnd bigotry of PhiHp which refused 
to allow any heretic to traffic on his domains, 
and determined him to keep the whole of the 
wealth of Peru and Mexico for himself, only 
stirred their religious and patriotic zeal to a 
still higher pitch. The consequence was that 
English ships encountered Spanish galleons 
long before the Armada sailed up the English 
Channel. The Puritanism of the sea-rovers 
was added to their hatred of Spain. They 



thought they did God service in slaughtering 
the Spaniards who burned Protestants and 
tortured them in, the vile Inquisition; and 
it was religious fanaticism, as well as national 
pride and naval daring, which urged on 
Drake to those deeds of daring which made 
his name the terror of the Spanish main. 

But his successes stirred Philip's anger 
to the utmost, and at last the Spanish king 
resolved to conquer the obstinate island for the 
Vatican, and at the same time crush out all 
opposition to his selfish schemes in the East and 
West Indies. His recent conquest of Portugal 
had completely changed his position and 
strengthened his power, for not only the king- 
dom itself, but all her recently acquired colo- 
nies in the East and Western World now 
acknowledged his sway. The magnificent 
victory, also, which his fleet had gained at 
Lepanto over the Turks had greatly exalted 
the repute of his arms, and at this period 
there seemed to be only one nation who dared 
to defy his mandates and resist his authority. 
This was that turbulent England, which had 
helped, and still continued to help, his re- 
volted subjects in Flanders ; which sent ships 
to his farthest dominions and maintained 
their right to trade and conquer as well as he ; 
and which, more than all, insulted him per- 
sonally by ridiculing him (as the hated hus- 
band of their former queen) in their stage 
plays and masquerades. If the growing 
power of England were destroyed, the Dutch 
must submit ; France would be unable to 
oppose him, and universal dominion appeared 
to be the natural consequence of a subjuga- 
tion of this obstinate island. 

Further, the execution of Mary Stuart 
roused the papal passion to its fiercestfiiry, and 
also gave some pretence to Philip's claims, 
inasmuch as she bequeathed to him, as being 
the nearest heir by blood of the Romish faith, 
her rights to the English crown, which the 
Pope had always supporjted, and which were 
by no means inconsiderable according to the 
then received opinions. Philip therefore 
counted upon the support of the English 
Romanists who had hitherto maintained the 
pretensions of Mary Stuart ; and he was 
assured by the Jesuit emissaries already in 
the island that three-fourths of the EngHsh 
nation were Romanists, and at the command 
of the Pope they would surely rise against 
their heretic Oueen. 

But in this view, as the event proved, they 
were utterly mistaken ; and it was a Romanist, 
Lord Howard of Effingham, who was ap- 
pointed High Admiral of the fleet. They did 
not know the temper of the English people 
any more than they knew the strength and 
sternness of the power that was rising in 
the foggy little northern island. 

These, then, were the causes which led to 
Philip's invasion of England and the pre- 



532 



HAND IN HAND FOR ENGLAND. 



paration of the celebrated Armada. By 
crushing England Philip could alone crush 
the revolt in the Netherlands, for she had 
supported the insurrection both with money 
and men ; he was determined to maintain 
his supremacy of the seas, which England 
alone seriously threatened ; he wished to 
bring back again the heretical island into 
the fold of the Church by force of arms, 
while last but not least he desired to enforce 
what he called his personal right to the 
throne and the rights bequeathed by Mary 
Stuart, Pope Sixtus V. renewed the Bull 
of Deposition, and denounced Elizabeth as 
a murderous heretic whose destruction was 
the bounden duty of all true sons of the 
Church, He also bound himself to con- 
tribute a million of scudi to the expenses 
of the war. The army of the Armada was 
thus a great triumph of Jesuit intrigue. 

"Singeing the King of Spain's Beard," 

As early as the year 1584 the first ves- 
sels of the great Armada — a Spanish word 
signifying a fleet of armed ships — began to 
gather in the Tagus. Philip knew he had 
engaged in a task of no ordinary magnitude, 
and he was resolved to be fully prepared. 
For a long time his preparations were secret, 
but Drake and his companions were every- 
where, and news of it eventually leaked out. 

Furnished by the Queen with six ships of 
war, and assisted by twenty-six privateers 
supplied by the merchants of London, the 
dauntless adventurer left Plymouth Sound 
in April 1587, and sailed straight for Cadiz, 
bent on destroying as many as possible of 
the ships which had so long and so labori- 
ously been prepared by the King of Spain. 

He found the mouth of Cadiz harbour to 
be narrow, and heavy batteries flanked it 
on both sides. To run into it seemed like 
putting one's head into a Hon's mouth ; but 
although Admiral Burroughs refused to allow 
the ship over which he had control to join in 
so hazardous an undertaking, Drake deter- 
mined to make the daring attempt. 

On the morning of the 19th of April, there- 
fore, the wind being fair and the tide at the 
flood, Drake gave the word, and into the 
harbour flew his twenty-nine ships as fast as 
sails and tide could carry them. The bat- 
teries opened a feeble fire, but only one shot 
took effect, and on dashed the ships. They 
fell first on a large galleon, and concentrating 
their fire upon her, riddled her with shot so 
completely that she speedily sank. Then on 
to the others, — large store-ships most of them, 
containing food and stores for the Armada, — 
burning and destroying everything they could 
touch. The crews fled in dismay or made 
but a feeble resistance, and in one day all 
the harbourful of preparations of many months 
were destroyed or captured. 



Riding out to sea next day with the tide, 
Drake shaped his course for Cape St. Vin- 
cent, plundering and burning all the Spanish 
store-ships and galleons he could find. All 
these vessels were loaded with arms and 
provisions for the Armada, and Drake de- 
stroyed them without mercy. United to his 
patriotism, which caused him to carry the war 
into the enemy's country and, if possible, 
prevent the Armada from ever sailing at all 
towards England, was his opinion that he 
was doing God's service ; thus we find him 
writing, "When men thoroughly believed 
that what they were doing was in defence of 
their religion and country, a merciful God 
for Christ's sake would give victory, nor 
would Satan and his ministers prevail against 
them." 

Arrived off Cape St. Vincent, Drake 
dropped anchor, there to await the coming 
of some Spanish ships of war from the Medi- 
terranean, which he had heard were on their 
way to join the Armada. While waiting, 
Drake sent his boats ashore, stormed the 
forts of Faro, and thus had a safe anchorage 
and also access (for a time) to the mainland 
for fresh water and provisions. But whether, 
thus early, the Spaniards were so afraid of 
Drake that the ships would not venture near 
him if they could help it, certain it is the 
contingent for which he waited came not, 
and l3rake was reluctantly compelled to 
leave the forts he had so valiantly taken and 
move again to the north. For he had set 
his heart upon accomplishing the most daring 
deed of all ; he had determined to venture 
into the Tagus itself, where the Armada was 
lying at anchor, and destroy it in its very 
home. This would be to strike at the very 
heart of Philip's enterprise, and prevent for 
some time, if not entirely, the despatch of an 
Armada. Hitherto what he had done had 
been (to use his own expressive phrase) but 
^'■singeing the King of Spain's beard" a,ndi he 
wished to strike at his heart, and kill his 
enterprise once for all. 

Time being precious, therefore — for he 
knew that to be successful his action must 
be swift and sudden — he set sail from Faro 
for the Lisbon estuary. He did not under- 
rate the magnitude of the danger, for he 
knew that in the Tagus the Spaniards were 
in overwhelming force, but the mouth of the 
river was wide, and he well knew that his 
lightly-built frigates could easily outsail and 
fly round the ponderous war-castles of the 
Spaniards. His design, therefore, was to 
repeat the tactics which had been so suc- 
cessful at Cadiz, — to sail in suddenly on a 
flood tide, take the Spaniards entirely by 
surprise, riddle the closely-packed, unpre- 
pared, and half-manned ships with bullets or 
set them on fire, when, being thick together, 
he could leave the flames to do their destruc- 



533 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



tive work while he retreated triumphantly on 
the ebb-tide. 

These were his plans, and there seems 
little doubt but that if he could have had his 
way he would have so effectually disposed of 
the Armada that the Spanish expedition 
would never have sailed ; but as he was near- 
ing the Tagus he was overtaken by orders 
from Elizabeth forbidding him to do anything 
of the kind, and, in fact, that although he 
might watch the preparations, he must 
moderate his efforts against the King of 
Spain, for there was every prospect of a peace 
being patched up. 

That negotiations for peace were going on 
was certain, but it was such a peace that 
Ehzabeth could not accept without national 
dishonour. 

The bold captain, therefore, was obliged to 
forego his most cherished design ; but he 
hung about the Spanish shores, steadily de- 
stroying everything he could lay his hands 
upon. He made a descent on the harbour 
of Corunna, and repeated here the successful 
raid of Cadiz. In fact, in about two months' 
time he had destroyed about half the Armada 
and a great quantity of the stores accumu- 
lated for the equipment of the ships. 

This splendid service accomplished, he set 
sail for the Azores in the hope of finding some 
treasure-ships returning from the Indies with 
which to pay his men ; for the supplies from 
home were so scanty that the wages and 
most of the rations of his sailors had to be 
provided out of what they could get. Drake 
was again successful in his quest, for he had 
not set sail many days from the shores of 
Spain when he fell in with a richly freighted 
carrack, which so satisfied his sailors that they 
counted their services well paid ; thus having 
done all they could for that time they returned 
home, feeling well assured that no Armada 
could set sail from Spain that summer. 

Playing at Peacemaking. 

Notwithstanding all the efforts of her 
ministers, Elizabeth was still bent on making 
peace, although it was clear to all that Philip 
was simply endeavouring to gain time. The 
Prince of Parma, the most able commander 
of that day, and captain-general of the 
Spanish forces, had gathered in the Nether- 
lands about fifty thousand of the finest troops 
Europe could furnish, — not only from Spain 
herself, but from the countries and provinces 
which owed Philip allegiance or were his 
allies. Thus, four thousand'men were drafted 
from Philip's kingdom of Naples and Sicily, 
three thousand from Germany and Austria, 
and four thousand from northern and central 
Italy, besides the flower of the splendid 
troops from Arragon and Castille. Immense 
flat-bottomed boats had been made and were 



floating off the coast of Holland to convey 
this superb army, with all its gun-carriages 
and siege-machines, over the narrow seas to 
the eastern coast of Kent ; but Parma, like a 
wise general, would not trust his heavily ladeii 
transports to the tender mercies of Drake 
and his colleagues unless the Armada was 
there to protect them. But for the time 
being the Armada could not sail, so the Prince 
of Parma was obliged to wait ; and thus 
the winter of 1587 closed in, the provinces 
of Spain resounding with preparations for 
the crusade against the "obstinate" little 
island, notwithstanding that negotiations for 
peace were still going forward. 

Into the details of these negotiations we 
need not enter, nor into the vexed question of 
what may have been the Queen's motive. Pro- 
bably in her secret heart she may have feared 
the issue, and thought that peace at any price 
might be better than the loss of her crown, 
and that England, whose welfare she was 
passionately determined to promote, should 
pass under the heel of the conqueror. One 
object of those negotiations seems to have 
been to obtain the aid of France, both sides 
manoeuvring to obtain this aid. In the end 
Philip gained the assistance of Guise, if 
assistance it might be called, or what was as 
much to his purpose, he prevented the King 
from assisting Elizabeth, for the fanatical 
Romanists of Paris raised barricades in the 
streets, vanquished the royal troops, and the 
King, Henry of Navarre, — who was well 
affected towards the Protestants, — found him- 
self a prisoner in the hands of their leader, 
the Duke of Guise. 

England, therefore, now stood alone ; she 
was face-to-face with her foe. At last all 
Elizabeth's diplomacy was pushed aside, and 
Philip, who had so long waited for a favour- 
able, opportunity, found the moment for which 
he had manoeuvred. 

It seemed incredible that this little island 
could successfully defy the mightiest power 
in the world — for such Spain was at that time. 
Since the days of the Csesars, no such mighty 
power had existed, and backed as she was by 
the Pope and the fanaticism of the Roman- 
ists, she was regarded as invincible. All 
Europe looked on with excited interest, for 
it was felt that a crisis in the world's history 
had come. And even so it was, for, humanly 
speaking, had Spain been successful, Europe 
might have been crushed for another century 
under a grinding tyranny, and the Reforma- 
tion, with all the freedom and progress and 
enlightenment it was bringing in its train,, 
might have been swept away. 

Hand in Hand for England. 

There was one ally, however, which failed 
Philip. He had been led to i3elieve by his 



53^ 



HAND IN HAND FOR ENGLAND. 



emissaries that his invasion would be sup- 
plemented by a rising of the Romanists in 
England itself, who would hasten to his stan- 
dard at the first note of war. But such was 
not the case. At this great crisis, patriotism 
was stronger than priestism, and all sects 
forgot their differences and quickly rallied 
round their Queen. Puritan and Episcopalian, 
Protestant and Romanist, all joined as it were 

HAND IN HAND FOR ENGLAND ; and if 

Parma should ever get so far as to land on the 
Kentish coast he would find a hundred thou- 
sand well-trained and stubborn Englishmen 
ready to dispute every inch of ground. There 
may have been a few traitors in the country, 
but they were harmless amid the universal 
enthusiasm. 

Letters from the sovereign were sent to the 
lords-lieutenant of the various counties, 
commanding them to urge upon the gentle- 
men under them to provide and call together 
as many footmen and horsemen as possible, 
fully furnished for war ; similar letters were 
also sent to the great towns and to each of 
the nobility. The result of these efforts was 
that the whole country soon rang with the din 
of arms. Everywhere bands of soldiers were 
being trained and exercised. At the great 
camp at Tilbury, the Queen rode through 
the ranks, encouraging the levies by her 
spirited words. 

It has been often said that Elizabeth 
showed her greatest wisdom in knowing how 
to summon the best men to her councils, and 
never perhaps did this fact reveal itself more 
fully than in the government she now con- 
voked to her aid,— the best and wisest men in 
the realm, — among whom were Sir Walter 
Raleigh, Sir Walter Knolles, and others well 
trained in wai". Some were for concentrating 
their whole energies upon an army that should 
oppose the landing of the enemy ; others, 
among whom was Sir Walter Raleigh, were 
for putting out a fleet, and encountering the 
Spaniards in the Channel, to prevent them 
from landing at all ; and happily these wiser 
counsels prevailed. In his " Historie of the 
World," he makes this notable remark which, 
doubtless, embodies the advice hegave toEliza- 
beth's council : " Surely I hold that the best 
way is to keep our enemies from treading on 
our ground, wherein if we fail, then must we 
seek to make them wish they had stayed at 
their own home. . . . But ... as to whether 
England without the help of her fleet be able 
to debar an enemy from landing, I hold that 
it is unable to do so, and therefore, I think it 
most dangerous to make the adventure.'' 

Raleigh got his way, and England deter- 
mined to fight her foe first at sea and, if 
possibb, debar him from landing, by means 
of her lleet. At that time the ships of Her 
Majesty's navy numbered only 29 or 30 
vesse.s ; but the citizens of London, Bristol, 



Plymouth, Southampton, and other great 
ports exhibited as great zeal in furnishing 
ships as the gentry of the midland counties 
displayed in mustering soldiers, so that in 
a short time the number was raised to 80. 
The number of sailors to man these vessels 
(including volunteers) was about 9,000 ; but 
England's national treasury was at that time 
so poor, or, as some writers assert, the Queen 
was so parsimonious, that the armament 
was but very badly provisioned, while of gun- 
powder and shot the store was still more 
limited. Lord Howard of Effingham was 
appointed High Admiral, and the redoubtable 
Sir Francis Drake was the second in com- 
mand. All the old "sea-dogs," Hawkins, 
Frobisher, and others, whose names were the 
terror of Spanish treasure- ships, were there 
also, and invincible as the Armada was held 
to be, and splendidly equipped as the immense 
fleet certainly was, there were those on board 
who knew that a hard fight was before them to 
reduce these English rovers of the sea. 

The Armada sets sail. 

While Philip had been playing at peace he 
had been steadily adding ship to ship and 
regiment to regiment. The ravages com- 
mitted by Drake had been speedily repaired, 
for the fanatical enthusiasm of the people was 
enormous. The "holy war" against England 
was preached from a thousand pulpits, and 
Spaniards came forth in thousands to strike 
a blow for the Holy Catholic Church. Their 
enterprise was blessed by the Pope, and 
undertaken to execute his wishes. Elizabeth 
of England was a wicked woman, an usurping 
heretic, who flouted the decrees of the Vicar 
of Christ, kept their King from his own, and 
aided his rebellious subjects. She had turned 
England into a hot-bed of heretics, and had 
persecuted their co-religionists ; it was the 
bounden duty therefore of every Romanist to 
aid in expelling her from her throne. 

The " crusaders '' were embarked in 149 or 
150 vast vessels, 65 of which were immense 
galleons, built very high of well-seasoned 
wood. The timbers were four or five feet 
thick to resist the shot, and well-pitched 
cables were wound round the masts to 
strengthen them likewise against the fire of 
their enemies. Next to these came 8 large 
galleys, or galleasses, bristling with cannon, 
loaded with soldiers, and each rowed by the 
sinewy arms of 300 slaves who had been 
dragged by the all-conquering Spaniard 
from the sunny shores of Algiers and the 
Bosphorus. These vessels were held to be 
very dangerous, as they were supposed to be 
superior to all chances of wind and tide, and 
could be rowed anywhere at any moment. 
Fifty-six well-armed merchant vessels and 
20 caravels or pinnaces propelled with oars 
and attached to the larger vessels com- 



535 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



pleted the armament. The number of sailors 
to- man this large fleet was computed to be 
eight thousand, the soldiers twenty thousand, 
and the slaves two thousand. There were 
nearly three thousand pieces of cannon, the 
greater number of which were able to dis- 
charge much heavier shot than those on 
board the English vessels. It had been 
intended that the expedition should be com- 
manded by the Marquis of Santa Cruz, 
who was undoubtedly the ablest sailor that 
Philip had. But he died suddenly in January, 
and Philip then gave the chief command to 
the Duke of Medina Sidonia, a court favourite, 
who knew but little of the sea. He was sup- 
ported, however, by all the ablest captains in 
Spain. 

The instructions given to this fleet were 
that the ships were to sail for England direct, 
gain command of the Channel, and assist and 
cover the crossing of Parma's immense army 
from the Netherlands. On the 20th of May, 
1588, the magnificent armament, designated 
by the Spaniards the " Invincible Armada," 
and believed by nearly the whole of Europe 
to be so, set sail from the Tagus. But the 
hills of Spain had not faded from the sailors' 
sight before a heavy storm struck the ponder- 
ous high-built vessels and damaged many of 
them so severely that the whole expedition 
had to return to the nearest ports to refit. 
Ofders had been given, that if scattered the 
ships were to collect in the Bay of Ferrol. In 
the course of some days this was done, but it 
was the 12th of July before the Armada was 
again completely ready for sea. On the 
morning of that day, with the briUiant sun 
shining on their red-crossed sails and flaunt- 
ing flags, the great ships slowly stood out for 
the northern seas,— the largest, most magni- 
ficent, and heavily-armed fleet that the world 
then had ever seen. 

The Preparations of the English. 

The English ships had not been idle while 
the Armada had been refitting. The Queen, 
anxious to save money, hearing that the 
Spaniards had put into port, sent orders to 
disband some part of the English fleet; but 
Lord Howard, judging that the danger had 
not yet passed, dared to disobey his royal 
mistress, and sailed off towards Spain, 
hoping to discover the real design of the 
enemy, and, if possible, attack him on his 
own shores. We may well be sure Drake 
seconded his chief in this bold policy, and 
accordingly, early in June, Howard sailed 
towards Corunna, but when near this port 
the north wind changed, and, fearing lest the 
Spaniards should pass him unobserved and 
enter the Channel, which was now unguarded. 
Lord Howard put back and cruised some 
time at the entrance. The Armada still fail- 
ing to appear and rations running short, — 



indeed they appear to have been short all the 
time, — Howard returned to Plymouth, to 
await further news. 

Fishing boats, privateers, and other vessels 
were cruising about on the look-out for the 
Armada, and on the morning of the 20th, 
eight days after leaving Ferrol Bay, a small 
privateer was observed by the Spaniards 
hanging about quite close to them and coolly 
counting their numbers. Chase was given, 
but Captain Fleming, — for such was the name 
of the captain of the little vessel, — having 
seen enough for his purpose, shook out all 
his sails, and scudding swiftly before the 
wind soon left his ponderous pursuers far 
behind. Not long afterwards he landed at 
Plymouth, as we have seen, and gave the 
important news to the English Admiral and 
his captains. 

After warping out his vessels, Lord How- 
ard slowly cruised about outside Plymouth 
Sound waiting for the Spaniards to appear. 
He had not even the whole of his scanty fleet 
with him, for part of it, under-* Lord Henry 
Seymour, was employed, with a few Dutch 
vessels, in blockading the ports of Flanders, 
and preventing the Prince of Parma from 
endeavouring to cross. 

The Spanish scheme was to avoid an 
action in the Channel, and steering straight 
for Calais roads, scatter the ships waiting 
there, and join the Prince of Parma's army, 
which, under cover of the Armada, was to 
land at once at Margate. Such was their 
scheme; but they had reckoned without their 
host. If, contrary to Philip's orders, they had 
attempted to take the English fleet by sur- 
prise or land on the Devonshire shore, they 
speedily found they could not have done so, 
at least without opposition ; for when they 
arrived off the Devonshire coast, they saw 
by the pale light^of the summer moon, much 
to their astonishment, that the English fleet 
was cruising about outside the Sound quite 
on the alert and prepared to oppose them. 

Another surprise was waiting for the 
Spaniards, when in the dawn of the next 
morning they saw that the English ships had 
skilfully slipped to windward of them, and 
were so well handled and so well-built that 
they could sail at least two feet for their one, 
and could glide round them so quickly and 
easily that by the time their guns were pointed, 
behold ! the vessel aimed at had shot away 
out of reach. The huge, high-built galleons, 
upon which the Spaniards prided themselves 
so much, were unmanageable as huge punts 
piled with hay, while the well-built English 
frigates were like the modern steam-launches, 
or high-mettled, well-managed horses when 
compared to them. 

The preparation of the Queen's ships had 
been entrusted by her to Sir John Hawkins, 
and he had certainly sent them to sea in a 

36 



HAND IN HAND FOR ENGLAND, 



splendid manner, notwithstanding her parsi- 
mony. Her wisdom in the appointment of 
Hawkins for this duty was another instance 
of her choosing the right man for the right 
post, and notwithstanding the storms which 



The First Day's Fighting. 

When Medina Sidonia saw the Enghsh fleet 
near him he attempted to close with them and 
crush them at once by sheer force of superior 




•• i'HE Spaniards are upon us !" (seepage 529.^ 



the ships encountered on their voyage to 
Corunna, they were in a perfect state on their 
return. It was not so with the Spaniards, 
for after leaving Ferrol Bay the storms 
they had net with had wrecked four of their 
number. 



numbers ; but the English squadron sailed so 
quickly that the Duke found it impossible to 
come up to them. The English ships seemed 
able to fight or not fight as they chose. 

The battle began by a bold little pin- 
nace named The Disdain^ commanded by 



537 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Jonas Bradbury, sailing quickly up to one of 
the lagging Spanish galleons, and pouring a 
scathing broadside into her at close quarters. 
Then four of the English ships sailed behind 
the entire rear line of the Spaniards, pouring 
full broadsides into each galleon as they 
passed, then bearing round and returning and 
repeating the same operation. 

The Spaniards were considerably surprised 
at this course of action. These smart English 
ships could sail, manoeuvre, and fire their 
cannon much faster than they could, and 
each English ship seemed to discharge four 
broadsides to the Spaniards' one. Moreover, 
as the Armada had allowed the English to slip 
behind them, Lord Howard had the wind 
in his favour, while the heavy and ponderous 
galleons lay almost like huge logs on the 
water. All the English ships were now 
engaged, sailing quickly by the big ships, and 
pouring in a broadside as they passed ; and 
by the time the Spaniards were ready for 
them they were off to another vessel. When 
the Armada did fire, the shot frequently went 
hissing over the English vessels, and splash- 
ing into the sea beyond, wrought no damage. 
But the English broadsides crashed into the 
huge galleons near the water-line, ripping 
through the thick timbers and scattering 
death and destruction in the crowded lower 
decks ; for many wounds were inflicted by the 
splintered wood. The rigging also was much 
damaged, and in some of the largest ships 
spars were carried away, and the masts were 
seriously weakened by being shot through. 

As the evening drew on, the wind and 
sea rose high, clouds rolled up from the 
south-west and west, and all things promised 
what sailors call a dirty night. Medina 
Sidonia, finding he could do these sharp- 
sailing English but little hurt as the weather 
then was, gave orders for the Armada to sail 
on towards Calais. The English followed, 
and took every opportunity of harassing 
their large and unwieldy enemy. The tactics 
of the Spaniards rendered this task com- 
paratively easy, for they sailed close together 
in one large mass, which seriously impeded 
their movements. As dusk drew on, a large 
galleon, bearing the flag of Don Pedro de 
Valdez, one of the ablest officers in the fleet, 
collided with another galleon, and sustained 
severe injury. The bowsprit broke, and also 
the foremast, which had probably been much 
weakened by the English shot, and both 
hung at the vessel's side, a mass of wreckage 
which seriously delalyed the vessel's progress. 
Two galleys were sent to take her in tow, and 
row her along, but the sea ran so high that 
the ropes parted, and she became an easy 
conquest, for the Spaniards, terrified at the 
name of Drake, yielded at once when the 
English commander boarded her. She proved 
to be a rich prize, containing many casks of 



gold pieces and some tons of gunpowder, 
which were speedily transferred to the English 
ships to be used against the Spaniards next 
day. 

But the misfortunes to the Armada on the 
first day of fighting had not ended with the 
wreck of Don Pedro's vessel. An explosion, 
either accidental or caused wilfully by one of 
the men who had been quarrelling, blew up 
the deck of one of the largest and strongest 
vessels, which bore the flag of Oquendo, a 
daring and able officer. The ship was so 
strongly built that she still floated, but many 
of the men were killed, while the others were 
taken off into the nearest Spanish vessels. 
This wreck also afforded a rich prize next 
day to the enterprising English, who found 
much money and also some unexploded 
barrels of powder in the hold. Thus, tossed 
by the tempest and battered by the enemy's 
bullets, ended the first day's " triumph " of 
the Invincible Armada ! 

The Fight off Portland ; Plucking 

THE Feathers of the Spaniards one 

BY one. 

The next day, July 22nd, dawned calm and 
still. As the rosy light stole over the still 
heaving waters the two fleets were discovered 
lying off Portland, about four miles apart. 
The wind was so gentle and so much in 
favour of the Armada that the English could 
do little or nothing, and Medina Sidonia de- 
termined to rest his crews after the turmoil 
of yesterday. But next day the wind had. 
increased still in the Spaniards' favour, and 
they therefore bore down on the English^ 
who flew off to sea. Medina Sidonia, think- 
ing they were afraid of him, pursued them 
as fast as the wind and the sinewy arms of 
his slaves could force his ponderous vessels 
through the water. But the English were 
not afraid. Their plan was to draw off the 
galleys and galleons one by one and encounter 
them, if possible, singly, or only two or three 
at a time. To use their own phrase, they 
determined to " pluck the feathers of the 
Spaniard one by one." This had been the 
explanation of their conduct hitherto, and 
was the policy they determined to still 
pursue. It proved to be successful to-day 
also. Some of the galleons outsailed the 
others, and when the wind changed, as it 
frequently does in the Channel in the after- 
noon. Lord Howard turned and attacked the 
one nearest him. She defended herself with 
great bravery, but the English sailed so 
quickly that the Spaniards could not close 
with them. At last, when the English 
powder and shot failed. Lord Howard was 
obliged to sheer off for more, and the main 
body of the Armada thought he had been 
worsted in the fight. 

The next day was calm, and through the 



538 



HAND IN HAND FOR ENGLAND. 



shimmering summer haze the Needles stood 
out calm and still in distant view. Fight 
as the English would, the Armada was 
slowly sailing up Channel. The galleys 
now endeavoured to row close to the 
English ships, but they do not seem to 
have accomplished their purpose or to have 
done much damage. Lord Howard was 
waiting for supplies, and this day, the 24th 
of the month, was mostly a day of rest. 

But that night a breeze sprang up, and 
sloops bearing ammunition came to the 
English ships, as also did a great number of 
small private vessels, owned and chartered by 
the gentlemen of the southern counties, and 
all anxious to share the danger and glory of 
defending their coasts. Sir Walter Raleigh, 
too, had joined Howard and Drake. "And 
now," says the old historian Stow, "the 
English navy being well increased, gave 
charge and chase upon the enemy, squadron 
after squadron seconding each other like 
swift horsemen that could nimbly come and 
go and fetch the wind with most advantage." 
Another contemporary writer. Sir Henry 
Wotton, says that the battle off Portland was 
like " a morrice-dance upon the waters," so 
light and quick were the movements of the 
Enghsh ships compared to the slow and un- 
wieldy motions of the Spanish galleons. 

This was the day when Medina Sidonia 
was destined to learn that the English were 
by no means afraid of him, and that the 
failure of their powder and shot had been 
their principal reason for sheering off before. 
The battle this day seems to have been opened 
by Hawkins placing men in boats to row his 
ship — the Victory — alongside a large galleon 
which had been so disabled in the fight of the 
23rd that it was unmanageable. Medina 
Sidonia seeing this, sent three galleys, rowed 
against the wind by slaves, to rescue her. But 
Hawkins had taken possession of the galleon, 
and four English ships — the Liofi, the Eliza- 
beth Jonas, the Bear, and the Triumph — 
quickly beat up to the rescue, and gave the 
galleys broadside after broadside with such 
rapidity that it was not long before the blood 
of the Spaniards flowed out of the scupper- 
holes like water. The round shot crashed 
through the much-vaunted thick sides of 
their ships, and the splintered wood flying 
like new missiles among the crowds of slaves 
and soldiers did fearful damage. The rescu- 
ing galleys had quite enough to do to defend 
themselves, and seem to have given no more 
thought to rescuing the galleon. 

But the fight had now become general, 
and the close order of the Armada having 
become broken. Lord Howard, in the Ark 
Raleigh, supported by his best ships, went 
straight to the centre of the Spanish squadron, 
where was Medina Sidonia himself, in the 
huge sea-castle, San Martin. In everv case 



the tactics of the English were the same. 
They would sail close in under the great 
galleons and pour in broadside after broad- 
side with terrible effect into their high-built 
sides, and then while the slow vessels were 
veering round to attack, or the Spaniards 
were endeavouring to grapple, they would 
dart away and fire another broadside inta 
another vessel. Like will-o'-the-wisps the 
English ships darted hither and thither 
spouting fire and flame, death and destruc- 
tion, wherever they went. Yet by no manner 
of means could the Spaniards put their hands 
on them. When the Spaniards fired, the 
shot, for the most part being delivered from 
such high decks, and by reason of the bad 
aim, flew wide and wild over the English 
ships or through the rigging, and splashed 
harmlessly into the sea beyond. Once, when 
the bold Spanish commander, Oquendo, ran 
right across the bows of the Ark Raleigh and 
damaged her somewhat severely by the col- 
lision so that her rudder was lost, and for the 
time being she became unmanageable, a 
number of galleons, wishing to make sure of 
this their one poor chance of success, endea- 
voured to close round her at once like wasps 
on a ripe plum, but quick, almost as lightning, 
Howard had out his boats, took his ship in 
tow, and pulled her head round ; the wind 
swelled her sails, and she slipped out of the 
hands of the Spaniards as easily and grace- 
fully as a bird ! 

Such smartness and energy as the English 
everywhere displayed dismayed the Spaniards 
almost as much as the terrible torrents of 
shot which so frequently crashed through 
their ships' sides and smashed them ta 
splinters. 'Tween decks, on many of these 
tall sea-castles, the carnage was something 
fearful. Thousands of soldiers were con- 
gregated here, together with many slaves. 
They had thought that four feet of timber 
would be ample security ; but the English 
round shot went ripping through the oaken 
planks, and the splinters flying in all direc- 
tions proved almost as destructive among the 
crowded ranks as the shell fire of modern days. 

As the sun passed the zenith, and the long, 
hot summer afternoon wore on, the English 
ammunition gave out once more, the ships 
sheered off one by one, and the battle gradu- 
ally died away. But the havoc among the 
Spaniards had been enormous. Rigging and 
masts, boats and bulwarks, sides and steering 
gear, had all suffered, and the placid surface of 
the summer sea was strewn with splintered 
fragmentsfor manyamile. Even the Admiral's, 
ship, the San Martin, had had its main mast 
shot away, and the weak and inexperienced 
commander, Medina Sidonia, was only kept 
from striking his flag by the fiery ardour of 
Oquendo and the bravery of Recalde. Had 
the English been well supplied with ammu- 



539 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



nition there seems but little doubt but they 
would have continued their tactics until they 
had smashed the whole of the " Invincible" 
Armada to splinters, or forced the ships one 
by one to strike their flags. But the Queen's 
poverty or parsimony was such that they were 
continually running short of all supplies. 
Even when a prize was taken, the conquerors 
were obliged to carefully register all the 
powder and provisions obtained before they 
could use them. Thus the next day, instead 
of completing the rout, Lord Howard was 
obhged to hasten to Dover for fresh supplies. 
On the following day, Saturday, 27th July, 
the opportunity was gone, for the week of 
light wind and sunshine came to an end, and 
the rough seas of the Channel prevented any 
concerted attack. Medina Sidonia, bent on 
carrying out his instructions and effecting a 
junction with the Prince of Parma, beat 
further up Channel, but at length was obliged 
to anchor in Calais Roads for fear of running 
on the Goodwins or some of the innumerable 
shoals of the narrow seas. All Saturday 
night and Sunday he lay there, sending off 
messenger after messenger to Parma praying 
him to send him some light vessels in which 
to attack the English, and also some skilful 
pilots to steer him through the straits. 

But these were just the two things Parma 
could not do. He did not or he could not at 
first even reply, so closely was he block- 
aded by Lord Seymour ; so here was the 
splendid spectacle for all Europe to witness, 
of two great armies having boasted loudly 
and long of their determination to beard the 
English lion in his den, and having got near 
enough to do so, yet both afraid to take the 
final step and meet him face-to-face and 
touch his teeth. Truly the Spanish com- 
mander seemed to fear the narrow seas, with 
that terrible English fleet behind, as if they 
were indeed as dangerous as the mouth of a 
raging lion. 

He wrote again and again to Parma, ask- 
ing for ship-loads of powder and shot, and 
also for gun-boats, which could move quickly 
and keep the terrible English at bay. 

Parma's answer, when it did come, was that 
he could not and should not stir until the 
Armada had cleared the Channel and dis- 
persed the English fleet. To embark his 
immense army in transports unprotected by 
big ships would be certain destruction. The 
magnificent Armada was sent to help and 
protect Parma, and Parma could not protect 
it. Once set on English shores then he would 
know what to do, and would strike quickly 
and well, but he could do nothing until then. 
This seems to have been the substance of 
Parma's answer put into the plain English of 
to-day, and without doubt he was right to a 
great extent. His was an army for fighting 
on land, and he had no armed boats to pro- 



tect the numerous transports for conveying 
that army. The English fleet could almost 
blow them out of the water without coming 
to close quarters. Philip had anticipated 
that without doubt the Armada could dispose 
of the English fleet in one decisive sea-fight, 
and that Parma should cross under the pro- 
tection of the Armada. But there was the 
despised English fleet watching the Armada 
just out of cannon shot and only waiting op- 
portunity to destroy it piecemeal. 

The Fire-ships. 
This waiting, however, did not suit the Eng- 
lish at all. Their supplies were still very short, 
and some of the ships appear to have had — 
even with the supplies from Dover — only suf- 
ficient for one day's fighting and one day's 
food. At that time they did not know 
Medina Sidonia's fears, nor the extent of 
damage they had done him. They only 
knew he was in communication with Parma, 
and that he had anchored close on shoal 
water near the French coast, where they 
could not attack with any chance of success. 

As the Sunday afternoon wore away, 
Medina Sidonia seems to have sent another 
message to Parma, saying that he must cross 
at once, and that he would endeavour to keep 
the English engaged. To this Parma replied 
that he would be ready during the week, and 
that his army should embark on the Friday 
following. But he again insisted on the fact 
that the Armada must do all the sea fighting, 
and must protect his troops while crossing. 

But while these messages were passing, 
while the sun of the Sabbath afternoon sank to 
a stormy sunset, and all England was praying 
in her churches with greater fervour than ever 
before, " Save us and deliver us, we humbly 
beseech Thee, from the hands of our 
enemies," the English captains had held a 
hurried and anxious consultation in the cabin 
of the Ark Raleigh, Lord Howard's flag- ship. 
The fate of England seemed almost settled. 
Although they had done their utmost the 
immense numbers of the Spaniards had en- 
abled them to hold out, and they were anchored 
in communication with Parma, and that prince, 
if energetic, could land some, if not all, his 
troops. What was to be done ? 

Presently the captains left their Admiral's 
cabin with brighter faces. A bold step had 
been decided on, — a step which, according to 
Camden, was commanded by Elizabeth her- 
self; but remembering how she loved 
flattery, we may perhaps be pardoned for 
inclining to the belief that the design really 
originated with the daring Drake than with 
her, although contemporaries wishing to gain 
her favour might give her the credit of it. 

In the fancied temporary security of that 
evening the Spaniards went to sleep. No 
English could surely attack them that night. 



540 



HAND IN HAND FOR ENGLAND. 



But while most of them were in their first slum- 
ber, and the watch on deck had been almost 
lulled to unconscious repose by the wash of 
the waves against their ships' sides, suddenly 
in the darkness of the cloudy night bright 
flashes of light shot upward from some 
small ships that had crept unseen into their 
midst, and before any one could tell what 
was the matter, the Armada was lit up by the 
burning blaze of several fire-ships, and dense 
volumes of suffocating smoke rolled around. 

The tireless English had taken eight of the 
most worthless of their attendant vessels, and 
smearing the rigging and decks plentifully 
with pitch, and putting aboard sulphur and 



fleet to follow him. When he reached the 
clear water of the Channel, and in the dim- 
ness and dusk saw the huge forms of his gal- 
leons looming around him, he congratulated 
himself on having skilfully checked the evil 
design of the enemy — when, in fact, he had 
done just exactly what they wanted him to 
do. At daybreak he discovered that many of 
his ships had drifted off towards Flanders, 
that the largest of the galleys was aground 
on Calais bar, and that others were collecting 
off Gravelines. 

The energetic English commander sent off 
boat-loads of sailors at the earliest dawn to 
attack the stranded galley, and ere long, the 




The FiRE-SHii-s sent among the Spanish Vessels. 



small quantities of gunpowder, had towed 
them under cover of the night near to the 
Armada, and then setting fire to them with 
slow matches, had set theiTi drifting with the 
tide right into the centre of the Spanish ships. 
The result was successful even beyond the 
hopes of the English. The Spaniards were 
thrown into a fearful panic, and fearing that 
floating mines were upon them, they cut their 
cables and put out to sea. If the Spanish 
commander had been equal to h i s post he might 
perhaps have quelled the panic by getting out 
boats quickly, rowing to the hre-ships, and 
tugging them clear ; but anxious to prevent 
disaster he hastened out to sea and ordered his 



English were swarming over her bulwarks. 
It was a fierce fight, for the Spaniards de- 
fended themselves with the bravery of despair ; 
but the victory was with the EngUsh, although 
they lost many men. The Spaniards lost four 
hundred men. 

The Action off Gravelines. 
During this time Medina Sidonia, with the 
ships which had remained near him, en- 
deavoured to take up his position again in 
Calais harbour ; he also signalled for his 
other vessels to follow his example. But 
Drake had made up his mind that the 
Spaniards should never drop anchor again 



541 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



in their former place of security, and, more- 
over, he was determined that they should be 
driven through the straits into the wild North 
Sea. Drake and Fenner therefore commenced 
the fight in the early morning by sailing close 
in to the galleons, and between them and 
the French shore ; while Hawkins, Frobisher, 
Howard, and others soon came up; and follow- 
ing the tactics which had answered so well 
on the preceding days, the English ships 
coming to windward of the Spaniards, sa.iled 
smartly in under the high-decked galleons 
and pouring in a continuous torrent of shot, 
swiftly passed away out of danger as necessity 
arose. 

The "Invincible" Armada, huddled close 
together, sailed slov/ly up Channel to the fatal 
straits, smartly followed by the EngUsh, who, 
reserving their fire till they could get quite 
near, sent crashing broadsides one after the 
other into the unwieldy castles, which, 
hemmed in on every side, and unable to 
grapple with their swiftly darting enemy, 
were forced slowly but surely to the surf- 
beaten shoals of the Flemish coast. All 
through that long summer day, from the 
time when the early morning dawn glinted on 
the Channel waves, to the evening hour when 
long lines of red light from the sinkmg sun 
streaked the wreck-laden sea — all day long 
did the rain of round shot continue, until 
every charge of powder was gone, every 
ball sent on its deadly errand, and every 
seaman weary with the hard and incessant 
toil. The carnage among the Spaniards 
had been fearful. Riddled with shot, masts 
in splinters, sails in rags, and guns dis- 
mounted, half the seamen killed, and drift- 
ing on an unknown and inhospitable shore, 
the Armada was indeed in a pitiable plight. It 
is computed by the Spaniards themselves that 
they lost not less than four thousand men that 
day, besides the number of wounded. The 
crowded galleons became slaughter-houses, 
and blood poured out from many a scupper- 
hole like bilge-water. In many cases the 
vessels were only kept afloat by plates of 
iron nailed over the shot holes, and the 
principal occupation of many a man that 
day was thus to stop the leaks of his ship. 

As it was, three of the huge galleons went 
down before the day was done, and three 
•others, totally unmanageable, drifted help- 
lessly on Ostend, where two fell afterwards 
into English hands, and the men of the 
other finally were able to join Parma. But 
as the sun finally sank, and the grey twilight 
crept over the water, another terrible misfor- 
tune befell : the Santa Maria, one of the 
largest galleons left afloat, went down with 
all hands. 

During the evening and night of this 
terrible day — the 29th — Medina Sidonia col- 
lected his ships, and crowding on all the sail 



their shattered masts could carry, stood out 
for the Northern Sea. The English, not 
knowing how severely their enemies were 
injured, and thinking that, as Howard said, 
" they were still wonderful great and strong," 
resolved still to give chase and do what more 
damage they could. 

But the Spaniards thought no more of 
fighting. Their proud spirit was completely 
broken, and they only thought of saving 
themselves. A few officers were still unsub- 
dued, but the men were completely panic- 
stricken. 

" What af^e we to do, Senor Oquendo.'' we 
are lost — utterly lost ! " exclaimed Sidonia in 
despair to his bravest officer. 

" Lost ! " exclaimed Oquendo in scornful 
anger. " Not so, your Excellency ? order up 
fresh gunpowder." 

But at the council of war held in Sidonia's 
cabin it was resolved to retreat to Spain by 
the one unopposed course, — up the North 
Sea, round the Orkneys, and home by way of 
the west of Ireland. And although the wind 
swung round to the east, and consequently 
in their favour for taking up again their safe 
and sure anchorage in Calais harbour, yet 
the timorous counsels prevailed, and the 
"Invincible" Armada set sail for the cir- 
cuitous retreat. As the Spaniards slowly 
beat northwards, they refitted their vessels as 
best they might, and all the men were put on 
short rations of water, so that the casks might 
last out until they saw again the blue hills 
and fair shores of Spain. 

But it was few of them that ever saw 
their native land again. A fierce south- 
west wind blew up, and the sea was soon in 
a raging fury. The sailors had hard work tc 
keep their shaken and shattered ships afloat 
in such a tempestuous sea ; and when the 
straining seams of one poor wounded vessel 
after another gave way, and she became 
water-logged and dropped behind, the others, 
still in woeful fear of the terrible English 
fleet, pressed on and left the laggards to 
sink. 

The English ships still continued to follow 
the fleeing Armada, although they were but 
poorly supplied with provisions. They pur- 
sued the Spaniards as far as Dunbar, and 
then finding that the enemy passed by the 
Firth of Forth, and that there seemed to be 
no chance whatever of their putting into any 
Scotch port. Lord Howard was reluctantly 
compelled to return for more supplies. 

It was a bitter, bitter disappointment to 
see the Armada once again elude his grasp. 
Once more, and for the third and last time, 
the Armada escaped, simply because the 
English ships were so ill supplied. At the 
time of returning they had but three days' 
rations on board. Howard beat back to the 
Thames, the vessels so admirably fitted out 



5 12 



HAND IN HAND FOR ENGLAND. 



and equipped by Sir John Hawkins standing 
the strain splendidly. 

The Flying Armada. 

But it was far otherwise with the miserable 
Armada. Out of the hundred and fifty proud 
vessels which had sailed so majestically out of 
Ferrol Bay in the glad sunlight of the summer 
morning, thirty already were gone (some 
accounts state forty), and of the one hundred 
and twenty remaining, many were so shattered 
that it seemed hardly possible for them to 
weather another gale. So many men were 
■wounded that each ship seemed like a hospi- 
tal, and every day the sad ceremony took 
place of sinking the dead in the shotted 
hammock shroud. 

As they passed round the coast of Cromarty 
and came to the north of Scotland, a great 
storm burst upon them, and the huge gal- 
leons rolled so much in the wild sea that no 
boat could be lowered. Sail after sail was 
split to tatters by the furious wind ; masts 
weakened by the shot fell with a crash, and 
hanging overboai-d cumbered the vessels and 
made them still more unmanageable. The 
ships became scattered; next morning they 
had lost sight of each other. This was on 
the 20th of August, and it was three days 
before they became in some measure reunited. 

Their position was indeed miserable ; in a 
■wild and unknown sea, their vessels battered 
by shot and tossed by the fierce wind, anchors 
lost, hulls riddled with holes, masts and 
rigging gone, and crews decimated by war 
and sickness, their misery was extreme. 

They now made for the coasts of Connaught 
and Kerry, hoping to find some kind friends 
among the Romanists of the west of Ireland, 
But wild western storms came on again, and 
they were exposed to the full fury of the At- 
lantic. For a dozen days they were driven 
about hither and thither, able only to com- 
municate by signals, and each one sailing by 
itself. Deluged with rain and battered by 
the tremendous billows and fierce winds, one 
after the other gave up, and, with rudder torn 
away, either sunk in the raging sea or drifted 
to the rock-bound shore where the surf cease- 
lessly breaks on a wild beach ; and those of 
the men who escaped the perils of shipwreck 
were massacred by the wild Irish peasantry 
for the sake of plunder, or executed by order 
of the English governors of Limerick and 
Tralee, who feared a Spanish- Irish rising in 
the west, and but imperfectly knew of the 
defeat of the Armada in the Channel. 

Ship after ship touched at several Irish 
ports and seaside villages begging for water. 
Pipes of wine, rich silver plate, casks of 
golden doubloons were offered for a little 
water, but everywhere refused. The fear of 
the English prevailed, and no Irish mayor 
or sheriff dared to run the risk of the gallows. 



Of the scores of Spaniards that were flung 
ashore when the ships were wrecked, all were 
murdered or died in prison except one, a 
nobleman, whose friends were expected to 
pay a rich ransom for him. 

The rocks of the Orkney Isles, of the Faroes, 
of Arran, of Mull, of the whole of that ter- 
rible shore which breaks the fury of the 
Atlantic on the west of Ireland, and of the 
dreaded Blaskets were strewn that stormy 
] autumn with a rich sea-wrack which the 
savage wreckers of those wild days seldom 
found : chests of Spanish doubloons, the 
gold and silver plate of haughty Dons, casks 
of wine, heavy cannon, and timber enough to 
build a respectable fleet, — all were cast here 
ashore. And more dismal wreckage besides, 
for on the shore near Sligo more than eleven 
hundred corpses were counted in one day as 
the dead cast up by the sea ; while between 
Giant's Causeway and the Blaskets over 
eight thousand are computed to have per- 
ished ; about eleven hundred were officially 
executed as the Queen's enemies, while over 
three thousand fell before the swords of the 
Irish wreckers. 

The Return Home. 

Early in October, fifty-three shattered 
ships, with ragged sails, torn rigging, and 
leaking sides, half-manned by a few toil-worn, 
diseased, exhausted seamen, crawled one by 
one into Santander, Corunna, and other 
Spanish ports, the miserable remnant of that 
splendid fleet which a few months before had 
set forth so proudly from the Tagus. Ninety- 
eight large vessels had perished, either by 
the shot of the enemy or the fury of the ■waves, 
while upwards of fourteen thousand men had 
fallen in action with the English fleet or had 
died from sickness or from shipwreck. 

The defeat was a terrible blow to Spain. 
It was a national disaster ; nearly every 
family was in mourning, and the signs of 
personal sorrow appeared on every face. An 
universal cry of bitter grief went up from the 
land. The Duke of Medina Sidonia im- 
mediately on his landing retired to his house 
in the depths of the country, and refused to 
see any one ; his heart was sick with the 
humiliation of defeat and dishonour. 

And the sorrow was the greater inas- 
much as it was reaction from the joy felt at 
the first news of triumphant victory. For in 
those July days it was industriously spread 
abroad that the dreaded Drake had been 
beaten, that he was a prisoner, that the Eng- 
lish ships had been all destroyed, that the 
Armada was in Portsmouth and Parma in 
London. All kinds of reports filled the air, 
but everybody agreed that the turbulent 
English, the " hens of heretics " were beaten 
at last. But a few more days and the notes 
of joy and triumph were turned to weeping 



^M 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY, 



and wailing. The news came (of course ex- 
aggerated) of the action off Portland, of the 
midnight affair with the fire-ships, of the 
disaster at Gra valines, and of the flight through 
the Straits, 

Then came days and weeks of prolonged 
uncertainty, filled with the agony of suspense ; 
then came home the shattered remnant with 
the sick seamen, of whom many died after 
landing ; and then the mourning for those 
who never would return. The priests and 
strong supporters of the Pope explained the 
wrath of heaven by saying that the earthly 
designs of Philip to annex England to his 
crown had spoiled the spirituality of the 
enterprise ; and that if he had been content 
to win the heretic island for the Pope alone, 
without doubt he would have succeeded. 
Others maintained that Drake and Howard 
and Frobisher were devils incarnate, and 
that mortal man could not stand against 
them ; while there were those again who 
blamed Medina Sidonia and Parma. " Who 
could stand against such storms?" said 
Philip when he received the news. " I sent 
my ships against men, not against the wild 
seas." All kinds of mendacious stories were 
circulated throughout Europe to cover the 
Spaniards' defeat ; and concerning these 
Strype tells us that Sir Francis Drake wrote, — 
" They were not ashamed to publish in 
sundry languages in print great victories in 
words which they pretended to have obtained 
against this realm, and spread the same in a 
most false sort over all parts of France, 
Italy, and elsewhere ; when, shortly after- 
wards, it was happily manifested in every 
deed to all nations, how their navy, which 
they termed invincible, . . . were by thirty 
of Her Majesty's own ships of war, and 
a few of our own merchants, by the wise, 
valiant, and advantageous conduct of the 
Lord Charles Howard, High Admiral of 
England, beaten and shuffled together even 
from the Lizard in Cornwall, first to Portland, 
where they shamefully left Don Pedro de 
Valdez with his mighty ship ; from Portland 
to Calais, when they lost Hugh de Mongado, 
with the galley of which he was captain ; 
and from Calais, driven with squibs from 
their anchor, were chased out of the sight of 
England, round about Scotland and Ireland. 
Where, for the sympathy of their religion, 
hoping to find succour and assistance, a 
great part of them were crushed against the 
rocks, and those others that landed, being 
very many in number, were, notwithstanding, 
broken, slain, and taken. . . . With all their 
great and terrible ostentation, they did not 
in all their sailing round about England so 



much as sink or take one ship, bark, 
pinnace, or cockboat of ours, or even so 
much as burn one sheep-cote on this land." 

Like the Spanish soldiers who returned 
home to die, many of the brave English 
seamen also died of disease and semi-starva- 
tion when the excitement of the defence was 
over. Hundreds of poor fellows were taken 
ashore and died in the streets of Margate 
and other places on the coast. Drake and 
Howard and other officers opened their 
purses freely to supply their needs, for not 
medicine, good food, or wages would Eliza- 
beth supply. 

Only about fifty Englishmen were killed 
in action with the Spaniards, but they died 
by hundreds a few days after on the shores 
of the island they had so bravely saved. 

It is sad to read these details, and learn 
that the lustre of the great victory was 
thus marred by the needless death of the 
brave men who won it. But the work 
accomplished by those half-starved and 
ragged seamen lived after them. T-heir 
victory was one of the most momentous the 
world has ever seen. It broke the power 
of the Romanist despotism over Europe, and 
gave free play to the progressive intelligence 
of Protestantism. Spain, which for so long 
a time had held the greater part of Europe 
in her bigoted and blighting clutch, received 
a blow from which she never afterwards really 
rallied. Philip's next attempt in Ireland 
failed miserably, and Parma was obliged to 
retire discomfited from the Netherlands. 
English ships chased galleon after galleon 
from the ocean, and slowly the great empire 
broke in pieces. And while the naval 
supremacy of Spain declined, that of England 
increased ; she became at once one of the 
powers of the world. 

The statesmen of Europe saw that hence- 
forth the " heretic island " would have to 
be reckoned with. There was no longer a 
fear of her becoming a mere appanage of 
Spain or France. She who had beaten the 
Armada could no longer be lightly con- 
sidered. Moreover, her trade penetrated 
everywhere, her colonies were planted on 
every soil, and her flag became supreme on 
every sea. Thus to the wise ministers of 
Elizabeth, to Francis Drake and his brave 
colleagues, and to those ragged, half-starved 
seamen who beat the Spaniards and then 
lay down to die, we owe it in some measure 
that our beloved land rose to the proud 
position of a Great Power of the world, the 
Mother of Free Nations, and the Sovereign 
of the Seas. 

F. M. H. 



544 




Signing the Covenant. 



BIBLE AND SWORD: 

THE STORY OF CLAVERHOUSE AND THE COVENANTERS 



The Mad, Roaring Time— A happy Martyr— Nicodemus— The Cabbage-woman's Stool— The Covenants of 1638 and 1643 
—Prince Charles swallows them— Character of Archbishop Sharp —The Drunken Act— Sandy Peden's Farewell- 
Tricks on the new Curates— The greatest Drunkard of his Age— Lauderdale's shock Head— The Scots Mile Act— 
A Martial Student of Quevedo— Spotting the Absentees— Four " Honest Men"— Turner in his Nightgown— Turning a 
Turner— The Fight at Rullion Green— The Torture of the Bjots— Ephraira Macbriar at the Scaffold— The " Honest" 
Hangman of Irvine— The Forty Dumb Dogs— Cruelties of Dalziel— Act against Conventicles— The Highland 
Savages brought down— Appearance of "Bloody Clavers "—Magus Moor— Defeat of Claverhouse at Drumclog— 
His Horse pitchforked— Bothwell Bridge— A dreadful Ship»vre:k -The Cameronians— Given over to Satan— 'The 
Killing Time— F.xecution of Women— The Wigtown Female Martyrs— The True Story of John Brown— Graham's 
own Confession. 



The Coming of the Merry Monarch ; 
Execution of Ja.aies Guthrie. 
TIFF-NECKED Scotland— persist- 
ing, as Caiiyle has expressed it, in 
her own most hide-bound formula 
of a Covenanted Charles Stuart — was thrown 




into a state of delirious joy by the news of the 
arrival of the Merry Monarch in England on 
the 29th of May, 1660. The roar of cannon 
and the blaze of tar barrels echoed and 
gleamed over the country ; everywhere there 
was loud and demonstrative rejoicing ; ladies 
545 NN 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and gentlemen even indulged in the dance in 
the exuberance of triumph ; and one young 
lord, touched with the fervour of a spinning 
dervish or marabout, vi^as only held back by 
strong arms from tossing his rings, chains, 
jewels, and all that was precious about him 
into the fire. 

But there were some who were still stiff- 
necked enough to dote upon the Covenants 
in that mad, roaring time — so-called Remon- 
strants or Protesters, extreme Presbyterians, 
who saw nothing worth living for but to stamp 
their " pure and spotless " church polity over 
the whole land — who had a fervid way of 
moving heaven and earth to that end in 
prayers, sermons, petitions, and pamphlets. 
Patrick Gillespie, who held the pen to the 
royal scapegrace in 1650, and Samuel Ruther- 
ford, who had a passion for the tropes and 
figures of the vSong of Solomon, and wrote a 
book against tyrants, entitled " Lex Rex," were 
the burning and shining lights of this small 
but loud party. In August a dozen of them 
were seized in Edinburgh, while concocting 
some wholesome advice for the benefit of the 
royal rake about the ceremonies of his chapel, 
and an honest but imprudent reminder of his 
former solemn approval of the Covenants. 
They were shut up in the castle ; they were 
threatened with a process of treason ; they 
remained as inflexible as adamant on the 
point that they had a right to petition. 

One of them, the Reverend James Guthrie, 
was specially detested by General Middleton, 
the King's chief Scottish adviser, a fierce 
military upstart who had followed war as 
his trade since boyhood. The untamable 
tongue of the minister of Stirling might do 
a deal of mischief yet, if it were allowed to 
wag, for he was little more than forty years 
of age. Banishment was the severest penalty 
hitherto imposed on preachers for their 
opinions. But this man had been the author 
of papers full of " damnable and execrable " 
slanders against the Royal Martyr and other 
crowned heads, and had " let fly at the King " 
in his sermons ten years before. In February 
he was indicted for treason, fought his own 
battle, and was condemned to death. He 
received the sentence with a light heart. 
It had long been the wish of his life to die a 
martyr. In the streets of Edinburgh he had 
once had a vision of this blessed consum- 
mation. On the 1st of June, 1661, in the same 
week that saw Argyll's head fall, he suffered 
martyrdom. He discoursed from the ladder 
for an hour with as much composure as if he 
were only delivering one of his usual sermons. 
" I take God to record upon my soul I would 
not exchange this scaffold," he cried, " with 
the palace or mitre of the greatest prelate in 
Britain." When the napkin was laid upon 
his face, he lifted it and shouted, " The Cove- 
nants, the Covenants, shall yet be Scotland's 



rejoicing ! " With the words of the aged 
Simeon on his lips he was executed. 
His "dying testimony" was preserved as 
sweet and precious. When his head was cut 
off to be spiked on one of the city gates, the 
body was tenderly dressed in church by a 
number of ladies, who dipped their handker- 
chiefs in the blood and carried them away as 
precious memorials to be held up to heaven 
in their invocations. There was another 
remai'kable incident at this strange scene. 
" There came in a pleasant young gentleman^ 
and poured out a bottle of rich ointment on 
the body, which filled the whole church with 
a noble perfume." Weeks after, it was said^ 
drops of blood fell from the withered head 
on the cover of Middleton's coach, and no- 
art of man could wipe them out. 

This infamous execution failed to raise in 
Scotland anything like universal indignation ; 
partly because the Presbyterian camp had 
long been divided into two parties that were 
ready to fly at each other's throat, and partly 
because there had arisen a new generation) 
which rebelled against the social tight-lacing of 
the Commonwealth, But it sounded the key- 
note of the policy of the Stuarts ; and vv^e shall 
see hovv, step by step, the faithful adherents 
of the Covenants were " cabined, cribbed,, 
confined," until at last they rose in arms, were 
butchered and banished, gave the Stuarts 
over to Satan, and were shot down remorse- 
lessly by the dragoons of Claverhouse in the 
wilds ol Ayr and Galloway. 

Jenny Geddes ; The Covenants. 

Blunder after blunder had been committed 
by the Scottish Solomon and the " Royal 
Martyr" in their attempts at the personal 
government of democratic Scotland. King 
James, once seated on the English throne^ 
sought to thrust prelacy upon his native 
country, although he had at one time as- 
sured the Presbyterians of Scotland that 
they possessed the purest Church on earth. 
When some distasteful doctrines were about 
to be ratified in the Black Parliament of 162 1, 
and the King's commissioner rose to touch 
the Act with the tip of the sceptre, a vivid 
flash of lightning, then a second and a third, 
gleamed through the window, amid loud 
claps of thunder ; a storm of hail and rain 
swept across the northern metropolis, and 
the streets ran like rivers. Many declared 
that the wrath of heaven had descended on 
a deed so impious ; other readers of God's 
judgments likened the omen to the majestic 
sanctions of Sinai. 

In the time of the first Charles, an old 
woman in Edinburgh, named Jenny Geddes, 
rose up in church one summer day, and 
hurled her stool at a surpliced dean who was 
about to read Laud's liturgy, shouting out the 
immortal words, " Villain, dost thou say the 



546 



BIBLE AND SWORD. 



mass at my lug ? " This was not, as Charles 
fondly thought, but the idle and foolish 
word of a scolding virago : the whizz of that 
cabbage-woman's chair across the Kirk of St. 
Giles was a symbol and prelude of the wrath 
of Scotland which drove the tyrant from his 
throne. Nobles, gentlemen, ministers, and 
the people erected tables in an Edinburgh 
churchyard (1638), and there, and all over 
the excited country, signed, sometimes with 
their own blood, a document known as the 
National Covenant, abjuring prelacy and 
binding its subscribers to stand up for their 
own religion and Presbyterian government. 
The foolish King marched with an English 
(to them a foreign) army against the cove- 
nanters, the historic name of those who main- 
tained that the sovereign had no right to 
dictate to assemblies on religious matters ; 
but " old crooked " Leslie waited for him at 
Duns Law with the blue banner ; and in the 
next year the blue-bonneted "Jockies" sent 
his riff-raff redcoats flying in a panic at 
Newburn. 

The Solemn League and Covenant (1643) 
was another memorable document. In this 
the parliaments of England and Scotland 
joined hands for the mutual defence of the 
true religion, and for the extirpation of popery 
and prelacy in England, Scotland, and Ire- 
land. King Charles would not accept it after 
his surrender to the Scottish forces in 1646. 
He was accordingly given over to the tender 
mercies of the English Parliament, and, as 
all the Avorld knows, the " royal martyr," de- 
nounced by his foes as "tyrant, traitor, mur- 
derer, and public enemy," was beheaded on 
the 30th day of January, 1649. 

The Farce that closed with a Tra- 
gedy ; Prince Charles accepts the 
Covenants. 
The merry monarch, who "never said a 
foolish thing nor ever did a wise one," acted 
in 1650 one of the most selfish farces on 
record. It is ludicrous if we contrast the 
secret grimaces of the young scapegrace with 
the grim countenances and credulous loyalty 
of the Scotsmen who gazed on him, but 
tragic when we view it in the fierce light of 
the coming years and see the faithless de- 
bauchee — a secret papist— thrust episcopacy 
into the pulpits of Scotland, and in clearest 
breach of his vow to the patriots who fought 
and bled for him against Cromwell, suffer 
and prescribe them to be eaten out of house 
and home, fined, plundered, imprisoned, sent 
into slavery, hunted to their holes and shot 
down as vermin. On the i6th day of 
August the clever prince, then twenty years 
of age, was in the tiny city of Dunfermline, 
the ancient residence of many of his pre- 
decessors. Before him was spread out a 
"most remarkable" document, containing 



things that were "doubtless of hard diges- 
tion." The lad expresses deep contrition 
before God for his father's opposition to the 
cause of the Scottish Church and for the 
idolatry of his esteemed mother ; declares 
that he had sworn to the Covenants, not 
" upon any sinister and crooked design, for 
attaining his own ends, but so far as human 
weakness will permit, in the truth and sincerity 
of his heart ; " and promises to extirpate po- 
pery, prelacy, and all schisms from every part 
of his dominions. The Rev. Patrick Gillespie 
held out the pen, appealing to him not to 
sign the paper, no not for three kingdoms, 
if he could not do so with his soul and con- 
science. But Charles "could swallow any- 
thing," as occasion demanded. "Mr. Gillespie, 
Mr. Gillespie, I am satisfied, I am satisfied," he 
exclaimed, and signed the indigestible docu- 
ment. We do not wonder that Charles in later 
days often spoke with bitter jest of his un- 
fortunate Scottish trip, and maintained that 
Presbytery was no religion for a gentleman. 

The Primate Sharp ; The Drunken 
Act; "Auld Sandy's" Farewell. 
Scotland, Guthrie's execution showed, was 
not to have the theocracy, the New Jeru- 
salem, of the Protesters. But still most of 
the ministers were not attached to this party ; 
they were "sober" Presbyterians ; and Charles 
assured them in 1660 that the Scottish Church 
would remain as it had been settled by law. 
He kept his word, but in a strange way. The 
"terrible parliament" of 1661 acted as if its 
members had just risen from a drunken bout : 
the Covenants were condemned as illegal ; all 
Acts since 1633 were swept away ; the royal 
supremacy in Church and State was declared ; 
the settlement of the Church's government 
was pronounced an inherent right of the 
Crown. The Scottish courtiers hastened to 
the scramble in London. In the teeth of the 
covenanting Lauderdale and others, Charles 
declared for prelacy : publicly he branded 
the Presbyterian Church as violent and hos- 
tile to the royal prerogative, out of harmony 
with the Churches of England and Ireland ; 
privately he said it was no religion for a 
gentleman. James Sharp, the man whom the 
Scottish ministers had trusted as their own 
souls to manage their affairs at Court, was 
offered the honour of primate, and dishonour- 
ably accepted it. Scotland was rolled back 
to where she stood in 1637. 

" Take it, and the curse of God with it,"' 
the gentle Robert Douglas is reported to 
have said as he clapped Sharp's shoulder 
and shut the door. And the curse did come. 
He shared with Middleton, Lauderdale, Mac- 
kenzie, Dalziel, Lagg, and Clavers, the fierce 
obloquy of the covenanters. He was called 
a monster of hypocrisy, perjury, and vileness. 

He was the murderer of his own child of 



547 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



shame, and had buried the innocent babe 
under the hearthstone. He was a sorcerer ; 
an old woman saw him closeted with the Prince 
of Darkness after midnight. Such was the 
mud thrown at him. Yet James Sharp had 
his small virtues. His friend Cromwell had 
called him " Sharp of that Ilk." We have 
admired his beautiful penmanship. His early 
letters, too, have the flavour of a graceful 
piety. The perfume quickly evaporated under 
the sunshine of royal smiles. He was a 
despot's tool, and, like the proverbial beggar, 
rode at full gallop. Nature had destined 
him for an attorney's clerk ; and in a few 
years some wild Scotsmen stabbed him hor- 
ribly on Magus Moor, after they had prayed 
long and often and had heard the voice of 
God. 

The covenants were burned and caricatured. 
Patronage, which had been abolished in 1649, 
was restored. Ministers who had been in- 
stalled since that date by popular election 
were to be presented by the patrons and col- 
lated by the bishops ; they were to observe 
the 29th of May as the royal anniversary ; 
they and all persons in public trust were to 
sign a declaration against the covenants. It 
was thought that this last would finish the 
career of Lauderdale ; Stair boggled at it, 
but the earl laughed, and declared that he 
would sign a careful of such oaths before he 
would lose his place. Some ministers, like 
Donald Cargill and John Livingstone, who 
preached with Pentecostal fervour and suc- 
cess, would not celebrate the anniversary 
because they disliked all holy days, and 
would not take the oath of allegiance as it 
was expressed ; they were summoned before 
the Council and banished beyond the Tay or 
into foreign lands The Council— the Star 
Chamber of Scotland — went into the west, 
and learned that the bishops were mere 
ciphers. The "Drunken Act" of Glasgow 
banished all ministers from their houses, 
parishes, and presbyteries who did not re- 
ceive collation by a certain day. 

Three hundred and fitty ministers refused to 
yield to the mandate of the " Drunken Coun- 
cil." The peasants of the west and south, 
clad in black and white plaids and scarlet 
mantles, or in suits of hodden grey, flocked 
in thousands to listen to the farewell sermons 
of their devoted pastors. Perhaps the strangest 
of all these partings was that of " Old Sandy" 
Peden, of Glenluce, the Thomas the Rhymer 
of the Scottish covenanters. He is described 
as of diminutive stature, but with an athletic 
frame and elastic step ; long dishevelled hair 
floated on his shoulders from beneath his 
blue bonnet ; he had a sallow complexion 
and dark, penetrating eyes. His voice was 
shrill, but he was endowed with a fervid, 
ready, and homely eloquence pecuharly fitted 
to rivet the attention and stir the feelines of 



the Scottish peasant. At his farewell to his 
flock in Galloway, the vast multitude burst 
forth into sobs and tears. When the long 
service was closed with the benediction, the 
venerable seer descended from the tent with 
the Bible in his hands, while the slow music 
of a psalm rose to heaven in the twilight 
from thousands of lips. The hymn of praise 
ended in a deep silence, amid which the 
solemn multitude beheld their pastor lock 
the door of the church, and then knock thrice 
upon it with the back of the pulpit Bible, 
uttering the words, which were deemed pro- 
phetic : " I arrest thee, in my Master's name, 
that never any enter thee but such as come 
in at the door as I did ! " 

The Rise of Lauderdale. 

The Scottish dilution of episcopacy must 
not be imagined as having any doctrinal or 
ceremonial likeness to that of England. 
There was no surplice, no altar, no liturgy, no 
kneeling at communion, no signing with the 
cross in baptism ; the Confession of Faith was 
that of the first reformers ; there were kirk 
sessions, presbyteries, and synods. But the 
spirit of the evil thing was in it. There were 
lay patrons instead of the divine call of 
the people ; King Charles had taken the 
supremacy that belonged to King Jesus ; 
hierarchy was hierarchy, and led back the 
suspicious Presbyterian eye to the mediaeval 
iniquities of Rome. 

The recruits who were thrust into the 
churches of the ejected were far from being 
able to fill the shoes of their predecessors. 
Bishop Burnet declared they were the worst 
preachers he ever heard. They were the 
scum of the north, — ignorant, mean, violent ; 
some of them were addicted to swearing, 
drunkenness, and other vices. The people 
treated them with contempt : they received 
them with tears and begged them to be gone ; 
they reasoned and argued with them; they stole 
the clapper of the churchbell; they barricaded 
the doors against them ; they poured ants 
into their boots on the way to the pulpit. A 
ridiculous tumult at Irongray, near Dumfries, 
where John Welsh, the sturdy great-grandson 
of Knox had ministered, threw the Court into 
such alarm that it was rumoured that a huge 
and wild army would soon cross the Border, 
although the simple fact was that a number 
of base women had assembled in the kirk- 
yard and driven off the curate and a band of 
armed soldiers with no other weapons than 
the stones of the highway. The Earl of 
Linlithgow was sent down with three hundred 
soldiers to quarter in the parish, and the poor 
inhabitants had to pay for their whistle to 
the tune of half-a-crown a day for each horse- 
man, and a shilling for each foot-soldier. 
But it was impossible to gain respect for the 
curates. Boys would pelt them in the pulpit 



548 



BIBLE AND SWORD. 



with rotten sticks and accompany them home 
with cheers, while men plundered their houses 
by night. On one occasion three men in 
female disguise entered a minister's dwelling, 
dragged him out of bed, and robbed his 
trunks. 

Middleton was soon hurled down from the 
giddy height where he had spread out his 
gay plumes, and was succeeded as King's 
Commissioner bv the young and witty Earl 



Although he had the saintly Baxter for a 
chaplain, and was deeply read in theology, 
he remained a profligate. He scarcely looked 
a courtier ; he was a huge, uncouth man, with 
a bloated face and wildly flowing red hair. 
He spluttered and slobbered people with 
whom he talked, and was subject to insane 
fits of temper. But he had a coarse and 
ready wit, and could fiddle before Saul ; he 
once danced in a petticoat before the melan- 




Jennv Geddes hurls the Stool at the Head of the Surpliced Dean. 



of Rothes, the most consummate drunkard 
in that age of hard drinking. He had the 
reputation of being able to drink two or three 
relays of his friends dead drunk, and after a 
few hours' sleep wake up as fresh as a daisy. 
But the man who stepped into Middleton's 
place in the Merry Monarch's counsels was 
the notorious John, Earl (afterwards Duke) 
of Lauderdale. In the words of Hudibras, — 

"He had cunning to unravel 
The very mysteries of the devil." 



choly Charles. For yeai's and years the 
poor covenanters had faith in this Machia- 
velli, even while he ruled them with a rod of 
iron. But Scotland was capable of breeding 
worse men than him. After him came the 
deluge of blood under Perth and Queensberry. 

Origin of the Rebellion. 
Many of the ejected ministers continued 
to preach and administer the sacraments in 
private houses or in the fields, and the people 

549 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



flocked out of their own parishes, sometimes 
to a great distance, to attend the minis- 
trations of the old pastors whom the Acts 
had not expelled. Stricter measures were 
therefore put in force by the Parhament and 
Council in 1663. It was declared sedition 
for nonconformist ministers to exercise their 
calling ; they were ordered to remove with 
their families to a distance of at least 
twenty miles from their former parishes, 
and were forbidden to reside within three 
miles of any royal burgh ; and finally the 
people were commanded, under the penalty 
of sedition, not to extend charity to any of 
these ejected ministers. Those who dared 
to regularly disobey these persecuting orders 
by absenting themselves from the parish 
church were fined in a fourth of their revenue 
or possessions. Chiefly at the instigation of 
Sharp, the Court of High Commission was 
established, composed of nine prelates and 
twenty-five nobles ; it had the power of in- 
flicting any punishment short of death, and 
officers of the army and militia were em- 
powered to apprehend delinquents and bring 
them before this odious tribunal. 

Had measures such as these, not only 
inconsistent with the simplest principles 
of liberty but proceeding from an upstart 
party which had prostituted itself to the 
will of a " divine right " despot in the 
face of the history of the Scottish nation, 
been simply brtita fulmina., they might have 
been passed by without notice ; but far from 
being a mere dead letter, they were brought 
down upon the shoulders of the people with 
brutal force. Gentlemen of high position 
were suddenly apprehended without any 
specific charge and detained in prison for 
years ; lairds and ministers were burdened 
with fines, — sometimes as high as ^500 
sterling,— thrown into wretched dungeons, 
and banished into remote towns, or even to 
the Shetland Isles ; the miserable gaols 
were crowded with prisoners, some of whom 
petitioned to be shipped off to the Barbadoes ; 
a woman was whipped through the public 
streets ; men were banished to Virginia. 
The Commission even condescended to 
scourge some naughty boys, and after brand- 
ing them in the face with a hot iron, sent 
them off" to the slavery of the Indies. Masters 
were declared responsible for their servants 
and landlords for their tenants. 

A small military force was dispersed over 
the southern districts, under the direction of 
Sir James Turner, a man who had served 
since boyhood on the battle-field, and was 
" naturally fierce, but quite a madman when 
drunk, and that was very often ; " although 
we learn from his Memoirs that he was 
also a student of Tasso and Quevedo, and 
wrote extensively on military and other sub- 
jects. The curate in many of the parishes 



was accustomed, like a pedagogue, to call 
out the names of his parishioners on Sunday 
after sermon, and hand over the list of 
absentees to the soldiers. In the families 
where they quartered, the graceless soldiers 
ridiculed that private worship of the house- 
hold which has been so nobly pictured in 
the Cottafs Satnrday Night; they beat 
and dragged unwilling folks to church and 
prison ; they resorted to the neighbourhood 
of the churches of the old ministers, and 
when they heard the music of the last psalm, 
stalked from their cups to the doors of the 
sacred buildings, and " spotting " those who 
were not residents of the parish, fined them 
off-hand, or seized what money they had, 
carrying off Bibles, coats, and plaids from 
the poor men and women who had no money 
to pay the fine of 2od. sterling. When 
neither the widow nor the orphan was spared, 
when starving children saw their bread tossed 
to the dogs, when furniture was sold or burned, 
when the poor were compelled to beg in order 
to pay these exactions, and when at last the 
army was increased to three thousand men 
and placed under the command of the fierce 
soldier Dalziel of Binns, who was believed 
to have acquired in Muscovy the habit of 
roasting captives, no other course was left 
open for the desperate objects of this abomi- 
nable and petty persecution but — rebellion. 

Rout of Covenanters at Rullion 
Green. 

One November morning in 1666, as the 
story goes, four "honest men," who had been 
driven from their homes to wander among 
the morasses and mountains, were sitting in 
a village alehouse in one of the southern 
counties, when they heard that Turner's 
soldiers were stripping a poor old man pre- 
paratory to roasting him on a red-hot grid- 
iron. Their blood was stirred, and hastening 
to the scene, they disarmed the ruffians. 
Although this was but a simple and sudden 
blow in defence of an outraged man, they 
surmised, and perhaps justly, that their life 
was now imperilled ; and thus the second and 
bolder step was taken of assembling a few 
neighbours, and surprising a dozen other 
soldiers quartered in the district, one of 
whom was unfortunately slain. That story 
may perhaps be true, but it is very doubtful. 
Turner himself, who already had an inkling 
of a widespread insurrection, was alarmed 
by the appearance at the garrison in Dumfries 
Castle of a corporal who had been shot in 
the abdomen because he would not take the 
Covenant, and immediately despatched orders 
to gather in the soldiers who were scattered 
in small par ties over the country. But the order 
was too late ; the Covenanters, aroused by the 
oppressionofsoldiery,had gathered withintwo 
days into a company of one hundred and fifty 



550 



BIBLE AND SWORD. 



horse and foot. Armed with muskets, pistols, 
swords, pikes, scythes, pitch-forks, and stout 
cudgels, they marched towards Dumfries, — 
some twenty miles distant from the village 
alehouse, — and about nine o'clock in the 
morning of the 15th of November, sur- 
rounded the house where Turner lay with 
-only a dozen men. He appeared at the 
window in his night-gown, and was ordered 
downstairs if he had any respect for his life. 
In this condition he was led out into the 
street, with swords and pistols ominously 
presented to his breast, but was afterwards 
taken back to dress himself in more becom- 
ing raiment. With rueful face he saw his 
ilinen, clothes, papers, arms, and horses 
carried off, and, worst of all, the great bags 
of money which he had been at the pains of 
gathering from the stift'-necked "fanatics." 
The rebels proceeded to the cross, and with 
ironical loyalty pledged the healtla of King 
Charles and prosperity to his government. 

Picking up recruits, horses, and arms by 
the way, the rebels marched north-west into 
Ayrshire, through the wild moorland district 
that was in a few years to be strewn with the 
corpses of the Cameronians. They carried 
Turner and his little drummer with them ; 
.they subjected the martial student of Ouevedo 
£0 the grim joke of being lectured for a whole 
night on the ghastly topic of death ; several 
divines tried to convert him, but he declared 
it would be a hard task to "turn a Turner." 
Striking eastward, they arrived at Lanark 
on the Sabbath evening ; and there on 
the next day the whole army held up their 
hands towards heaven, vowing to stand 
up for the Covenants. The army — which 
numbered at least eleven hundred men, al- 
though writers on the covenanting side have 
placed it at three thousand — was no weak 
and disorderly rabble, but a host of stalwart 
men, mostly trained to martial exercise, and 
with splendid staying power for marching. 
They were the pick of Scotland, as the High- 
iand Jacobites learned at the Revolution, and 
the like of them may be seen at this day in 
Ayr and Galloway, — a big-boned, sincere, 
thoughtful, stubborn set, of which Thomas 
Carlyle of Ecclefechan is the nineteenth- 
century representative. Even Turner's hostile 
eye could not help admiring them. Knowing 
that the royal troops under the Muscovite 
roaster were at their heels, those sturdy cove- 
nanters marched from Lanark in the mire 
and snow all through a stormy night, passed 
Edinburgh just out of the range of the Castle 
guns, and halted at Cohnton, on the heights 
two miles above the city. They were deeply 
disappointed. The fertile plains of the 
Lothians did not smile upon their cause ; 
the gates of the metropolis were closed 
against them. 

On the morning of the 2Sth November 



they turned their faces sadly, determinedly, 
southwards, along the base of the Pentland 
Hills. Their leader. Colonel Wallace, halted 
at a spot known as RuUion Green, to meet 
the forces of Dalziel, which had marched 
through a pass of the Pentlands, and now 
appeared on the heights above him. The 
day had been bright and sunny, and twilight 
was approaching. Wallace had only a 
remnant of nine hundred men, badly rationed 
and jaded with long marches, some of them 
armed only with pitchforks and cudgels. 
His hope lay in the descent of night. Two 
charges were made upon his troops by a part 
of the royal forces, and were repulsed ; the 
sun had fallen when Dalziel himself ad- 
vanced with his foot, flanked by the cavalry. 
This time the right wing of the rebel host 
was broken, a flank charge was made upon 
the main body, and the peasants were com- 
pletely routed. In vain they had fought a 
desperate struggle, in vain were the shouts of 
the ministers, " The God of Jacob, the God 
of Jacob ! " More than fifty were slaughtered, 
and as many taken prisoners. Many were 
murdered by the country-people after their 
escape from the battle-field. 

The Martyrdom of Hugh Mackail; 
An "Honest" Hangman. 

Not content with hanging numbers in 
Edinbugh, and before their own doors in 
the far-off districts, — on the scarecrow prin- 
ciple, — sticking their heads on the gates of 
different towns, and their hands on those of 
Lanark, Sharp and his coadjutors on the 
Council singled out two of the conspirators 
for torture by the " boots," a cylindrical in- 
strument between which and the leg wedges 
were driven until the marrow started from the 
bone. This terrible course was not resorted 
to from sheer cruelty ; there was a very 
strong suspicion that these paltry rebels had 
great friends behind them. Tyrants are ever 
trembling. It was believed that those cove- 
nanting ministers and peasants were in league 
with Holland for the overthrow of Charles. 

The death of the young minister Mackail 
— he was only twenty-six — has always re- 
mained one of the most prominent and affect- - 
ing incidents of the covenanting period. He 
was the prototype of Scott's " Ephraim Mac- 
briar." Torture and confinement had thrown 
him into a fever, so that he was unable to 
stand when the day of trial came. About a 
week later he was brought up, found guilty 
by the jury of treasonable rebellion, and 
sentenced to be hanged in four days at the 
cross of Edinburgh. His petition for a 
reprieve, on the ground that he had deserted 
the rebels " with the first conveniency," was 
rejected by the Privy Council. At two o'clock 
on the 22nd of December, he and five 
others were carried to the scaffold. At the 



551 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



foot of the ladder, with a calm and pleasant 
countenance, he harangued the people against 
" that abominable plant prelacy, the bane of 
the throne and of the country." Many wept 
while he sang and prayed. On the top of 
the ladder he sat down, and declared his 
belief that the blood of the victims lay at the 
door of the prelates rather than of the nobles 
and rulers. He embraced the fatal noose as 
the hangman placed it round his neck. He 
read aloud the glowing picture of heaven in 
the last chapter of the Bible, and spoke of 
the welcome that awaited him among the 
hosts of the New Jerusalem. Even when 
the napkin was put over his face, with a 
theatrical self-consciousness that makes one 
shudder even now, he raised it and expressed 
the hope that the bystanders had seen no 
alteration in his face or manner. 

" Farewell father and mother," he cried, 
" friends and relations ; farewell the world 
and all delights ! farewell meat and drink ; 
farewell sun, moon, and stars ! welcome 
God and Father ; welcome sweet Jesus, the 
Mediator of the new covenant ; welcome 
Blessed Spirit of grace, and God of all con- 
solation ; welcome glory ; welcome eternal 
life ; welcome death !" 

The charm of bravery like that of the 
young Roscius of the Covenant spread far 
and wide over the land. Stories of the 
time — possibly exaggerated— prove that the 
very lowest strata of society were moved as 
they could have been in no other countiy 
than Scotland, where the passion for religious 
metaphysics and Bible knowledge had become 
an inherited and ineradicable instinct. When 
Charles returned to England, every Scottish 
parish had a minister, every village a school, 
and every family a Bible. It would appear that 
in those days even the men whose business 
it was to perform the duty of Ketch, wielded 
logic-choppers on the knotty questions of 
theology. The hangman of Ayr refused to 
imbrue his hands in the blood of eight men 
who were condemned for "treason." The 
poor ignorant Highlander from the distant 
wilds of Strathnaver, who acted as hangman 
in the neighbouring town of Irvine, also 
declined the work, was sent to prison, was 
compelled to go to Ayr under a military 
escort, was reasoned with from Scripture by 
a curate whom he looked on as the devil's 
advocate, was threatened with the "boots," 
— he told them to bring the spurs too, — was 
ready to hold out his hands for the contents 
of a cruse of melting lead, stood the wheed- 
ling of Lord Kelly, was offered fifty dollars 
and liberty to retire to the Highlands, was 
clapped in the stocks, opened his breast to 
receive the contents of four muskets, was 
threatened with being rolled up and down in 
a barrel filled with iron spikes ; but all failed, 
and the obdurate hangman was finally ex- 

552 



empted from the task of " taking good men's 
lives." The sentence of the commissioners 
had to be carried out. It was accomplished 
by offering his life to one of the condemned 
men, and keeping him drunk until the deed 
was done. 

Persecution after Pentland ; The 
Forty Dumb Dogs ; Terrible Act 
AGAINST Field-preaching. 

Ample vengeance was taken on scores of 
those who had joined in the Pentland rising ; 
twenty or thirty landed proprietors and min- 
isters, who fled abroad or wandered through 
the country as pariahs, were condemned in 
their absence to forfeiture of Hfe and fortune ; 
the country curates in the infected districts — 
if we might so term them — of the south and 
west were goaded on by Sharp to spy upon 
their flocks ; and the flocks in return looked 
on their pastors not as shepherds but as 
wolves. Even the most eager advocates in 
modern times of the policy of Sharp, assuming 
the actual existence of a conspiracy in concert 
with the Dutch government, and pointing to 
the bad example of persecution set by the 
covenanters in previous years, admit that the 
severities which followed Rullion Green did 
"little honour either to the clemency or 
the wisdom of His Majesty's Government." 
All the instances of horrid cruelty set forth 
by partisans may not be true, and indeed 
are not ; still, making full discount, we cannot 
hesitate in charging the Scottish Council with 
the most heinous and reckless prostitution of 
justice, in sending down such military monsters 
as Dalziel and Sir William Bannatyne to act 
as agents in the repression or spiteful punish- 
ment of an insurrectionary spirit, which as 
yet had uttered not one word of treason 
against Charles, at least had not been proved 
to have done so, but merely declared against 
the method of his administration. On the 
principle that there is no smoke where there 
is not fire, we must take for granted that 
beneath the terrible traditions that have de- 
scended to us there are terrible facts. Had 
there been, as there is now, a free parliament 
through which the nation coiild speak with 
one certain and collected voice, those broad- 
shouldered and conscientious men of the 
south and west of Scotland would not have 
dreamed of marching with their pitch-forks 
and cudgels towards Edinburgh ; but the 
spirit of toleration was as yet only in its 
birth-throes, and neither party — despot king 
nor despot democrats — stood on the platform 
of social equity. 

Dalziel took up his head-quarters at 
Kilmarnock after the victory of Pentland ; 
and another officer of equally savage instincts 
was sent to Galloway with a considerable 
party of soldiers. The former is said to have 



BIBLE AND SWORD. 




EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



extorted 50,000 merks from the district of 
his ravages, to have kept suspected persons 
standing continually on their feet, night and 
day, in the " thieves' hole ; " to have shot 
down a man who refused to inform whom he 
saw at Lanark ; and one of his subordinates 
is accused of having seized two men who had 
given a night's shelter to some of the Pent- 
land rebels, and hanging them by the thumbs 
on a tree. The conduct of Bannatyne and 
his soldiers was marked by equal if not 
greater licentiousness, rapine, and barbarity ; 
they are accused of holding lighted matches 
for hours between the fingers of a woman 
who had assisted her husband to escape in 
female attire, and of practising the savage 
joke of roasting prisoners in front of huge 
bonfires. What amount of truth there is in 
these horrid tales it may be impossible now to 
discover ; but certain it is that the system of 
extortion and confiscation carried on under 
the orders of government drove many into 
hiding in dens and caves, deserted coal-pits, 
and holes in the earth, while others fled 
abroad ; and Turner and Bannatyne had to 
be dismissed from their posts for the op- 
pressive use of the power that had been 
placed in their hands. After the treaty of 
Breda, which concluded a peace between the 
Dutch and British, the army was disbanded 
in Scotland, only two troops of horse and a 
company of foot being retained ; an indem- 
nity was granted to most of the Pentland 
rebels, on condition that they accepted the 
" bond of peace." Scores refused, and were 
shipped off to Virginia when caught ; but 
when the excitement produced by the at- 
tempt of a lunatic upon the life of Sharp 
had blown over, Lauderdale (the " L " of that 
famous " cabal " which went in for toleration 
of dissent in England) issued an Indul- 
gence under the royal hand in the summer 
of 1669, permitting the ousted pastors to re- 
turn to their churches and parishes, under 
certain restrictions. Some of the episcopal 
clergy presented an address against this 
assertion of the royal supremacy, and the 
Archbishop of Glasgow was deposed ; while, 
on the other hand, only some forty and odd 
Presbyterians were captured by the bait. 
They were contemptuously called the King's 
curates, and dumb dogs that could not bark. 
Let us observe that from this time, when 
Sharp had fallen into disgrace for lying, and 
the helm was completely in the hands of 
Lauderdale, the question of episcopacy was 
sunk liito a secondary place, and the sole and 
single aim of the furious statesman was to 
establish the royal siipi'emacy over the Church 
irrespective of any particular form of 
Church government. 

With this fact before us, we can readily 

understand how in the month of August 1670, 

' the famous or infamous Act against con- 

5 



venticles was passed, prohibiting on pain of 
death all assembling in the fields for religious 
purposes. His Majesty, "considering that 
these meetings are the rendezvous of rebellion, 
. . . doth therefore statute . . . that whoso- 
ever, without license or authority, shall preach 
... or pray at any of these meetings in 
the field, or in any house where there be 
more persons than the house contains, so as 
some of them be without doors, or who shall 
convocate any number of people to these meet- 
ings, shall be punished with death and confis- 
cation of goods." Heavy penalties were inflicted 
on those who attended these irregular meetings 
in house or field. Ministers were sent to 
" chant Babel's captive song " in the strong 
dungeons of the Bass Rock, husbands were 
fined for their wives' misdoings, lesser men 
were forced as recruits into military service, 
garrisons were stationed in the mansions of 
gentlemen in several counties ; but still 
conventicles increased and multiplied. In 
the three years over which* the Act ex-, 
tended, the fines of eleven persons in a single 
county for such "atrocious crimes" as absence 
from church, attending conventicles, and dis- 
orderly baptisms, amounted to more than 
;;{^30,ooo sterling. A second and wider In- 
dulgence was granted in 1672, and was ac- 
cepted by nearly all the ministers — Welsh, 
Blackadder, and Cargill being the chief ex- 
ceptions- Under such threats as those of 
death, imprisonment, and exile, conventicles 
were by no means suppressed, even with the 
aid of garrisons and spies. Men now appeared 
in arms to defend themselves against attack 
from the soldiers and militia. When the male 
portion of the covenanting people did not 
dare to be present, their wives flocked in 
multitudes ; and when, at last, "letters of 
intercommunion" were issued against a large 
number of ministers, gentlemen, and ladies, 
by which all whb harboured or conversed 
with conventiclers, or furnished them with 
meat, drink, or clothing, were declared guilty 
of the same crime, then, to use the words of 
Bishop Burnet, whose words are scarcely 
those of a friend to the outcasts, " many, 
apprehending a severe persecution, left their 
houses, and went about like a sort of banditti, 
and fell under a fierce and savage temper." 
Even ladies of rank were hunted from their 
homes, and were compelled to wander in the 
wilds. 

The Highland Host brought down 
TO scourge the Covenanters. 

Clearly there could be no terms made 
between the despotism of Charles and 
Lauderdale and the many armed bands of 
irreconcilables that wandered over Fife and 
over the south and west of Scotland, and had 
now dared to erect their own preaching 

54 



BIBLE AND SWORD. 



houses. Thus it came that on the 24th day 
of January, 1678, a host of warriors had 
assembled in the town of StirUng, under 
orders to march into the districts infected 
with rebelhon, with hberty to kill, wound, 
seize, and imprison all who offered resistance. 
It was a combination of the most striking 
nature, fit to awaken tremor even in a large 
and well-trained host of soldiers, not to speak 
of small scattered groups of peaceful peasants. 
Scotland had not witnessed such a sight as 
this since the time when the great Montrose 
raised the royal standard against the blue 
banner of the Covenant ; for here once again 
the ignorant and ferocious inhabitants of the 
glens and mountains were called away from 
their black cattle and their "creaghs" and 
their own mutual massacres to do military 
service in the Lowlands for a despot Stuart. 
There were also a couple of thousand of the 
militia, with several troops of horse, and a 
thousand regulars ; but the main body and 
the main menace lay in those six thousand 
bare-legged and stalwart caterans, who were 
trained to and dependent on plunder, trea- 
chery, and blood. There was also a multi- 
tude of stragglers, who were tempted to 
follow the invading host by the vision of rich 
spoil in the towns, villages, and mansions of 
the fertile and industrious Lowlands. The 
hearts of the poor savages must have been 
exalted with hopes of boundless wealth in 
the great melee that was to take place beyond 
the Clyde, for there was all the aspect of a 
glorious campaign : there were field-pieces, 
an immense quantity of spades, shovels, and 
mattocks— evidently intended for the siege 
of fortresses glutted with wealth ; and there 
were iron fetters and thumb-locks, doubtless 
to secure the captives and carry them off into 
slavery. If anything that could attach these 
rude barbarians to the Crown and mould them 
into faithful supporters of the doomed despo- 
tism of the Stuarts, it was to bring them 
down once in a while from the heath-clad 
hills to fight and feast in the valleys of the 
Sassenach. 

Of course there was required a show of 
Jaw before the savages were sent in to enjoy 
the banquet. The mouths of the holes, were 
in the first instance stopped. Noblemen, and 
landlords were forbidden to leave the kingdom 
without permission of the Council ; an Eng- 
lish force was brought to the border, and 
Irish savages — possibly kinsmen of those who 
in Montrose's time stole the church Bibles 
and the communion cloths — were collected 
at Belfast. All the landlords in the south 
and west, where the covenanting whigs 
flourished, were called upon within a short 
space of time to sign a bond, under heavy 
penalties, that neither they, nor their wives, 
bairns, tenants, cottars, tenants' wives, 
tenants' bairns, etc., etc., would in future 



attend conventicles, or harbour vagrant 
preachers ; they were also to surrender their 
arms. Still more severe was the demand that 
landlords and masters should not receive a 
tenant or servant who could not produce a 
certificate of having taken the bond of alle- 
giance. The gentlemen everywhere refused 
to yield to so outrageous an order. Lauder- 
dale, sitting at the council board, burst into 
one of his mad fits, bared his arms above 
the elbow, and " swore by Jehovah he would 
make them enter into those bonds." 

Little did the Highlanders reck about such 
mysterious trifles, and entering Ayrshire in 
the first week in February, they began to rob 
and ravage with the most complete indiffe- 
rence as to bonds, covenants, and creeds. 
Their one guiding principle was to make 
hay while the sun was shining. An audaci- 
ously eccentric writer declares that they 
exhibited "in a wonderful degree the more 
humane characteristics of these simple moun- 
taineers." We shall pass by the story of 
disgusting crimes, for those old covenanters 
had a very shocking habit of casting dirt : 
but what of the ;{^ 134,000 of damage suffered 
in Ayrshire alone during the one single 
month that elapsed before the " simple 
mountaineers " were ordered off from very 
shame by the government ? Did they not 
loot the town of Kilmarnock, and repay the 
hospitality of a merchant on whom some of 
them were quartered by breaking his ribs, 
plundering his house gear, carrying off the 
money carefully hoarded up in old stockings, 
and frightening his delicate wife clean out of 
this wicked world? Did not one of them 
strike a minister a fatal blow with the butt- 
end of a musket because the good man re- 
primanded them ? Is it not the case that 
far from finding any employment for shovels 
and claymores, they only discovered a people 
too dumbfounded to make any resistance? 
And when the gallant defenders of the supre- 
macy of King Charles over the Scottish 
Church turned their back on the Land of 
Burns, did not they carry off horses, a vast 
quantity of silver plate, whole webs of linen 
and woollen cloth, pots, pans, gridirons, and 
bed-clothes? On their departure a force of 
five thousand regular troops was sent to crush 
the " fanatics " ; and in this capacity we meet 
the name of Graham of Claverhouse. 

The Voice of God ; Assassination of 
Sharp. 

In the beginning of 1678 a sensation of 
horror passed over Scotland, because Arch- 
bishop Sharp had insisted on the trial and 
death of the lunatic who had fired a pistol at 
him ten years before, and who, in 1674, had 
confessed to the attempt on assurance of 
being given his life. There was a mysterious 



555 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



feeling abroad — one of those deep and sullen 
wishes which men hide away in the corner of 
their heart, and which excited minds at last 
utter as a prophecy — that the " bloody and 
deceitful man" would perish in some sudden 
and awful manner. " He'll get a sudden and 
sharp off-going, and ye will be the first," said 
a dying minister at the beginning of April 
1679 to a young gentleman, "that will take 
the good news of his death to heaven." 

At the close of March some women on the 
way to a field-meeting near Lanark had been 
robbed of their plaids and Bibles by a party 
of soldiers, and some men had been taken 
prisoners. A party of armed covenanters 
left the meeting in order to release their 
comrades, and, as was common enough in 
the fierce days of the persecution, a serious 
scuffle ensued, in which the military party 
was severely handled. The Council was 
prompted to a fresh and vigorous spurt of 
oppression ; and among its other applications 
it inflicted a person named William Car- 
michael on the little "kingdom" of Fife, one 
of the chief hot-beds of the " fanatics," in 
order to hunt the dissenters and intercom- 
muned to the earth. He was a monster of 
whom the world would indeed be well rid 
if the stories of his iniquities might be trusted. 
He beat children so as to make them inform 
against their parents, and for the same pur- 
pose placed lighted matches between the 
fingers of servants. Among his other dis- 
graceful customs was that of citing people 
on baseless charges, knowing that their con- 
science would not permit them to appear at 
such tribunals, and then stripping them of 
their goods because they did not present 
themselves in answer to his summons. A 
number of peasants within his jurisdiction 
had for weeks been accustomed to meet 
together, pray, and take counsel on the sub- 
ject of his enormities. At last God's spirit 
urged them to go forward. Saturday, the 3rd 
of May, was fixed for dealing with Car- 
michael, and a messenger was despatched 
to secure a preacher for the conventicle they 
resolved to hold on the following day in 
celebration of the deed. Carmichael, how- 
ever, was forewarned of some premeditated 
danger, and the twelve men who were told 
off to strike the blow at the miscreant, having 
made a long and eager search, at last came 
to the pious decision that God had remark- 
ably kept him out of their hands. 

But there was one man in that little group, 
the fierce Balfour of Burleigh, who was 
unable to believe that their counsels would 
come to nought. Two years before this time 
the minions of the spy Carstairs had fired 
into his house at Kinloch, while he and a 
little company of friends were at dinner, and 
they had beaten off their stealthy foes. He 
tad been denounced as a rebel, and had 



lived in exile ; but on one occasion, when he 
rose from prayer, the voice of heaven had 
called him back to Fife. He now assured 
his comrades that there was work for them 
to do. 

While thus they communed, a boy an- 
nounced to them that the archbishop's coach 
was coming. And there, on Magus Moor, 
before his daughter's eyes, the arch-enemy 
of the Covenant was shot and stabbed — 
horribly, too ; it took three-quarters of an 
hour to do the deed. The covenanters did not 
lament over his assassination ; they remem- 
bered the exploits of Jael, who hammered a 
nail into the temple of the sleeping Sisera,and- 
of Ehud, whose dagger was struck into the 
bowels of the oppressor of Israel, Eglon, King 
of Moab. It has often been noted as re- 
markable that, in spite of the most rigorous 
search, none of the actual participants in 
the work of blood were ever touched by the 
hand of justice. 

Sharp's Legacy ; The Career of Cla- 
VERHOUSE ; His Defeat at Drumclog. 

There can be no question that the primate 
who had now fallen in broad daylight on the 
open highway on Magus Moor, near St. 
Andrew's, was mainly responsible, so far as 
the higher clergy were concerned, for the 
small-minded and malicious cruelty of those 
years of persecution. Just two days before 
his death he had crowned his fifteen years of 
service as the lickspittle of a soulless despo- 
tism by draughting a fresh measure, empower- 
ing not only judges but officers to treat all as 
traitors who appeared at field-meetings. He 
was succeeded in the royal councils by a 
distinguished lawyer and essayist, Sir George 
Mackenzie, of Rosehaugh, the lord-advocate, 
who has been compared to the English 
butcher Jeffreys, but most unjustly so, al- 
though he held very decided opinions against 
the covenanters, and was in the habit of in- 
sulting men and women who appeared for 
trial with the Bible in their hand. The pro- 
clamation was issued ten days after Sharp's 
assassination. On the 29th of May, when 
the quiet little burgh of Rutherglen, now 
a thriving suburb of the city of Glasgow, was 
celebrating the restoration of King Charles, 
a band of eighty armed men, under Robert 
Hamilton, a young gentleman of high social 
connection, appeared upon the festive streets, 
extinguished the bonfires as signs of ty- 
ranny, affixed on the market cross an un- 
signed " Testimony " against all the " sinful 
and unlawful Acts emitted and executed, 
published and prosecuted against our cove- 
nanted reformation," and burned all the Acts 
specified in the body of the document. 

On Saturdaynight a body of troops marched 
out from Glasgow to inquire the names of 



556 



BIBLE AND SWORD. 



the men who had. thus openly defied the 
Government. Their commander was John 
Graham, of Claverhouse in Fife, whose deeds 
have given him a higher niche in the hatred 
of the Scottish peasants than even Sharp, 
Lauderdale, Perth, Lagg, Dalziel, or the 
" bloody Mackenzie," and who is to this day 
remembered and spoken of with horror as 
the " bloody Clavers." His skill and bravery 
were worthy of a better cause than that for 
which he fought and died. Lowland tradition 



least the possessor of a soft and handsome 
face, a true, thoroughbred young cavalier of 
thirty-four, with grace and charm to carry off 
the heart and hand of the daughter of a stern 
covenanting earl, much against the wishes of 
the young lady's pious parent. Through the 
influence of his relative, the Marquis of Mon- 
trose^ he was appointed, soon after his return 
to his native country, to the command of one 
of three independent troops of horse that 
had just been raised to crush the '' fanatics ; " 




The Murder of Archbishop Sharp. 



forgets the briUiant soldier who fell victorious 
at KilUecrankie, and remembers only the 
blood he shed, the good men he and his 
dragoons shot down upon the moors like 
partridges in the weary, lurid, and stormy 
sunset of the Stuart dynasty. In 1677 
he had returned from Holland, after serving 
with some distinction under the Prince of 
Orange, " every inch a scholar and a gentle- 
man," — according to the peculiar judgment 
or sentiment of Sir Walter Scott, — and at 



and in the month of December 1678, he 
started for Dumfries on his first campaign, 
in order to act as a mild substitute for the 
atrocious " trevvsmen " of the Highland host. 
He brought to the execution of his orders 
the courage, the keen glance, and the organ- 
izing power which gain for an officer the 
deep attachment and confidence of his own 
soldiers, and at the same time the dread .ind 
the hatred of his foes. Hardly had he en- 
tered on his duties when he discovered a 



557 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



building that was constructed like a byre, 
and passed by that name among the peasants, 
but was really a " meeting-house," numbers 
of which doubtless existed all over the south 
country with like furtive appellations. In 
March 1679 the energetic officer obtained 
the power of the mace as well as of the 
sword, with judicial sway over conventicles 
throughout the counties of Wigtown, Kirk- 
cudbright, and Dumfries. His troops were 
detested, watched, and attacked by the 
"fanatics" whenever a fair chance offered 
itself ; for instance, a band of his soldiers 
were surprised in a barn at Newmilns, in 
Ayrshire, at two o'clock on an April Sunday 
morning, two of them being slain; and quite 
recently, on the 29th of May, the anniversary 
of His Sacred Majesty, a couple of bullets 
found their way from a shoemaker's window 
to the feet of three of his dragoons who were 
sitting at breakfast in the house of a Falkirk 
bailie. 

On the following Saturday night, he mar- 
ched to Rutherglen, and sent out parties to 
secure those " rebels " whose names he had 
discovered. At a very early hour in the 
morning he was mounted, and with 180 men 
he made a circuit towards the Ayrshire 
border, in the hope of breaking up a great 
conventicle that was to be held that day on 
Loudon Hill, about twelve miles distant from 
Glasgow. The preacher had opened the 
service when the approach of the dragoons 
was intimated. The women and children 
were immediately (fismissed from the scene 
of danger ; the armed men, said to have 
numbered three times more than those of 
Claverhouse, moved two miles to the east, to 
the farm of Drumclog, and drew up in line 
of battle. When Graham came within sight 
of his foes, he saw that they held an advan- 
tageous position, with moss and pool in front ; 
and he could make out that their four batta- 
lions of foot, armed with fusils and pitchforks, 
and their three squadrons of horse, far out- 
numbered his own force. Had he known 
that in the host in front of him there were 
men whose hands had been imbrued in the 
blood of the primate, or who, at least, looked 
upon the assassination, — the cool and resolute 
Hackston of Rathillet, and the fierce, fanati- 
cal Balfour, — his martial ardour would have 
glowed with a double fire. He was now 
about to try the mettle of his dragoons for 
the first time in conflict with a strong body 
of the rebels, and he had long before de- 
termined that his men should fight at any 
odds. After an idle skirmish of two small 
parties,Hamilton decided onageneral engage- 
ment. The foot, under Hackston and William 
Cleland (then only eighteen years of age, and 
still known in Scottish annals and literature 
as a poet and as the leader of the Cameron- 
ians who retrieved the disaster of Killie- 



crankie by a complete victory over the red- 
shanks at Dunk eld in 1689) ; and the horse,, 
under Balfour of Burleigh, advanced steadily 
in the face of the foe. A volley from the 
whole body of the dragoons met them when 
they were only ten paces distant, but they 
halted not, and with one rush they broke up 
the royal troop and sent it flying in an instant 
from the field, defeated, thoroughly defeated. 
" Besides that," wrote Clavers in his despatch, 
when overcome with fatigue and sleepiness 
he reached Glasgow, " with a pitchfork they 
made such an opening in my horse's belly 
that his guts hung out half an ell, and yet he 
carried me off half a mile, which so dis- 
couraged our men that they sustained not 
the shock but fell into disorder. Their horse 
took the occasion of this, and pursued us so' 
hotly that we got no time to rally. I saved 
the standard, but lost on the place about 
eight or ten men, besides wounded." There 
is one circumstance which stains this victory. 
Robert Hamilton, who was a bloody fanatic 
and at heart a coward, finding fault with his 
men for giving any quarter, slew one of the 
" Babel's brats " on the spot with his own 
hand. 



Battle of Bothwell Bridge ; Ship- 
wreck OF two hundred Coven anters_ 

When the news of this victory was spread 
over the country, the scattered bands flocked 
in multitudes around the triumphant nucleus, 
and in a few days formed an army, ranging 
from five to ten thousand men. Clavers 
declared that Drumclog was the beginning 
of a rebellion ; the old Muscovite Dalziel 
growled at his subordinate for risking a 
conflict at such odds, as he might have 
known that " the ruffle of an inconsiderable 
party of the King's troops" would raise a 
formidable insurrection ; the Council was in 
a panic, and the King trembled. It was 
decided that a disinterested person should 
be placed in the command of the royal army, 
and so the fierce laird of Binns was super- 
seded for the time by the . Duke of Mon- 
mouth, who had assumed the name of Scott 
on his marriage to the young Scotch heiress 
of Buccleuch. He was despatched to the 
north with a small body of cavalry, and on 
the 22nd of June, 1679, this company, with. 
the troops of Clavers and others, altogether 
amounting to ten thousand men, was face 
to face at Bothwell Bridge with the five thou- 
sand covenanters under the nominal com- 
mand of Hamilton. It was most unfor- 
tunate for the rebels that they should have 
had such a leader. He was a fierce and 
truculent fanatic, who styled himself " poor, 
contemned, and every way persecuted, un- 
worthy, unworthy Robin Hamilton," and his 
piety seem.s not a little to have resembled 

558 



BIBLE AND SWORD. 



that of St. Dominic, as the great inquisitor 
has been recently depicted by the pen of 
Victor Hugo. A bitter and violent wrangle 
had been carried on between the extreme 
and moderate parties of the army, the former 
represented by Donald Cargill, the other by 
John Welsh, on the question whether the 
Indulgence should be denounced in their 
declarations. Two deputies had been sent 
by the latter to the camp of Monmouth, 
which now lay on the other side of the 
bridge, asking for the free exercise of reli- 
gion, a free parliament, and a free general 
assembly ; but although anxious for peace, 
the Duke could offer no terms but an ab- 
solute capitulation. While still engaged in 
squabbling, the two divisions of the rebel 
force, which seems to have formed no plan 
of conflict, were summoned to the sense of 
a common danger by the news that the 
great army of Monmouth was close at hand. 
Hackston, a converted rake and the ablest 
soldier of the Covenant, marched with three 
hundred men to defend the gate in the centre 
of the bridge, under which the deep current 
of the river Clyde swept along rapidly be- 
tween steep banks. There he kept his ground, 
driving back colunm after column of the royal 
troops, until his small supply of ammunition 
failed, and he was compelled to retire from 
the post he had held with the valour of a true 
hero, and would have held, perhaps, had 
Hamilton paid a little more attention to him, 
and less to the erection of a huge gibbet, 
around which cartloads of rope were piled 
to celebrate the pjean of victory. When 
Hackston, after an hour's determined resist- 
ance, was forced to retire from the bridge, 
he flew from rank to rank of the wretchedly 
confused mass, threatening them, pleading 
with them to stand their ground. Monmouth 
crossed the bridge. There, before him, was 
the hopeless, helpless mass that might have 
caught him as he moved over from the other 
bank if the covenanters had not been fight- 
ing between themselves, like furious dogs, 
over the " bone of contention." The first dis- 
charge of his cannon swept into the broken 
lines of the disorderly rabble, which had 
" neither the grac6 to submit, the courage to 
fight, nor the sense to run away." Mon- 
mouth had issued merciful orders at the 
commencement of the battle ; but the dra- 
goons of Claverhouse, smarting under the 
swift and sharp defeat they had suffered at 
Drumclog upon the ist of June, gave hot 
chase to the panic-stricken fugitives. At 
least four hundred fell in the brief contest 
and the pursuit ; but the worst incident of 
the tragedy lay, not on the battle-field, but 
in the wretched fate of many of the twelve 
hundred prisoners. " There cannot be any 
just account given of the number of the slain, 
because they were murdered up and down 



the fields, as the soldiers met them. . . > 
Twelve hundred surrendered prisoners on the 
Muir, who were not only disarmed, but stripped 
almost naked, and made to lie down flat on 
the ground, and not suffered to change that 
posture. And when one of them but raised 
himself a little, he was shot dead." 

Two ministers, one of whom underwent tor- 
ture, were executed ; five others of the Both- 
well prisoners were hung in chains on Magus 
Moor, as a peace-offering to the pale ghost 
of the murdered primate, and buried in i a 
corn-field hard by. But it must not be 
overlooked that these persons, who by no 
means appear to have been ringleaders, re- 
fused the bond which offered liberty to all 
who promised not to take up arms against 
the throne. The twelve hundred captives, tied 
two and two together, were driven from the 
battle-field to Edinburgh, and huddled up in 
that same churchyard where the Covenant was 
first subscribed, with wild fervour, in 1638. 
There they remained for months, strictly 
guarded by soldiers, under the open and 
often inclement sky of the north by day and 
night. Some few escaped ; some were carried 
off by death ; most of them were finally set 
free. About the middle of November, two 
hundred and fifty-seven of the prisoners^ 
many in a wretched state of health, were 
crammed into a ship at Leith, where they 
had scarcely room to turn themselves. They 
were destined for the plantations ; but on the 
loth of December, during a stormy night, 
when they were fastened down under the 
hatches, the vessel struck upon a rock on 
the Orkney coast, more than two hundred 
of those brave Scottish covenanters — the 
most honest and sincere stuff in all this 
human world — finding an end to their theo- 
logical and other troubles beneath the wild 
waves of the North Atlantic. 

The Cameronians ; The Declarations. 

After the battle of Bothwell the extreme 
party of the covenanters, under the ministers 
Cargill and Cameron, separated from the 
rest of the Presbyterians. They issued a 
series of " testimonies," beginning with the 
Sanquhar Declaration in June 1680, in which 
they utterly renounced allegiance to Charles, 
and his brother : the most famous and 
singular being the Apologetic Declaration^ 
issued by James Renwick, their last pastor 
and last martyr, in October 1684, and set up. 
on a number of church doors and market 
crosses throughout the country. In this re- 
markable' document war was declared against 
the government, its militia, soldiers, spies,, 
and other persecuting agents. But perhaps 
the most interesting of all the solemn acts ot 
this new government — for such it claimed to 
be— was that which was carried out at Tor- 



559 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



wood, in Stirlingshire, in 1680, when old 
CargilL then the only minister that ventured 
to preach in the fields, did "excommunicate, 
cast out of the true Church, and deliver up to 
Satan," Charles II., James, Duke of York, 
James, Duke of Monmouth, the Duke of 
Rothes, Sir George Mackenzie, Dalziel, and 
John, Duke of Lauderdale, the last of these 
undergoing this sentence "for his dreadful blas- 
phemy, especially that word to the prelate of 
St. Andrews, ' Sit thou at my right hand, 
until I make thine enemies thy footstool ; ' 
his atheistical drolling on the Scriptures of 
God ... for his gaming on the Lord's Day, 
and for his usual and ordinary cursing." 

The story of the persecution from the day 
that Cameron fell at Airdsmoss, in Ayrshire, 
in July 1680, and Hackston was taken 
prisoner, to be led to Edinburgh in ignominy 
and have his hands chopped off by the hang- 
man, tortures which he suffered quite un- 
concernedly, until the soft-voiced Renwick 
died upon the scaffold in 1688, is one of sad 
and dreary martyrdom — men and women 
even throwing away their lives without the 
least reluctance ; for after the Apologetic De- 
claration was issued, common soldiers were 
empowered to kill all persons in the fields, 
who, in the presence of two witnesses, refused 
to take an oath against it. 



The Killing Time; The Wigtown 
Martyrs; The True Story of John 
Brown. 

Our limits prevent us from going into 
details of the " killing time " in 1 684 and 1 685, 
when the furnace was heated seven times 
hotter, when the demons who scoured the 
country reckoned every one a fanatic, an 
assassin, and a rebel whom they discovered 
perusing a Bible, running from them, or hesi- 
tating in answering their questions. Writers 
on the covenanting side assert that eighty 
persons were shot down in cold blood during 
those two years. " Farewell," cried one of 
two poor, humble women who were bullied 
and condemned by the Council, as she stood 
upon the scaffold in Edinburgh Grassmarket, 
in 1681, — " farewell sweet Bible, in which I 
delighted most, and which has been sweet to 
me since 1 came to prison." But worse than 
this infamous Act — worse than all the brand- 
ing on the cheek, cropping of the ears, 
squeezing with the boots and thumbkins, 
was the drowning of an old woman and a 
young girl on the shore of the Solway Firth, 
on the nth of May, 1685, even after a re- 
spite had been asked for and granted by the 
Council. 

It must be noted most distinctly that 
the popular writers on the Covenant have ac- 
cepted stories and traditions which are based 



on facts, but so exaggerated and decorated 
as to represent Clavers and others engaged 
in executing the orders of the Privy Council, 
alias Star Chamber of Scotland, as the 
greatest fiends that ever dwelt in human 
flesh. There is one story, always quoted as 
the great proof of Graham's inhumanity, to 
which we must refer in closing — that of John 
Brown, the " Christian Carrier " of Muirkirk. 
This "pious, solid Christian" rose early on 
the 1st of May, 1685, and after family worship 
went out to work. He was surrounded by 
Clavers and his horsemen, and led back to 
his own house. He "distinctly" answered 
some questions that were put. " Go to your 
prayers," said Clavers, " for you shall imme- 
diately die ; " and interrupted him while he 
was so engaged. Brown kissed and blessed 
his wife and children. Clavers ordered six 
of his men to shoot. " What thinkest thou 
of thy husband now, woman ? " She replied, 
" I ever thought much good of him, and as 
much now as ever." " It were justice," he 
answered, " to lay thee beside him." When 
Graham had departed, she set the child on 
the ground, gathered up the scattered brains 
of her husband, tied up his head, covered 
his body with her plaid, sat down and wept 
over him. It so happens that a trustworthy 
narrative by Graham himself — in fact the 
military despatch — still exists. From that it 
appears that far from Brown being a man of 
peace, and ready to give "distinct" answers, 
he declared most emphatically that he had 
no king, had bullets in his house, had been 
engaged in the battle of Bothwell Bridge, 
and owned an underground house in a hill — 
which contained swords and pistols, and was 
able to hold a dozen men — where he had 
lurked ever since the engagement just referred 
to. He " suffered very unconcernedly." 

Still we have evidence from Clavers's own 
declaration that fearful hardships were in- 
flicted by him in the "killing time." His 
plan was to establish magazines of corn and 
straw everywhere, so that he could spring in 
a moment with his whole party upon the in- 
tended victims, to quarter on the rebels and 
eat them up, then to search for them and 
" play them hotly with parties ; " " so that," 
he says, " there were several taken, many 
fled the country, and all were dung [knocked] 
from their haunts." Then, he continues, he 
rifled their houses, ruined their goods, and 
imprisoned their servants ; so that " their 
■wives and cJiildren were brought to starving, 
which made them glad to renounce their 
principles.^' It is difficult to say one word, 
except in bitter condemnation, of the man 
who wrote those words ; and it would be 
hard indeed to say of him what Sir Walter 
Scott has written, that he v/as " a scholar 
and a gentleman." M. M. 



S6o 




British Troops on the March to Cabul. 



DOST MAHOMED AND AKBAR KHAN 

THE STORY OF THE FIRST AFGHAN WAR. 



An Impressive Warning- -Cabul and its Rulers— Russian Influence in Persia— General Apprehensions- Dost Makomed, 
Khan of Cabul— Various Opinions concerning him — Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India ; His Policy — The 
Meeting with Shah Soojah— Rungeet Singh, the Ally of the English — The Army of the Indus— Shah Soojah restored 
to his Throne— The Entry into Candahar— Mistaken Notions oi Shah Soojah's Popularity— The Advance to Ghuznee 
— Its Fall— Flight of Dost Mahomed— The Great Dourannee Order distributed at Cabul— Gallant Struggles of Dost 
Mahomed— Battle of Purwan Durrah— Cabul in Insurrection— Dost Mahomed in India— Assassination of Sir 
Alexander Burnes and his Brother— From Bad to Worse— The English Army beleaguered at Cabul— Consequences 
of the Insurrection— Akbar Khan and his Doings— Murder of Sir W. I\l acnaghten— Pitiable State of the Army — The 
Retreat from Cabul— The Khyber Pass— Lord Auckland and Lord EUenborough— Revenge— The Advance into 
Afghanistan — Conclusion. 



An Impressive Warning. 
EFORE the British army crossed 
the Indus, the English name was 
honoured in Afghanistan. Some 
dim traditions of the splendour of 
Mr. Elphinstone's mission were all that the 
Afghans associated with their thoughts of 




the English nation ; and now, in their place, 
are galling memories of the progress of a 
desolating army. The Afghans are an un- 
forgiving race. . . . There is scarcely a 
family in the country which has not the 
blood of kindred to revenge upon the ac- 
cursed Feringhees. The door of reconcilia- 
561 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



tion is closed against us ; and if the hostility 
of the Afghans be an element of weakness, 
it is certain that we have contrived to secure 
it." 

These memorable and prophetic words 
are to be found at the conclusion of Sir John 
Kaye's admirable history of the first war 
waged by the British in Afghanistan. They 
were written more than thirty years ago ; 
and subsequent events have fully vindicated 
the writer's sagacity. No page of the history 
of England in the present century — not even 
the great Indian Mutiny of 1857 itself — is 
more fraught with solemn warning than the 
story of the operations, diplomatic and war- 
like, of the British in Afghanistan in the first 
years of the reign of Queen Victoria. The 
surrender of Cabul, the utter destruction of a 
British army in the retreat through the ter- 
rible Khyber Pass, and the miserable failure 
of the operations that were expected to lead 
to increased power and prosperity, form an 
epoch in our Eastern history which, for 
many reasons, it may not be unprofitable to 
recall. 

Cabul and its Rulers. 
The Kingdom of Cabul, in the wild and 
mountainous realm known as Afghanistan, 
is the most important of the divisions of that 
country. It is bounded on the north by the 
Hindoo Koosh range, in some parts rising 
to an altitude of 20,000 feet ; on the east 
by the deserts of the Paropamisan chain ; 
on the south by the Afghan kingdom of 
Candahar ; and on the west by the province 
of Peshawur, taken by the Afghans from the 
Sikhs. In ancient times the geographer 
Ptolemy mentioned the city of Cabul under 
the name Kubara. Among the four principal 
places of the country (the other three being 
Ghuznee, Candahar, and Herat) it is the 
most important. Afghanistan possesses 
great importance from being the high-road 
from Persia to India. When, in 1747, Nadir 
Shah was murdered, disturbancesbroke out in 
the country, and Ahmed Shah took advan- 
tage of the confusion to detach Afghanistan 
from the dominion of Persia, and founded 
the Dourannee dynasty. After a warlike 
reign, which extended to the year 1773, he 
was succeeded by his weak and indolent son 
Timour Shah, under whom the seat of 
government was transferred from Candahar 
to Cabul. In 1793 Timour died; and his 
death was the signal for the commencement 
of a struggle between his sons ; the second 
of whom, Zemaun, succeeded in establishing 
himself on the throne, after driving his elder 
brother from Candahar, and causing that 
wretched prince to be blinded. His brother 
Mahmoud, too, who resided at Herat, was 
vanquished by Zemaun, and compelled to 
take refuge in Persian territory, where he 



entered into a compact with Tutteh Khan, the 
head of the powerful Barukzyes, the two chiefs 
swearing on the Koi-an an oath of enmity 
against Zemaun. They took possession of 
Candahar ; Shah Zemaun, defeated in his 
turn, was blinded and kept for a time in 
captivity. He ultimately found protection 
with the East India Company, on whose 
bounty he lived as a pensioner at Loodianah. 

Mahmoud was not allowed long to enjoy 
his conquered territory in peace. The year 
1 801 brought into the field a new claimant 
for sovereignty in the person of a man 
destined to attain a mournful celebrity in 
the history of Afghanistan. This was a still 
younger son of Timour, Shah Soojah, then 
about twenty years of age. He took ad- 
vantage of the unpopularity of Mahmoud 
to attack him. and, though at first repulsed 
by Tutteh Khan, succeeded, in 1803, in de- 
priving Mahmoud of his throne, during the 
absence of the brave chief of the Barukzyes. 
For six years he contrived to maintain a 
doubtful and precarious authority ; but in 
1 8 10 was driven from his kingdom by Tutteh 
Khan, and in his turn became a pensioner 
of the East India Company, while Mahmoud 
once more resumed the sovereignty ; though 
the boundaries of his dominions were conside- 
rably narrowed by the victories of Runjeet 
Singh, who, after taking Attock and Mool- 
tan, conquered Cashmere in the year 18 19. 
Though Tutteh Khan had placed Shah 
Mahmoud on the throne, he was treated with 
great ingratitude, being even deprived of 
sight by a son of Mahmoud at Candahar, 
in revenge for contemptuous words spoken 
of the ruler of Cabul. The three brothers 
of Tutteh Khan were stirred up to vengeance 
by this act, and drove Mahmoud away again. 
He ultimately died, in 1829, a fugitive with 
his son Kamran at Herat. 

With him fell the Dourannee empire in 
Afghanistan. The Barukzyes became rulers 
of the whole country, with the exception of 
Herat. Dost Mahomed, the eldest of the 
three brothers, ruled in Cabul. In 1833, 
Shah Soojah made a final attempt to regain 
his throne ; but after obtaining some ad- 
vantages, he was completely defeated near 
Candahar by Dost Mahomed ; and now, at 
sixty years of age, became permanently a 
pensioner of the East India Company, and, 
apparently, desired no better fate than to 
end his days in peace and affluence, away 
from the ambition and the cares of state. 

The Russian Scare ; "Bokara" Burnes 
AND his Mission. 
At that time there existed in England a 
profound distrust of Russia, and a very 
exaggerated notion of the might of that 
colossus of the north to injure British in- 
terests in the East. The great storm of 



56: 



DOST MAHOMED AND AKBAR KHAN. 



1830 that swept away the restored throne 
of the elder branch of the Bourbons in 
France, and dissolved the forced and un- 
natural union of Belgium and Holland, 
liad failed to shake the throne of Russia; 
and that power was generally supposed 
to be intriguing to supplant Great Britain 
in the East, and to shake the foundations of 
her Indian Empire. Dost Mahomed Shah 
and his brothers had risen to power on the 
ruin of a great family, of which one repre- 
sentative still remained enthroned as the 
Prince of Herat. Between the Prince of 
Herat and the Shah of Persia there had 
long been ill feeling, and it would appear 
that the Persian ruler had real and genuine 
cause of quarrel. But in England it was 
thought that Russia was behind the scenes, 
and was the wire-puller in this affair. Thus, 
in 1835, Lord Palmerston, then Minister 
for Foreign Affairs, wrote to Mr. EUice, the 
English ambassador at Teheran, directing 
him to warn the Persian Government against 
aggressive warfare. Mr. Ellice himself 
appears to have been persuaded of the 
sinister designs of Russia, and that Persia was 
merely a puppet in her hands. In January 
1836, he wrote a letter announcing that 
the Shah had determined to attack Herat ; 
and that his success was anxiously looked 
for by Russia, " whose minister did not fail 
'£0 press its execution." Mr. Ellice added that 
the motive for this could not be mistaken, 
for that Herat, once annexed to Persia, 
might become, according to the commercial 
treaty, the residence of a consular agent, 
who might from thence push his researches 
and communications, avowed and secret, 
throughout Afghanistan. He further de- 
clared that Russian influence would be 
brought to the very threshold of India if 
the Persian monarchy were extended in the 
■direction of Hindostan ; and that Persia, 
unwilling or unable cordially to ally herself 
with Great Britain, must be considered, not 
as the bulwark of India, but " as the first 
parallel from which the attack could be com- 
menced or threatened." Thus the Russian 
scare began. 

Rightly or wrongly, it took full possession 
of the official mind that regulated British 
statesmanship in India. The establishment 
of a Russian commercial agent on the fron- 
tiers of Persia, certainly not an unusual pro- 
ceeding considering the extensive trade 
between Russia and Persia, appeared to the 
Foreign Office as the darkest of intrigues. 
" The shake of Lord Burleigh's head," says 
Dr. Buist of the Bombay Times, in writing 
some years after of these events, "conveyed 
not half so many meanings, when nodded 
most strongly, according to the directions of 
Mr. Puff, as did the most meaningless civil 
speech of the Russian ambassador, inter- 



preted by the lights of Mr. Ellice and Mr. 
McNeil." The Russian Government, it must 
be observed, disavowed any but strictly com- 
mercial intentions in this communication 
with Persia, and Count Nesselrode assured 
Lord Palmerston that the best efforts were 
being made for the re-establishment of pacific 
relations between Persia and Herat. 

One of the most promising English officers 
in India in those days was Captain, after- 
wards Sir Alexander, Burnes. He had been 
the leader of an exploring expedition to 
Bokara some years previously, and had pub- 
lished the result of his travels in a once 
popular book, and had acquired the honour- 
able soubriquet of " Bokara Burnes." 

Sir Alexander Burnes was now despatched 
on a mission to Cabul ; and his personal 
observations quickly convinced him that 
Dost Mahomed Khan, a wary, astute, and 
valorous ruler, valued the friendship of the 
English far above that of the Russians, and 
might be looked upon as a steady, trust- 
worthy, and valuable ally. On the morning 
of the 19th December, 1837, Sir Alexander 
writes to the Government of India : " The 
Ameer came over from the Bala Hissar (the 
citadel of Cabul) with a letter from his son, 
the Governor of Ghuznee, reporting that a 
Russian agent had arrived at that city on 
his way to Cabul. Dost Mahomed Khan 
said that he had come for my counsel on the 
occasion ; that he wished to have nothing to 
do with any other power than the British ; 
that he did not wish to receive any agent 
from any other power whatever, so long as 
he had a hope of sympathy from us ; and 
that he would order the Russian agent to be 
turned out, detained on the road, or act in 
any other way that I desired him." Though 
sufficiently ready to be alarmed by the 
Russian scare, Burnes persevered in regard- 
ing Dost Mahomed as sincere in his profes- 
sions of loyalty and attachment to England. 

But both in Downing Street and at Simla 
the opinion was very different. It was taken 
for granted that Dost Mahomed must be a 
traitor, and Burnes was expressly and re- 
peatedly admonished to regard him in that 
light, and to place no reliance on his pro- 
mises. Burnes protested strongly against 
this view, urging that though Dost Mahomed 
had received tempting offers from Russia, 
from Bokhara, and from Persia, all bidding 
for his alliance, he had disregarded every 
overture, and continued steady in his deter- 
mination to be loyal to the Enghsh. " In 
all that has passed, or is daily transpiring," 
writes Sir Alexander, " the chief of Cabul 
declares that he prefers the sympathy and 
friendly offices of the British to all these 
offers, however alluring they may be, from 
Persia or from the Emperor ; which places 
his good sense in a light more than promi- 



ses 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



nent, and, in my humble judgment, proves 
that by an earlier attention to these countries 
■we might have escaped the whole of these 
intrigues, and held long since a stable in- 
fluence in Cabul." Still the authorities 
refused to believe ; and, incredible as the 
fact may seem, in their anxiety to impress 
their opinion upon parliament and the coun- 
try, the despatches relating to these affairs 
were disgracefully garbled, only such portions 
of them being made public as tended to sup- 
port the view of the Government ; and when 
afterwards Lord Palmerston was called to 
account for this, he actually defended the 
practice ; declaring that as the Government 
had determined not to adopt the policy re- 
commended by Bumes, there was no obliga- 
tion to publish the arguments of that unfor- 
tunate officer in their entirety. The grave 
complaint the country had afterwards to 
make regarding these affairs was, that by 
the unscrupulous manipulation of his des- 
patches, the publication of detached sen- 
tences, and the withholding of the context, 
Burnes was made to appear as condemning 
a policy which he warmly advocated. That 
policy was, close alliance with the ruler of 
Cabul for counteracting adverse influences 
in Afghanistan. In writing to Mr. , afterwards 
Sir William, Macnaghten, in 1838, he says : 
" It remains to be considered why we cannot 
act with Dost Mahomed. He is a man of 
undoubted ability, and has a high opinion of 
the British nation ; and if half you must do 
for others were done for him. and offers made 
which he could see conduced to his interests, 
he would abandon Russia and Persia to- 
morrow. . . . Government have admitted that 
he had at best a choice of difficulties ; and it 
should not be forgotten that we promised 
nothing, and Persia and Russia held out a 
good deal." His opinion was that by 
strengthening Dost Mahomed's hands the 
interests of England in India would be best 
served. 

Lord Auckland's Policy ; The Meeting 
WITH Shah Soojah. 
The Governor-General of India at that 
time was Lord Auckland ; an amiable and 
well-meaning official, but vacillating and 
unsteady, and altogether lacking the com- 
prehensiveness of mind which would have 
enabled a Clive or a Warren Hastings to 
take in the situation at a glance. He re- 
solved to drive Dost Mahomed, whom it was 
convenient to regard as an usurper, from the 
throne of Cabul, and to set up in his stead 
the roi faineant Shah Soojah, for whose 
return the Afghans were represented as 
pining, though he had long been forgotten, 
and even during his short tenure of power 
long before had never been able to estabhsh 
a real influence over his turbulent subjects. 



It was announced to Shah Soojah, accord- 
ingly, that he was to be restored to his throne ; 
and Runjeet Singh, the ruler of the Punjaub, 
with whom Dost Mahomed was at war, was 
drawn into the enterprise. Sir William Mac- 
naghten conducted this part of the negotia- 
tion. In a manifesto issued at Simlah on 
the 1st of October, 1838, the Governor- 
General declared that the troops of Dost 
Mahomed had made an unprovoked attack 
upon those of the Maharajah Runjeet Singh, 
the faithful ally of the British ; that intrigues 
were actively prosecuted throughout Afghan- 
istan for the purpose of extending Persian 
authority to the Indus and beyond it ; that 
the British missions had been insulted ; that 
Dost Mahomed entertained ambitious schemes 
incompatible with the well-being of the Eng- 
lish in India ; that the Barukyze chiefs, from 
their disunion and unpopularity, were ill fitted 
to be useful allies to the British Government ; 
that it was necessary the English should have 
upon the western frontier an ally interested 
in resisting aggression and establishing tran- 
quillity ; that accordingly pressing necessity, 
policy, and justice warranted the English in 
espousing the cause of Shah Soojah-ool- 
Moolk, "whose popularity throughout Af- 
ghanistan had been proved to his Lordship 
by the strotig and imatiintoiis testimo7iy of 
the best atithoritiesj" that the position of the 
Maharajah Runjeet Singh, and his unde- 
viating friendship towards the British had 
entitled him to be associated in the enter- 
prise, and that accordingly a triplicate treaty 
had been made between Soojah-ool-Moolk, 
the Maharajah, and the British Government, 
to co-operate in the restoration of Soojah-ool- 
Moolk. The Secretary to the Government, 
Sir W. Macnaghten, was to reside at Shah 
Soojah's court, with Sir Alexander Bumes 
to act under him. 

At the end of November 1838, Runjeet 
Singh, once known as the Lion of the Pun- 
jaub, the conqueror of a great kingdom, but 
now a decrepid, half imbecile little old man, 
met Lord Auckland in solemn durbar at 
Ferozepore. The scene was one of barbaric 
splendour; and some costly presents flattered 
the vanity of the old conqueror. The balance 
of splendour was, however, considered to 
be on the side of the followers of Runjeet 
Singh. Mr. Stoqueler, in his " Memorials 
of Afghanistan," has recorded that the 
Sikhs "shone down the English." "The 
camp of the Maharajah was on the other 
side of the river," says Sir John Kaye in his 
" History of the Afghan War," "and there, 
amidst a scene of Oriental splendour, 
difficult to describe or imagine, the great 
Sikh chieftain received the representative 
of the British nation. The splendid costumes 
of the Sikh sirdars, the gorgeous trappings 
of their horses, the glittering steel casques 



564 



DOST MAHOMED AND AKBAR KHAN. 



and corslets of chain armour, the scarlet 
and yellow dresses, the tents of crimson 
and gold, made up a show of Eastern 
magnificence equally grand and picturesque. 
As the Maharajah saluted the Governor- 
General, the familiar notes of the National 
Anthem arose from the instruments of a 
Sikh band, and the guns of the Kalsa roared 
forth their expected welcome." It was quite 
in character with Oriental usage that even 
on such a solemn occasion as this the old 
Maharajah should cause to be exhibited, in 
the durbar tent itself, " an unseemly display 
of dancing girls and the antics of some 
male buffoons." Old Runjeet Singh's was 



heard. It was considered as a misfortune, 
however, that Sir Henry Fane, the Com- 
mander-in-Chief of the Indian army, de- 
clined to command the expedition, and 
resigned his trust into the hands of Sir John 
Keane, who had been in command of the 
Bombay army, and in whom the Bengal 
force had nothing like the confidence they 
felt in the tried capacity and soldierly quali- 
ties of Sir Henry Fane. The route to be 
followed by the force was to the south-west, 
towards the Indus, which was to be crossed 
at Bukkur. Afterwards, turning to the north- 
west, the army was to make for the Bolan 
Pass, through which the road lay to Guettah, 




Ghuznee. 



a strangely mixed character, compounded of 
some great and heroic qualities, in which he 
could compare even with his predecessor in 
another part of India, Hyder Ali, the " Tiger 
of Mysore," intermingled with a strong leaven 
of sensuality and low vice. 

The Army of the Indus ; Shah Soojah 
restored to his throne. 
The expeditionary force started upon the 
campaign in the highest spirits, and with 
every prospect of success. Indeed, no very 
great resistance was expected, and the old 
expression of " a military promenade to the 
capital," so often put forward, and so often 
miserably falsified by events, was here also 



and so through the Kojuck to Candahar, — 
a strangely devious route, as the historian 
of the war justly observes, from Ferozepore 
to Candahar ; like taking the two sides of 
a triangle instead of the base. It was on 
this occasion that the Ameers of Sindh 
were converted into bitter enemies by the 
peremptory demand made upon them to 
supply the English army with provisions 
as it passed, without demanding their per- 
mission, through their territories. They were 
told that " the Sindhian who hoped to stop 
the approach of the British army might as 
well seek to dam up the Indus at Bukkur." 
If the object of British statesmanship in India 
at that time had been to arouse hatred and 



56s 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



a desire for revenge, the measures taken 
could not have been more eminently calcu- 
lated to accomplish that end. Those who 
knew the character of the Ameers of Sindh 
considered that the British authorities were 
sowing those " dragons' teeth " from which, 
at some future time, an evil harvest would 
spring up. 

The army of the Indus marched curiously 
encumbered with impedimenta in the shape 
of a very long train of baggage. A force of 
9,500 men marched accompanied by 38,000 
camp-followers and 30,000 camels. This was 
before the days when sturdy Sir Charles 
Napier uttered his trenchant and sarcastic 
protests against the comforts to which the 
British officer of that day thought himself 
entitled in moving through an enemy's 
country. It is curious to imagine what such 
a commander as Frederick the Great, with 
his Spartan ideas of simplicity and self- 
denial on a march, would have thought of 
such a procession. But at the outset the 
weather was bright, the roads were good ; 
there was no prospect of any great difficulty 
or privation to be endured before they met 
the enemy, whom they were anxious, as a 
British army always is, to encounter ; and 
officers and men were in the highest spirits. 

But soon the hostile feelings of the Ameers 
began to be practically felt in the exceeding 
difficulty of obtaining provisions ; and when 
Sir John Keane, who had come by sea 
with the Bombay contingent, arrived to take 
the command, he had practical proofs of 
the inimical attitude of the native chiefs. 
Macnaghten, the envoy, found the position 
embarrassing, and vehemently urged the 
necessity of pushing forward without a 
moment's loss of time. "We should not, 
I think," he wrote to the Governor-General, 
" on any account lose the season for advanc- 
ing upon Candahar. With one European 
regiment, some more artillery, a couple of 
native regiments, and a small battering train, 
we might not only occupy Candahar but 
relieve Herat ; and by money, if we have no 
available troops, make Cabul too hot for 
Dost Mahomed." In another letter he urged 
that delay would altogether imperil the suc- 
cess of the enterprise. But the military and 
political authorities were ah'eady at variance, 
and almost in a state of antagonism, with 
divided counsels. 

The march also became more difficult day 
by day, and as the country became more arid 
and inhospitable, the camels began to drop 
dead by scores, and then by hundreds. It 
was a foretaste of what was to happen ; and 
it was clear that every impediment was being 
thrown in the way of our troops in collecting 
supplies. But the column pushed on, sorely 
harassed by the Beloochee freebooters, who 
hovered in plundering and murdering bands 



566 



on the flanks, carrying off cattle and putting 
stragglers to death. And thus, amid a thou- 
sand difficulties, the Bolan Pass was tra- 
versed; and on the 26th of March,Guettah was 
reached, though by this time disease and pri- 
vation (for the troops were now almost upon 
famine allowance) had worked sad havoc 
in their ranks. Sir John Keane, on the 6th of 
April, assumed the personal command of 
the army, and soon after the army marched 
through the Kojuck Pass ; and Macnaghten,, 
persuaded " that Afghan cupidity could not 
be proof against British gold," began the 
disastrous policy of buying up the allegiance 
of the chiefs ; a policy to which many subse- 
quent calamities have been ascribed. 

Shah Soojah's triumphal entry into Can- 
dahar, when that city was at last reached^ 
proved a failure. At first curiosity and the 
natural desire of men to see a pageant 
brought together a large crowd ; and it is 
reported that the people shouted, " Welcome 
to the son of Timour Shah ! " " We look to- 
you for protection ! " " Candahar is rescued 
from the Barukzyes ! " " May your enemies 
be destroyed ! " and thus the signs of ap- 
parent popular enthusiasm were not wanting;, 
and Macnaghten, with his sanguine tempera- 
ment, took these shouts as really meaning 
something appreciable, and wrote a glowing- 
report of success to the Government. Still 
he seems to have had his eyes partly opened 
as to the Afghan nature during the long and 
toilsome march. " Of one thing I am cer- 
tain," he says in the same letter, " that we 
must be prepared to look upon Afghanistaa 
for some years as an outwork, yielding no- 
thing, but requiring much expenditure to- 
keep it in repair." On the other hand he 
says : " Dost Mahomed will, I doubt not,, 
take himself off like his brothers, though, 
not, perhaps, in quite so great a hurry, when 
the intelligence reaches him of the manner 
in which Shah Soojah has been received at 
Candahar." 

Dost Mahomed was a thoroughly sagacious 
man, and no doubt appreciated the value of 
the shouts raised by the many-headed multi- 
tude. Had he been a reader of European 
literature, he might have remembered the 
bitter words Scott put in the mouth of the 
Scottish king in The Lady of the Lake, 
when the shouts for Douglas fell on his ear^ 
and he reflected how — 

' ' The selfsame crowd, with loud acclaims, 
Strained for its morning note King James ;. 
The like applause would Douglas greet 
If he could hurl me from my seat." 

The truth was, that the people felt not the 
slightest affection or loyalty for Shah Soojah. 
On the 8th of May, all the troops having now 
arrived, there was to be a grand ceremonial 
and review on the plains outside Candahar, 



DOST MAHOMED AND AKBAR KHAN. 



a kind of public fete of the restoration. All 
things were duly prepared, and when the 
time came there lacked nothing but the 
guests. The officers and the soldiers were 
there, and the high officials, native and 
British, but the expected crowd of delighted 
and enthusiastic spectators was conspicuous 
by its absence. A place had been set apart 
in the day's proceedings for "the populace 
restrained by the Shah's troops," and this 
part of the programme, as Captain Havelock 
justly remarked, became rather a bitter satire 
— there was nobody for the Shah's troops to 
restrain. " The people of Candahar are said 
to have viewed the whole thing with the 
most mortifying indifference," wrote the cap- 
tain; "few of them quitted the city to be 
present in the plains." The "adoration" 
bestowed upon Shah Soojah by his subjects 
was about on a par with the feeling experi- 
enced by the French in 1814 for Louis XVIII., 
brought back by foreign bayonets to the 
throne from which his brother had been 
driven twenty-two years before. Barely a 
hundred Afghans, it is said, were present as 
spectators. 

The Advance to Ghuznee ; Its Fall ; 
Flight of Dost Mahomed. 

It became abundantly clear, even to that 
proverbial blindness which consists in un- 
willingness to recognize distasteful truths, 
that as the British power had seated Soojah 
Dowlah on the throne of Candahar, the 
British power alone could keep him there. 
The Sirdars of Candahar had submitted to 
the British armed force, and had been bribed 
by British gold ; had they loyally supported 
Dost Mahomed it might have been fatal for 
our army, struggling famine-stricken through 
the Bolan and Kojuck Passes. But Dost 
Mahomed had his sons, Akbar Khan, Hyder 
Khan, and Afzul Khan, in whom he trusted 
to stop, or at any rate to retard, the advance 
of his enemies, while he collected his strength 
as best he might. 

After a couple of months spent at Can- 
dahar, the bulk of the British force advanced 
upon Ghuznee. about 230 miles on the road 
to Cabul. Here Afzul Khan was in com- 
mand. The siege train had not yet come 
up. It was determined to take the city by 
blowing up one of the entrances, the Cabul 
gate, with gunpowder, which was successfully 
accomplished, and the British were quickly 
masters of Ghuznee. On this occasion, the 
fanatics called Ghazees, who fight devoting 
themselves to death to attain the joys of 
Paradise, distinguished themselves by fierce 
resistance ; and a party of fifty of them, taken 
prisoners and brought into the presence of 
Shah Soojah, so enraged the old king by their 
hardihood and reproaches that he caused them 
all to be instantly massacred with circum- 



stances of great cruelty. This made him more 
unpopular than ever, and roused the religious 
fanaticism of the country against him, and, 
as appeared in the sequel, with fatal effect. 
Here Hyder Khan fell as a prisoner into 
the hands of the English. The loss of the 
Afghans at Ghuznee is estimated at about 
1000 slain. The casualties on the English 
side amounted altogether to 191, the number 
of those actually slain being only 17. It was 
remarked that the wounded men recovered 
with most uncommon and gratifying celerity. 
This was attributed to the fact that the supply 
of intoxicating liquors having been exhausted 
some time before, the force commanded by 
Sir John Keane was a "temperance" army. 
Afzul Khan, the "fighting" son of Dost Ma- 
homed, fled to Cabul, eighty miles distant, 
with his force of 5,000 cavalry, when he saw 
the British flag waving on the battlements of 
Ghuznee. 

From Ghuznee the troops proceeded to 
Cabul, from which city Dost Mahomed fled 
at the approach of the victors. The old 
Shah Soojah was installed in the capital, as 
he had been at Candahar, and under very 
similar circumstances. The King entered 
the city with great pomp, escorted by English 
hussars and dragoons, and accompanied by 
Sir Alexander Burnes and a number of 
English officers. But the most favourable 
account of his reception describes it omi- 
nously as " respectful but cold." The more 
outspoken narratives talk of utter indif- 
ference, and a feeling very like contempt. 
The chiefs did not appear. " There was 
no enthusiasm," says Dr. Buist, the editor 
of the Bombay Times ; " and not even that 
clamorous exultation which a crowded popu- 
lace commonly display on the first fall of one 
who has kept them in order, or in the mani- 
festation of any important change in the order 
of things." A great durbar was held, at 
which the badges of the Dourannee order 
were conferred on some officers of the army. 
The whole affair appears to have been ludi- 
crous in its failure as a spectacle,— the old 
King seated in a camp-chair, in a ruinous 
and neglected garden, with two old fat 
eunuchs behind him, each holding a dish 
in his hand, and the English ofificers march- 
ing gravely up to " this extraordinary dumb 
show." 

Dr. Kennedy relates how " Sir John Keane 
stepped before the said camp-chair with the 
King in it, and gravely dropped on his knees 
before the Dourannee Emperor, whereupon 
Shah Soojah, with great difficulty, stuck 
the decoration of the Dourannee order on the 
Commander-in-Chiefs coat ; and then," says 
the narrator, " Sir John, standing before the 
Emperor, delivered himself of a speech, in 
which there was a great deal about ' hurling 
a usurper from the throne,' at which my 



567 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



cousin Toby might, perhaps, have whistled 
his 'liUibullero.'" 

Soon afterwards the Bombay and the 
Bengal armies separated, and returned to 
India through the tremendous passes which 
were soon to have a sinister fame by the 
disasters they were destined to witness. The 
usual " general order '' was issued, thanking 
the troops for their gallantry and endurance 
during the Afghan campaign. Lord Auck- 
land, the Governor-General, was advanced a 
step in the peerage ; Macnaghten,who really 
seems to have believed that the Dourannee 
kingdom was firmly established, received a 
baronetage, and other rewards were distri- 
buted. 

Even men who knew the East well, and 
had experience of the Indian and Afghan 
character, were unaccountably deceived in 
their estimate of the situation, and of the 
completeness of the work that had been 
achieved. Lord Macaulay, in his masterly 
essay on Malcolm's " Life of Clive," pub- 
lished just at that time, speaks of the storming 
of Ghuznee as the closing act of a series of 
triumphs of which the defence of Arcot by 
the undaunted young captain, almost a cen- 
tury before, had been the first ; and speaks 
in terms of exultation of the prowess and 
brilliant success of the conquering nation 
who had seated their vassal on the throne of 
Candahar. There was no misgiving as to 
the stability of that throne — no apprehension 
of the tremendous reverses that were soon to 
follow. 

Gallant Struggles of Dost Mahomed ; 

PURWAN DURRAH ; CaBUL IN INSUR- 
RECTION. 

Dost Mahomed did not tamely submit to 
the transfer of his dominions to an enemy. 
He made a good fight for his throne, even 
after Shah Soojah had been established at 
Cabul, and won the respect and admiration 
of his enemies by his gallantry and skill. 
After a time he proceeded to Bokhara, where 
the King, who had promised him assistance, 
treacherously took him prisoner, with several 
of his sons. In August 1840, he escaped, 
and was soon at the head of a formidable 
force. On the 2nd of November, 1840, was 
fought the battle of Purwan Durrah. Here 
Dost Mahomed gained a victory; and the 
British officers found to their mortification 
that, either from cowardice or disaffection, 
the native troops, commencing with the 2nd 
Bengal Light Cavalry, refused to advance 
against the enemy. When Captains Eraser 
and Ponsonby ordered them to draw and 
charge, they first hesitated, then wavered, 
and ultimately turned and fled before a body 
of Afghans not superior to themselves in 
number. The officers were left to face the 
enemy alone ; some being cut down, and 



others, among whom was Captain Eraser, 
contriving to escape, desperately wounded, 
to the British Hnes. Dost Mahomed him- 
self led on his men, crying aloud : " In the 
name of God and the Prophet, fight and 
drive the Eeringhee Caffirs from the land, 
or I am gone !" The successful charge made 
by the Afghans gave them the right to claim 
the victory. The battle had been most 
mortifying to the English, from the bad 
behaviour of the Sepoy soldiers, now mani- 
fested for the first time in the war. The 
regiment whose ill conduct had been most 
glaring was degraded and disbanded. On 
the other hand, the gallant manner in which 
Eraser, Ponsonby, and other officers, though 
desperately wounded, had fought their way 
through the enemy, excited the highest ad- 
miration. During the night the enemy re- 
treated from the field. 

But the wily old ruler saw that, in spite 
of a temporary success, he would not be able 
to maintain himself against the hostility of 
the British, more especially as the Sikhs had 
consented to open their country for the march 
of large reinforcements of troops from India 
into Afghanistan. He seems to have resolved 
to trust to time and the dislike of the Afghans 
to Shah Soojab, and meanwhile to put him- 
self into the hands of the British, from whom 
he anticipated honourable treatment, — a hope 
in which he was not disappointed. On the 
evening of the battle he quitted the field on 
horseback, and rode off direct for Cabul, 
where he arrived on the following evening, 
having performed a journey of sixty miles in 
less than twenty-four hours. Sir W. Mac- 
naghten was returning from his customary 
ride in the outskirts of Cabul, on the evening 
of the 3rd of November, when, to his great 
surprise, a horseman rode up to him and 
informed him that Dost Mahomed had 
arrived, and begged his protection. The 
ex-Shah thereupon appeared, alighted from 
his horse, and presented his sword, which 
was immediately returned to him. He was 
treated with every respect, and at once wrote 
to his sons, informing them of the step he 
had taken, and requesting them to join him, 
which thy all did with the exception of Akbar 
Khan. Being joined by his whole family, he 
was sent to India ; and being permitted to 
visit Calcutta, was received with distinction 
by Lord Auckland the Governor- General. 
A pension of ^30,000 a year was assigned to 
him, and till the end of 1842 he continued to 
reside in India, watching the course of events, 
but loyally maintaining a position of friend- 
ship to the nation whose pensioner he had 
become. 

Indeed, we are told by Dr. Atkinson that 
in December 1840, while on his way to India, 
Dost Mahomed strongly warned his captors 
of the difficulties they would encounter from 



568 



DOST MAHOMED AND AKBAR KHAN. 




EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the Suddozyes, who had never been accus- 
tomed to obey, and declared that the Enghsh 
would find the courtiers about Shah Soojah, 
who had for years been fattening on their 
bounty, the readiest to plot and intrigue 
against them. He declared that they would 
do far better to take the government of the 
kingdom entirely into their own hands, than 
to stand in the anomalous position of pro- 
tectors to Shah Soojah — held responsible 
for and reaping unpopularity by all the bad 
measures, the extortions and mistakes of that 
weak and incapable ruler. 

On the 3rd of November, the anniversary 
of the disastrous battle of Purwan Durrah, 
a formidable insurrection broke out in Cabul. 
A report had spread among various of the 
chiefs that they were to be taken prisoners 
or put to death ; and they determined to 
forestall what they believed to be a con- 
spiracy against their lives and liberties. At 
first the commotion in the city was compara- 
tively slight ; and Sir W. Macnaghten, who 
was about to quite Cabul and return to 
Bombay, leaving Sir Alexander Burnes as 
his successor at the Shah's court, quite failed 
to appreciate the real gravity of affairs. 
Against Burnes the Afghans were especially 
bitter, for they believed that, after professing 
friendship for Dost Mahomed, he had been 
guilty of treachery in abandoning the cause 
of that ruler to support Shah Soojah. The 
accusation was groundless, but seemed to be 
based on reasonable deductions from appear- 
ances. They could not know how entirely 
against the advice and opinion of Burnes 
had been the policy adopted by the British 
Government. 

Sir Alexander Burnes dwelt in the city ; 
and in his house on that morning were his 
brother. Lieutenant Charles Burnes, and his 
military secretary. Lieutenant Broadfoot, a 
brother of a gallant officer who had fallen a 
year before at Purwan Durrah. Early in 
the morning. Sir Alexander received warning 
through a friendly native that there was a 
plot for a rising in the city, and for his 
assassination ; and he was earnestly recom- 
mended to quit his house and proceed to 
the cantonments outside the city, where the 
troops were quartered. He refused to believe 
the report, confident in the friendly feeling 
of the Afghans towards him, as he had ever 
been their friend, and had always endea- 
voured to advance their interests. But pre- 
sently a raging mob assembled round his 
house, some thirsting for blood, and others 
for plunder. He then sent two messengers 
to the cantonments to demand a force for 
his protection. Only one of these messen- 
gers returned, covered with wounds ; the 
other was murdered by the mob. 

From a gallery or balcony of his house, 
Burnes harangued the raging assailants. 



reminding them that he was their old friend, 
and promising that, if they would disperse 
quietly, the grievances of the chiefs and 
people should be rigidly inquired into. It 
was utterly in vain ; Lieutenant Broadfoot 
was laid low by a shot from the crowd, who 
now yelled for the lives of the British officers. 
Lieutenant Burnes and a party of chuprassies 
now fii-ed upon the mob ; but this, instead of 
intimidating the assailants, only roused them 
to wilder fury. In his extremity the unfor- 
tunate resident made an appeal to the avarice 
of his assailants, promising them large sums 
if they would spare his life and his brother's. 
The reply was a repeated summons that they 
should come down to the garden. A Mus- 
sulman solemnly pledged himself to convey 
Burnes and his brother safely to one of the 
forts, and Sir Alexander, partly disguised in 
some articles of native attire hastily assumed, 
descended to the garden. Whereupon his 
treacherous conductor immediately cried 
out : " This is Secan der Burnes ! " Where- 
upon the savage assailants fell upon him, and 
killed him with many wounds ; Lieutenant 
Burnes was despatched at the same time. 

From Bad to Worse ; The Conse- 
quences OF THE Insurrection. 
It is the opinion of the survivors of that 
lamentable day that a vigorous demonstration 
of the six thousand troops encamped within 
a couple of miles of th>e city would have 
strangled the outbreak in its birth ; and, in- 
deed, at the outset it was a mere rising of the 
mob, the discontented chiefs holding aloof 
out of fear of the large force so near them, 
whom they expected promptly to avenge the 
murder of the English officers. The savage 
crowd, having tasted blood, proceeded to 
fresh outrages. The treasury of Captain 
Johnson, the paymaster, was attacked and 
plundered of ^ 1 7,000 ; all the property of that 
officer was carried off or destroyed, and his 
servants were massacred, and also the guard 
who kept watch over the plundered treasury, 
and stuck to their duty with rare fidelity until 
overpowered and slain. The mob then 
rushed through the city, plundering shops 
and attacking the houses of British officers, 
where they slew women and children, 
and the whole town was a scene of murder 
and rapine. Meanwhile the wretched old 
king, the " beloved of the people," sat trem- 
bhng in the Balla Hissar, the citadel of 
Cabul. He indeed made one effort by send- 
ing out some Hindustani troops into the 
streets to quell the tumult ; but they did 
little, and soon retired discomfited ; and 
after losing, it is said, two hundred of their 
men, were obliged to fall back in confusion 
through the narrow streets upon the Balla 
Hissar ; the arrival of a body of infantry and 
artillery from the British cantonments, under 



570 



DOST MAHOMED AND AKBAR KHAN. 



Brigadier Shelton, the second in command, 
first enabling them to save their field-pieces 
from capture. 

General Elphinstone,the chief in command, 
on that day, of the force surrounding Cabul, 
was in many respects a good and tried officer, 
but now enfeebled by age and by utterly 
broken health, and oppressed by indecision, 
he allowed the time when a few hundred men 
could have easily suppressed the revolt to go 
by ; the fatal inactivity being increased by 
the disunion which unhappily existed between 
himself and Brigadier Shelton, the second in 
command. Nothing more was done. '* Gen- 
eral Elphinstone," says Sir John Kaye, in 
narrating these events, "had been talking 
about to-morrow when he should have been 
acting to-day ; " and he tells us how the in- 
surgents were strengthened by the indecision 
of the authorities, and by the inactivity of 
the army that should have put them down. 
The unhappy want of co-operation between 
the first and second in command, Elphin- 
stone and Shelton, continued with ruinous 
effects. In their respective handwriting we 
have the complaints of Elphinstone of con- 
tumaciousnes and insubordination on the 
part of Shelton, who on his side bitterly com- 
plains that the carping spirit of his chief 
thwarted every disposition he made for the 
general good. While acknowledging that 
both were brave men, and in spite of the 
drawbacks of physical infirmity and dogma- 
tical perverseness respectively, might in any 
other situation have done efficient service. 
Sir John emphatically declares these two 
commanders to have been " miserably out of 
place in the cantonments of Cabul." Sir 
William Macnaghten, too, though a con- 
scientious, and in many respects an able, 
official, lacked the firmness required by the 
crisis ; aAd so in those days of danger and 
humiliation things went from bad to worse. 

As for Shah Soojah, that unhappy ruler 
remained shut up, virtually a prisoner, in the 
Balla Hissar, in a miserable state of terror 
and dejection. He was never again to have 
even the semblance of authority, but was 
destined during the short remainder of his 
existence to remain, what indeed he had 
always been, a mere puppet king. 

The Afghans quickly marked the irresolu- 
tion and the divided counsels of those against 
whom they had risen in rebellion, and be- 
came proportionately bold. They attacked 
the British cantonments, and gained such 
successes that our army, cut off from the 
forts where the provisions were stored, were 
menaced with the horrors of famine. In an 
action on the Beh-meim hills, on the 13th of 
November, Brigadier Shelton gained a last 
fleeting success. Lieutenant Eyre, whose 
chronicle of the events that followed has 
been acknowledged as thoroughly accurate 



and faithful, says, after recording the doubt- 
ful triumph : " Henceforward it becomes my 
weary task to relate a catalogue of errors, 
disasters, and difficulties, which, following 
close upon each other, disgusted our officers, 
disheartened our soldiers, and finally sunk u& 
all into irretrievable ruin, as though heaven 
itself, by a combination of evil circumstances^ 
for its own inscrutable purposes, had planned 
our downfall." 

The great hope of the army was in the 
expected arrival of the brigade of Sir Robert 
Sale, a gallant and experienced officer, whose 
name has become famous no less by his own 
achievements than by the devotion and hero- 
ism of the high-souled lady, his wife, whose 
''Journal" furnishes a spirited and authentic 
account of some of the darkest passages of 
those troublous days. But the expected 
succour did not come, and Macnaghten, in 
an urgent letter, written only two days after 
the Beh-meim action, describes the position 
of the army as very grave, and urges the 
immediate despatch of help as necessary to 
avert complete destruction. 

Akbar Khan and his Doings; Fate of 
Sir William Macnaghten. 

More and more critical did the condition 
of the beleagured British force become in 
the weary weeks that closed the year 1841. 
The Afghans attacked again and again, and 
with undoubted success, and after a time the 
humiliating fact became only too apparent 
that our soldiers had become demorahsed, 
and would no longer look the enemy in the 
face. Negotiations of a description very alien 
from the English character were entered into 
at this time. Among the unholy policy de- 
nounced by Sir John Kaye there is no doubt 
that there was included a scheme for the 
assassination of some of the insurgent chiefs, 
and that the proposals, though unknown to 
Sir Wilharn Macnaghten, were made iri his 
name. Such proceedings could not fail to 
embitter the feeling of hatred in the country 
against the English. 

There were three courses from which the 
hard-pressed army, whose position in canton- 
ments was rapidly becoming untenable, 
might choose. The first, which was strongly 
recommended by brave Eldred Pottinger, 
who had already distinguished himself by 
the defence of Herat, was to advance boldly, 
and occupy, the Balla Hissar at all hazards ; 
but this course was vigorously opposed by 
Brigadier Shelton, who did not consider the 
advantage to be gained equivalent to the 
risk. Ttie second was to abandon the bag- 
gage and all useless encumbrances, and force 
a passage towards the frontier, in spite of all 
resistance ; but this was also overruled. 
The third course, the one least hkely to 
recommend itself to British soldiers and 



571 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



statesmen, was the one finally adopted .; it 
was to negotiate with the enemy for a safe 
retreat. 

By this time Akbar Khan, the fiercest, the 
most ambitious, and certainly the ablest of 
the sons of Dost Mahomed, had appeared 
before Cabul. Already there had been ne- 
gotiations for peace between the Afghans 
and the English ; but the Afghan ambassa- 
dors had insolently demanded nothing less 
than unconditional submission from the 
British ; that they should surrender at dis- 
cretion, giving themselves up, with all their 
arms, ammunition, and treasure, as prisoners 
of war. These terms had been at once re- 
jected by Macnaghten. 

But when Akbar Khan arrived, and was 
received with noisy demonstrations of delight 
by the Afghans, negotiations were resumed ; 
and a treaty was drafted, of which the chief 
stipulations were, that the British should 
evacuate Afghanistan, to which country Dost 
Mahomed Khan and his family were to be 
sent back ; that Shah Soojah should quit 
Cabul and be allowed to go to India or 
elsewhere at his pleasure ; and as hostages 
for the fulfilment of the treaty certain British 
officers should remain at Cabul. 

This was a very different treaty from those 
a British envoy had been accustomed to 
sign, and it is not to be wondered at that 
Sir William Macnaghten, sorely harassed 
with doubts and misgivings, sought to delay 
its fulfilment, in the faint hope that some- 
thing might occur to procure for him more 
favourable conditions. And while the con- 
clusion of matters was thus delayed, Akbar 
Khan suddenly proposed an accommodation 
on an entirely new basis. His proposal, 
which was indeed in the nature of a con- 
spiracy, involved nothing less than the 
^'throwing over" of the chiefs with whom 
he professed to act, or rather, he proposed 
that he and his followers should unite with 
the British against those chiefs, to maintain 
Shah Soojah on the throne, Akbar Khan 
himself governing as Wuzeer. The English 
would thus be relieved from the humiliation 
of being compelled to leave the country ; for 
they might remain till the spring, and their 
nominee would still continue on the throne 
of Cabul. He further stipulated for a large 
sum of money for himself in recompense for 
the service he was doing to the British. 
Poor Sir William, sorely harassed and half 
heart-broken at the idea of a compulsory 
and shameful retreat, was tempted by the 
insidious offer, and eagerly clutched at the 
prospect of escape from humiliation. He 
closed with the proposal at once, and desired 
the reluctant General Elphinstone, who was 
startled at the ominous word " plot," and 
asked how the chiefs were to be disposed 
of, to be prepared to support him with 



troops. Macaulay, in speaking of Clive, 
says how that gifted but unscrupulous man 
was accustomed to look upon Indian politics 
as a game at which nothing was unfair ; how 
directly he was matched against an Indian 
intriguer, he became himself an Indian in- 
triguer, and descended without shame "to 
falsehood, to hypocritical caresses, to the sub- 
stitution of documents, and to the counter- 
feiting of hands." Something of this reckless 
spirit seems to have come upon Macnaghten 
on this occasion. Under ordinary circum- 
stances, and with his faculties unclouded by 
overwhelming misfortune, he would certainly 
not have listened to such a proposal as that 
of Akbar Khan. 

But he was falling into a trap, set and 
baited for him by Akbar. It was that 
treacherous chiefs intention to get the per- 
son of the British envoy into his power. 
Accordingly a conference was arranged, to 
which Macnaghten came, accompanied by 
three British officers. Akbar Kha.n arrived, 
surrounded by a great retinue of followers 
and friends ; and the Afghans, many of them 
fanatic Ghazees, came pressing round in a 
hostile and ominous manner. The pro- 
ceedings had hardly begun, when suddenly 
the arms of each of the Englishmen were 
seized from behind, and they were made 
prisoners. Akbar Khan himself endeavoured 
to secure the envoy, who struggled violently, 
with surprise and horror in his countenance. 
It appears that the chiefs were suspicious of 
Akbar Khan, and apprehensive that he would 
make a bargain for himself by sacrificing 
their interests, and that Akbar wished to 
dispel their suspicion and prove his sincerity 
to them by handing over to them the person 
of the English envoy. When the envoy was 
being seized by Akbar he struggled violently. 
That fierce chief, who was subject to ungovern- 
able fits of passion, lost all control over him- 
self, in the fear of losing his prisoner, and 
in a sudden impulse of rage, fired a pistol, 
which was one of a pair presented to him by 
Macnaghten a few days before. Thereupon 
the fanatic Ghazees cut the body to frag- 
ments. Thus perished one of the kindest 
and most loyal-hearted of men, betrayed by 
momentary weakness into a position unworthy 
of his high character, and treacherously be- 
trayed by the man he had trusted. Two of 
the three officers who accompanied him were 
carried away as prisoners ; the third was 
slain. 

Akbar Khan always put forth the above 
explanation of his conduct, asserting that the 
capture of the envoy was absolutely necessary 
for the re-establishment of his own credit 
with the suspicious chiefs. It is but a lame 
defence ; at best it only substitutes treachery 
for premeditated murder, and reduces the 
slaying of Macnaghten to manslaughter. 



ST-^ 



DOST MAHOMED AND AKBAR KHAN. 



The Retreat from Cabul ; Massacre 
AND Ruin. 

In the cantonments there was consternation 
and dismay at the terrible news that Mac- 
naghten had been massacred and his com- 
panions taken prisoners, and that the mangled 
body of the envoy had been publicly paraded 
through the streets of Cabul, and the lifeless 
head stuck up to public view. What should 
the army do ? To hold the position seemed 
impossible ; to break through the investing 
hordes of Afghans and secure a retreat ap- 
peared equally so. Major Eldred Pottinger, 



Hissar, and holding out to the last, but had 
been overruled by Shelton, poor General 
Elphinstone being too ill and depressed to 
give a decided opinion either way. He was 
overruled ; and by means of the captured 
officers, whose lives had been saved at con- 
siderable difficulty and risk by Akbar Khan 
from the enraged fanatics, a negotiation was 
opened for the evacuation of Afghanistan by 
the British force. It was agreed that, with 
the exception of six field-pieces, all the British 
guns were to be given up, with all the treasure 
and property in the hands of the English ; 
that a large sum should be paid to the Afghan 
chiefs for the safe-conduct of the Enghsh on 




Cabul. 



whose heroic conduct at Herat entitled his 
opinion to every consideration, was for at- 
tempting the latter course, beating off the 
enemy as long as possible, and dying sword 
in hand, if better might not be. But less 
heroic counsels prevailed, and it was resolved 
to treat with the triumphant Afghans, and 
with their chief who had imbrued his hands 
in the blood of a British envoy. Seldom has 
a British force been exposed to such humi- 
liation as in this unhappy negotiation with 
Akbar Khan. 

It was at a council held on Christmas Day 
in the cantonments that Pottinger had pro- 
posed his scheme of occupying the Bala 



their march ; that the departure of the English 
should take place at once ; and that in addi- 
tion to Lieutenants Airey and Conolly, who 
were already in the hands of the Afghans, 
four other officers should be placed in the 
hands of Akbar Khan as a guarantee that 
the articles would be duly carried out. " There 
is nothing more painful in all this painful 
history," says Sir John Kaye, " than the pro- 
gress of the negotiations which resulted in 
the accomplishment of this treaty. ... It is 
so rare a thing for Englishmen to throw them- 
selves upon the clemency and forbearance of 
an insolent foe, that when we see our officers 
imploring the Afghan chiefs 'not to overpower 



573 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the weak with suffering,' we contemplate the 
sad picture of our humiliation with as much 
astonishment and shame." Indeed, the 
■Ghazees were enjoying the very intoxication 
of triumph ; and in those dark days that 
preceded the evacuation of the cantonments, 
they used to hover round the English lines, 
insulting the officers and soldiers, who, burn- 
ing to chastise them, were not allowed to fire 
a shot, and plundering and carrying off the 
stores of corn and the cattle that had been 
purchased with much trouble and expense by 
the commissariat for provisioning the army 
•on its retreat. 

It was at the beginning of January 1842 
that the fatal retreat from Cabul began. The 
army numbered about four thousand fighting 
men, and these were encumbered, unfortu- 
nately, with twelve thousand camp followers, 
and with women and children, including the 
widow of the murdered Sir William Mac- 
naghten, some officers' wives with their chil- 
dren, and the heroic Lady Sale, whose husband, 
General Sir Robert Sale, was holding the 
fortress of Jellalabad, upon which the retreat- 
ing army was marching. In the wretched 
arrangement with Akbar Khan, it had been 
stipulated that the British garrison should 
leave Jellalabad, and proceed towards India 
before the arrival of the force from Cabul ; 
but General Sale and Captain Macgregor the 
political agent, having good information that 
the Afghans intended to massacre his force 
on their retreat, with admirable judgment 
refused to move from the strong position he 
felt himself capable of defending ; and when 
Abdool Ghuffoor Khan, a chief who had been 
appointed governor of Jellalabad, presented 
a letter from General Elphinstone and Major 
Pottinger, requesting that the fort should be 
•evacuated, Macgregor and Sale declined to 
move until they should receive security for 
their safe march to Peshawur. They took 
the course Elphinstone and Shelton should 
have taken at the beginning. 
' It was in the depth of the bitter Afghan 
winter, and the route of the army lay through 
the tremendous pass of Khoord Cabul. The 
cold was intense, and the snow lay deep on 
the ground, when on the 6th of January the 
troops moved out of their cantonments. 
Newab Zemaun Khan, the Abdiel of the 
Afghan chiefs, " among the faithless faithful 
only found," had warned Pottinger thSt it 
would be highly dangerous for the British 
force to march without the strong escort 
that had been promised, and that was 
necessary to defend the retreating troops 
from the fanaticism of the Ghazees and the 
rapacity of plundering Afghan bandits. But 
it was too late to remonstrate on the absence 
of the escort. The one thing to be done was 
to get away as fast as possible, and to. endea- 
vour to preserve something like order. 



In both these respects there was failure. 
Delay occurred in starting, and the enormous 
number of camp-followers were soon mixed 
up with the soldiers, to the utter destruction 
of all efficiency and discipline. The plunder- 
ing natives and the fierce Ghazees soon began 
their attacks. " Darting in among the bag- 
gage they cut down the helpless camp-fol- 
lowers," says Sir John Kaye, " and carried 
off whatever they could seize. The snow 
was soon plastered with blood . . . there 
was an enormous mass of struggling life, 
from which arose shouts and yells and oaths, 
an indescribable uproar of discordant sounds; 
the bellowings of the camels, the curses of 
the camel drivers, the lamentations of the 
Hindoostanees, the shrieks of women, and 
the cries of children, and the savage yells 
of the Ghazees rising in barbarous triumph 
above them all," Thus the retreat was begun ; 
and on the very first day, within a few miles 
of the starting-point, numbers were already 
lying down to die in the snow, —women and 
children, and even sepoys, numbed and 
smitten to death by the terrible cold. The 
chief features of Napoleon's retreat from 
Russia were here reproduced — the bitter frost, 
the want of provisions, the continual attacks 
of a relentless enemy. " It was no longer a 
retreating army," says Sir John Kaye, " it 
was a rabble in chaotic flight." The one 
chance of escape for the fighting men of the 
army now lay in pushing forward through 
the pass at their best speed, shaking off the 
camp-followers, who retarded their progress. 
But here again there was difference of opinion 
between General Elphinstone and Brigadier 
Shelton, andinvaluable time was lost. Another 
night was passed by the despairing, perishing 
army on the snow before they entered the 
Khoord Cabul Pass. In two days they had 
only traversed ten miles of the way, when on 
the second night they halted, " a great con- 
geries of men, women, and children, horses, 
ponies, and camels, wallowing in the snow. 
There was no shelter, no firewood, no food. 
The sepoys burnt their caps and accoutre- 
ments to obtain a little temporary warmth. 
.... The sun rose upon many stiffened 
corpses." And meanwhile the enemy were 
blocking up the further end of the pass. 

Akbar Khan now appeared with some six 
hundred horsemen, declaring that he had 
come to protect the English retreat, and at 
the same time to demand additional hostages 
for the evacuation of Jellalabad by General 
Sale. He professed himself anxious for the 
lives of the British, but unable to restrain 
the hostility and fanaticism of the Ghazees. 
There was nothing to be done but to comply 
with his demand, and three officers placed 
themselves in his hands as hostages. The 
struggling, panic-stricken mass now rolled 
into the stupendous defile of Koord Cabul, — 



574 



DOST MAHOMED AND AKBAR KHAN. 



a dark, narrow pass five miles long, shut in 
by precipitous walls of rock that render it 
dark and gloomy even at noonday. Here 
was perpetrated a fearful massacre, in which 
three thousand men are said to have fallen, 
shot down by the enemy or despatched by 
the cruel Afghan knives. When the pass 
was cleared, another halt was ordered by 
General Elphinstone, Akbar Khan having 
promised provisions, fuel, and protection to 
the retreating force. The native troops now 
began to desert to the enemy, and large 
numbers went over to save their lives. 

And now Akbar Khan made a new pro- 
position. It was that the English ladies 
should be placed under his charge, he en- 



army melted away beneath the attacks of the 
Afghans, Akbar Khan and his men hover- 
ing on the flanks, watching the butchery and 
doing nothing to prevent it. Day by day 
heaps of stiffened corpses showed where the 
pitiless foes had lain in wait to deal destruc- 
tion upon the fugitives ; and at last came the 
climax of the miserable calamity. The Jug- 
dulluck Pass, through which the survivors 
would have to make their way, was barri- 
caded by the enemy, and "the Cabul force 
ceased to be." A few managed to clear the 
barricades, but only to be cut down by the 
natives. At last the garrison of Jellalabad 
saw a solitary horseman, pale, faint, and 
almost ready to fall to the ground from the 




Mountain Road across the Frontier. 



gaging to convey them safely to Peshawur. 
It was the best thing to be done under the 
circumstances — indeed, the only chance of 
saving the lives of the unfortunate ladies ; 
''and so Lady Macnaghten, Lady Sale, and 
the other widows and wives of the Cabul 
force became the "guests" of the son of Dost 
Mahomed Khan. Of their subsequent for- 
tunes, the hardships they endured, and their 
ultimate preservation, we read in the admi- 
rable "Journal" of Lady Sale. The married 
officers accompanied their families ; and on 
the loth of January the remnant of what had 
once been an army staggered forward again 
in the hope of reaching the haven of refuge, 
Jellalabad. 
The effort was vain. Day by day the 



wretched pony that carried him, slowly making 
his way to the walls. It was Dr. Brydon, 
the sole survivor of the force of more than 
sixteen thousand men who had quitted Cabul 
only a few days before. 

Retribution and Vengeance ; Con- 
clusion, 

Undaunted, General Sale had now occa- 
sion to congratulate himself on his refusal to 
evacuate Jellalabad. Had he issued forth 
from that stronghold, England would have 
had to lament the loss of two armies instead 
of one. As it was, he had reasonable hope 
of holding out until Pollock, who was march- 
ing to. his aid, should arrive ; while brave 
General Nott was upholding the honour of 



575 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



England at Candahar. Akbar Khan ad- 
vanced against Jellalabad ; whereupon the 
English came out to attack him, and inflicted 
upon him a complete defeat ; utterly disper- 
sing the army he had brought against 
them. 

This success of the British marked the 
turning of the tide. Presently Pollock, having 
fought his way through the Kyber Pass, 
reached Jellalabad ; and Nott was ready at 
Candahar to co-operate with the two other 
generals. Lord Auckland, the Governor- 
General, had returned to England, and was 
succeeded by Lord Ellenborough, a man of 
acknowledged ability, though even then he 
had acquired the reputation of a tendency 
to indulge in " brave words," of a showy and 
theatrical character, not sufficiently followed 
up by corresponding deeds. On this occa- 
sion, however, stimulated it is said by an 
unmistakable expression of public feeling, 
he concurred in the idea of inflicting chas- 
tisement on the Afghans for the shame and 
humiliation brought on our troops by their 
treachery. 

Thus, in the summer of 1842, a brilliant 
series of successes effaced the stain of the 
defeat and disaster with which the year had 
begun. On the 1 5th of September Pollock 
entered Cabul, and as a punishment for that 
city's treachery, the great bazaar was de- 
stroyed. The ladies who had become the 
"guests" of Akbar Khan, and who had 
suffered much hardship and privation, were 
given up ; and it was like a piece of poetical 
justice that the task of effecting their libera- 



tion should have been entrusted to and com- 
pleted by General Sale. 

The return to Cabul and the destruction ot 
the bazaar where poor Sir William Macnagh- 
ten's corpse had been exposed to the insults 
of the populace was a just and necessary 
vindication of British honour ; but Lord Ellen- 
borough incurred no little ridicule by a 
" coup de theatre^'' at which Mahometans 
and Hindoos alike laughed. He caused the 
gates of the temple of Somnauth to be carried 
off from Afghanistan to India, while a pom- 
pous proclamation set forth how the despoiled 
tomb of Sultan Mahmoud looked upon the 
ruins of Ghuznee, and how the insult of eight 
hundred years was at last avenged. The 
gates were not genuine relics, and the whole 
affair excited ridicule alike in England and 
in the East. 

Having vindicated the prestige of England, 
the Government took the very sensible step 
of leaving Afghanistan to itself. Shah Soojah 
had been murdered some time before, having 
gained nothing by the help of his allies but 
the uncertain tenure of a menaced throne 
during a few unquiet months, and for this 
the unfortunate old man had given up the 
security and affluence he enjoyed in India. 
Dost Mahomed Khan, released from his 
honourable captivity, was restored to the 
throne of which he should never have been 
deprived. Never was there a more striking 
example of the folly of hasty intervention in 
the quarrels of others than was afforded by 
the events of the first Afghan war. 

H. W. D. 




576 




LlELFTHAVEN, WHENCE THE PlLGRIMS SET SAIL FOR THE ISeW WORLD. 



THE MEN OF THE "MAYFLOWER:" 

THE STORY OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS AND THE 
COLONIZATION OF NEW ENGLAND. 



The Departure from Defthaven— Who were the Puritans— Rise of the Party under Henr>- VIII., Mary, and Elizabeth — 
Commencement of the Puritan Exodus — Departure frcm England — The Voyage — Landing at Cape Cod — The 
First Sunday on Shore — ''Welcome, Englishmen!" — The Colonists' First Summer^More Emigrants arrive — Disa- 
greements with the Merchants— Continued Emigration of the Puritans— The Dorchester Adventurers — Adoption 
of a Confession of Faith — Civil Laws passed — Roger Williams, one of the Noblest of the Pilgrim Fathers — Intoler- 
ance of the Puritans — Laws against Witchcraft — Progress of the Colonies. 




The Departure from Delfthaven. 
N that low-lying shore, where the 
slowly-moving Meuse mingles its 
sluggish waters with a sombre sea, 
and the grey northern ocean frets 
for ever in foaming surge on dull-coloured 
dykes, lies the quiet little port of Delfthaven. 
Unpicturesque and uninteresting as it may 
be, it was yet the scene of an episode which 
may well be termed one of the turning-points 
of the world's history, — an episode which, 
though humble in itself, has been produc- 
tive of the mightiest and most momentous 



results. For, from that harbour set forth 
the men who founded the New England 
over the sea, and who led the way ot that 
great Puritan emigration which made the 
Greater Britain across the Atlantic. 

There were no picturesque surroundings to 
the humble scene. The huge dykes which 
shut out the sullen sea from the marshes 
and mud-banks of Holland, the dull-looking 
architecture of the old Dutch town, the sombre- 
coloured quay, the sluggish river, — none of 
these things presented an imposing picture ; 
but the scene became singularly affecting and 

577 PP 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



•deeply impressive when, as the sun shone 
ieebly out, a group of sad-faced men and 
weeping women came slowly from the town 
to the wharf, and as they reached the water's 
edge, the pastor of the little flock fell on his 
knees and, with uplifted hands and heart- 
stirring voice, besought the blessing of the 
Almighty on their anxious enterprise. Then 
followed the lingering embraces and the 
agonised farewells, the bursts of passionate 
weeping and choking sobs which tell of break- 
ing hearts, and those who were bound for the 
far-off West tore themselves away from their 
relatives and friends and betook themselves 
to the little vessel slowly swinging at anchor 
in the dingy harbour. The sails were spread, 
the anchor weighed, and with a booming 
■ discharge of their little pieces of cannon 
and a few small arms, the vessel slowly 
glided from the shore, soon to be hidden below 
the line of the sea from the tearful, straining 
eyes of their companions on the quay. 

And thus, amid blessings and prayers, the 
little band departed for their unknown future. 
They went because they had been driven 
from Old England, the land of their birth 
and of their love, to seek shelter in exile ; 
and they set forth now to found a New 
England in the realms of the setting sun, 
— a New England where they could carry 
with them the language and the traditions 

• of Old England, — a New England where 
they could establish the life and labour, the 
manners and the customs, of the Old Country. 

Here in Holland, whence they had first 
fled from the persecution of a tyrant Church 
and a tyrant king, they had met with 
respect and kindness ; but they yearned for 
. a home, they felt they were as yet strangers 
in a strange land, they were pilgrims and 

• exiles; a strange tongue was spoken around 
them, the manners and customs of the 

-country were different, and they feared 
their children would soon be merged into 
the people of the Netherlands. Let us 
go, said their pastor, to that new Western 
World across the Atlantic, and found there 
.a new country which shall be but another 
England, and a better England, seeing that 
there we can worship God as seems best 
to us, and no man shall dare to make us 
afraid. And we may hope to advance the 
gospel of the kingdom of Christ in the New 
World, yea, if we be but even stepping-stones 
unto others for performing so great a work. 
And so they set forth, they whom the world 
now knows as " The Pilgrim Fathers," a 
band of English Puritans, to win for them- 
selves and their children a new land and a 
new home, where they might worship God 
as their conscience dictated. 

Who were the Puritans. 
Notwithstanding many opinions to the 



578 



contrary, there is probably no religious party 
which has exerted greater influence on the 
history of the English speaking race than 
the bitterly persecuted sect known as the 
English Puritans. It is to them we owe 
that complete religious toleration which for 
so many years has proved to be such a rich 
blessing to our country, giving us compa- 
rative peace and quietness when other 
nations have been plunged in the horrors of 
religious and theological strife ; and it is to 
them the world very largely owes the exis- 
tence of that Great Republic formed hy "our 
kin beyond the sea," upon which they im- 
pressed their own character and policy to 
a marvellous degree. 

No doubt there is much to criticise in 
many old English Puritans ; their austere 
theology, their gloomy views of life and 
religion, their endless disputes, their dreary 
dogmas, and their bitter fanaticism, are 
repulsive to us of these latter days, and were 
repulsive to many in their own day ; but for 
their tenacious adherence to the great prin- 
ciple of religious liberty, the principle that each 
individual has the inalienable right to pursue 
his own course in rehgious matters without 
interference from the state or a dominant 
Church, for their magnificent vindication of 
this great principle the world owes them 
lasting honour. And not all of those old Puri- 
tans were the gloomy fanatics it has been the 
custom to paint them ; many were cultivated 
and refined in the highest degree, and were 
quite willing to give to others the religious 
toleration they claimed for themselves. 

Theologically and socially they were divided 
into four or five distinct parties, and possibly 
even more: there were the educated gentlemen, 
scholars and men of high position ; there were 
mild enthusiasts, of a somewhat lower social 
class, who wished to give every one the tolera- 
tion they asked for themselves ; there were 
coarse and vulgar fanatics ; there were those 
of the lower classes, socially honest and hardy, 
but unrefined ; while, alas ! there were disgust- 
ing hypocrites, the Maw-worms of the satirist. 
The various religious opinions of these classes 
differed very largely even among themselves, 
but with their dogmas we have now nothing 
to do. It is their ecclesiastical position alone 
that concerns us — the position they took up 
that they would suffer persecution and ex- 
patriation rather than give up the principle 
of religious liberty. 

Rise of the Puritans. 
As everyone knows, or should know, 
when Henry VIII. abolished the supre- 
macy of the Pope in England, he estab- 
lished his own authority instead, and the 
Church of England, which then differed in 
doctrine but very slightly from the Church of 
Rome, took its place, with the very pious 



THE MEN OF THE ''MAYFLOWER: 



King Harry as its head. The principle of 
private judgment in spiritual matters was 
by no means recognized, and every man in 
those days had to formulate his faith in 
accordance with the latest whim of the 
despot " on the throne, or to suffer for his 
disobedience. But there were many good 
and worthy men who strongly objected to 
this state of things. They maintained, that 
only to deny the Pope's authority in 
spiritual matters was not a sufficiently far 
removal from Romish errors and supersti- 
tions. They maintained that the Bible, and 
the Bible alone, should be the trae test and 
guide in all spiritual matters ; they held that 
Christ alone could be the true Head of the 
Church, and further, that His Church was a 
spiritual Church. They denounced every- 
thing Popish, and in their zeal they went to 
such extremes as to maintain that the wear- 
ing of surplices was as erroneous as the 
worship of images. Hooper the Bishop of 
Gloucester (who suffered death in the reign 
of Mary) was the chief of this party, and 
it is said that he underwent imprisonment 
in the reign of Henry VIII. rather than 
'wear the episcopal dress then prescribed by 
law. 

During the reign of Mary, all parties of 
Protestants suffered alike, and were united 
■in their common opposition to the Papists 
and the revival of the Pope's authority. But 
the Act of Uniformity, passed in the first year 
of Elizabeth's reign, re-established the su- 
premacy of the Crown in spiritual matters, 
and re-opened the division between the 
Protestants. For some years this Act was 
not rigidly enforced, although much perse- 
cution went on under it. As time went on, 
it became quite clear, however, that the 
Protestants had indeed split into two parties ; 
and from the fact that many of the Puritans 
would not, on conscientious grounds, con- 
form to the Act of Uniformity, they were, 
and of course are still, known as Non- 
conformists, and also Dissenters. When 
Elizabeth died, it has been reckoned that 
the party numbered one hundred thousand 
declared adherents. 

The Puritans hoped much from James I. 
They forgot he was the son of Mary Stuart, 
and thought that, as he had been brought 
up as a Calvinist, and had been partly trained 
in their views, he would be favourably dis- 
posed towards them. But he was a Stuart, 
and far too fond of despotic power. On his 
accession he found the sweets of spiritual 
authority too gratifying to be put aside. 
Therefore, at the famous conference in 
January, 1604, at Hampton Court, when the 
Puritan leaders petitioned for a redress of 
their ecclesiastical grievances, he told them 
plainly that in his realms he would have but 
"one doctrine, one discipline, one religion in 



substance and in ceremony." In effect he 
went on to say, "You must conform, or I will 
persecute you out of the land." He did so, 
and the colonization of New England was the 
result. 

The determination of the King to be abso- 
lute in religious matters was fully upheld by 
the leaders of the Anglican Church of that 
day. They utterly failed to see, or refused 
to see, that the only logical alternative to the 
Church of Rome is individual liberty of con- 
science. The idea of Henry VIII., Mary, 
Elizabeth, or James I., that they were infal- 
lible, and therefore had the right to dictate 
to their subjects in religious matters, was 
particularly unfortunate, as well as utterly 
illogical, and we can well believe there were 
many who preferred to remain within the 
fold of Rome and accept the long estab- 
lished decrees of that outwardly splendid 
and superb Church, which, with all its errors, 
had around it the glamour of tradition, and 
whose head called himself the Vicar of Christ, 
than accept as their pope the secular sove- 
reign, whose opinion varied greatly from 
year to year or from reign to reign. The 
whole subject turned on the vexed question 
of authority in religious matters — the Puritans 
maintaining that Christ alone has authority 
over His Church, the Anglicans of that day 
believing that the sovereign is the proper 
authority, and the Romanists owning the 
authority of the Pope. 

James, however, was determined to be as 
absolute in spiritual matters as in secular; 
and the Puritans, who were only prepared to 
" render unto Cccsar the things which were 
Ccesar's," or, in other words, to obey him in 
earthly matters, were persecuted with the 
utmost severity. And, as usual, persecution 
only served to increase their numbers. Their 
position ecclesiastically was so logical and so 
strong that some of the most vigorous thinkers 
of the day were to be found in their ranks. 

Commencement of the Puritan 
Exodus. 

As early as 1559 small bands of Dissenters 
had settled on the coasts of Holland, where, 
under the equable laws of the Dutch Repub- 
lic, they enjoyed complete freedom of con- 
science ; and when the persecution under 
James I. waxed hot, there were many who 
turned their eyes longingly to those low-lying 
shores where their co-religionists had found 
shelter. 

About this time there lived in the little 
town of Scrooby, in Nottinghamshire, an 
eloquent preacher named John Robinson. 
He was one of the leaders of a Puritan sect 
now known as Independents, and used to 
minister to a small party who were wont to 
meet secretly for worship in the house of one 
of their number named Brewster. These 



579 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



meetings at length became known, and the 
bitter persecution which followed determined 
them to take refuge in Holland. The attempt 
to escape was first made in 1607, but was 
frustrated for the time by the authorities ; but 
in the following year the would-be emigrants 
were successful, and, under the guidance of 
their pastor, they formed a religious and social 
community at Amsterdam. They soon fell 
into great poverty, and thereupon they moved 
to Leyden, where for twelve years they seem 
to have enjoyed a certain amount of pros- 
perity and peace. By their thrift, hard work, 
and rehgious conduct, they earned the respect 
of the Dutch. 

At that time all Europe was filled with 
news of the great Western continent, and of 
the colonies founded there. The wonderful 
fertility of those far-off shores had been 
painted in glowing terms by Raleigh and 
others, and it was to this new land that 
Robinson turned, as being likely to afford 
the place of refuge which they needed. There 
they hoped to establish a colony which should 
be under English rule, and should be in- 
habited by none but their own countrymen. 
Some of their Dutch friends wished to ac- 
company them, but they would not listen to 
the proposal. " We go to found a New 
England^ they said, " where we can pre- 
serve our language and nationality intact. 
We wish to live under the protection and 
government of our native land." Probably 
the disturbed state of Holland was also 
another reason why they wished to leave 
for those vast solitudes across the sea, where 
they could worship as they pleased, without 
interference from Church or State. But in 
such a perilous undertaking it would never 
do to have those engaged who were not 
entirely of one heart and one mind. 

There were many difficulties to be over- 
come, however, before the emigrants could 
set forth. They were poor, and had not the 
means to purchase or hire a vessel to take 
them across the Atlantic, or to procure the 
necessary implements for building houses 
and cultivating the rough soil when they 
arrived at their destination. Still further, 
as they had decided to inhabit a territory 
far removed from the colonies which had 
already been planted on those far-away 
shores, they wished to make arrangements 
with one of the two companies to which 
different portions of the country belonged, 
whereby a distinct district might be allotted 
to them, separate, and indeed remote, from 
the other colonies, where they could live " in 
a distinct body by themselves." 

In 1617, therefore, the intending emi- 
grants sent John Carver and Robert Cush- 
man, their minister, to London, who finally 
entered into arrangements with what was 
then known as the London Company, to form 



a plantation in the northern part of Virginia. 
This State was the first British settlement 
in North America, having been discovered 
by John Cabot in 1497. It was taken pos- 
session of for England by Sir Walter Raleigh 
in 1584, and by him named Virginia after 
the virgin-queen, Elizabeth. 

The Puritans' Petition. 
The consent of the London Company hav" 
ing been obtained, there only remained the 
religious difficulty. A petition was drawn up 
to King James, stating that the emigrants 
wished to extend the dominions of England, 
and to live under English rule, but that, if they 
risked so much in going to a wild and un- 
known country, they must have perfect liberty 
of conscience accorded to them, and wished 
the same to be confirmed by the sovereign. 
The narrow-minded and mean king con- 
sidered that to advance the dominions 
of England was indeed "a good and 
honest notion," but wanted to know who 
were to be their ministers and what was to 
be their calling. They answered that the 
power of making ministers required no 
bishop, and that they hoped to engage in 
fishing. The King replied grimly that 
" fishing was an honest trade, and the 
apostles own calling," and so far all was 
well ; but as for their rehgious difficulties he 
must refer their petition to their Graces the 
Bishops of London and Canterbury. Of 
course these right reverend fathers could 
not agree to the Puritans' petition, and the 
utmost the emigrants could receive was a 
promiseTh^t they should be neglected. With 
this they were obliged to be content; and they 
comforted themselves with the thought that 
if they had obtained the King's consent, 
means would have been found to evade or 
withdraw it, supposing that sufficient interest 
were taken in them afterwards to wish to 
persecute them. 

These difficulties having been overcome, 
they next formed a jointstock company 
with some of the London merchants, by 
the terms of which each emigrant mort- 
gaged his labour for seven years, and was 
reckoned as a ;£io shareholder. At the end 
of seven years all profit was to be reckoned 
up, and the London merchants, who had 
advanced 2^ £100, were to receive ten times 
as much as each settler. This arrangement 
was obviously very unfair to the Pilgrims, 
but it appears to have been the only one that 
they could make, and even as it was the 
money they could obtain, even on these terms, 
was barely enough to supply their most 
pressing needs. 

Two vessels, the Speedwell and the May- 
flower, were procured and prepared for 
their reception. The Speedwell, which was 
bought in Holland, was a small ship of 



580 



THE MEN OF THE ''MAYFLOWER:' 



sixty tons ; and the Mayflower, hired and 
freighted in England, was of one hundred and 
twenty tons burthen. These two ships could 
hold but about a third of Mr. Robinson's 
congregation, and it was therefore decided 
that a party of the youngest and strongest 
men, with a few young women, should go 
under the leadership of Brewster, the govern- 
ing elder, while the remainder stayed behind 
under Mr. Robinson's guidance until they 
learned how their brethren had fared. 

As the day drew on for their departure, the 
emigrants were feasted and feted by their 
friends and relatives. Special religious exer- 
cises were also held, for the Pilgrims wished 
that all their enterprises should be begun, 
continued, and ended in God. 

At the farewell services, their eloquent 
pastor addressed them in high and holy 
words, which even at this lapse of time stir 
the heart and breathe a breadth of thought 
far from universal even now in this en- 
lightened nineteenth century. 

" I charge you," said he in a firm voice, 
that yet shook Avith the strength of his emo- 
tion, — " I charge you, before God and His 
blessed angels, that you follow me no farther 
than you have seen me follow the Lord 
Jesus Christ. If God reveal anything to 
you by any other instrument of His, be as 
ready to receive it as ever you were to 
receive any truth by my ministry, for I 
am persuaded the Lord h:\s more truth yet 
to break forth out of His Holy Word. I 
cannot sufficiently bewail the condition of 
the Reformed Churches, who are come to a 
period in i-eligion, and will go at present no 
further than the instruments of their Refor- 
mation. The Lutherans cannot be drawn 
to go beyond what Luther saw ; whatever 
part of His will our good God has revealed 
to Calvin they will rather die than embrace 
it. And the Calvinists, you see, stick fast 
where they were left by that great man of 
God, who yet saw not all things. This is a 
misery much to be lamented, for though 
they were burning and shining lights in their 
times, yet they penetrated not into the whole 
council of God ; but were they now living, 
would be as willing to embrace further light 
as that which they first received, for it is 
not possible the Christian world should come 
so lately out of such thick Antichristian 
darkness, and that perfection of knowledge 
should break forth at once." He then went 
on to tell his followers that their life's work 
was not to found a settlement by Haarlem 
Mere nor by the Zuyder Zee, but to carry 
the Gospel of Christ and plant the flag of 
religious freedom on those new shores in the 
realms of the setting sun. We must go to 
found a New England, the corner-stone of 
whose constitution shall be complete civil 
and religious liberty. 



Departure from England. 

All preparations being now concluded, the 
little party set sail from Delfthaven amid 
the prayers and tears of their relatives and 
friends. Among the names of those who 
then sailed we meet with some familiar to 
us in Longfellow's well-known poem. Thus 
there were Miles Standish, John Alden, 
John Carver, William Brewster, — the leader 
of the little band, — WiUiam Bradford, Edward 
Winslovv, and others, all pious and godly 
men. Miles Standish, it may be observed, 
although well-disposed to them, was not a 
member of their congregation; but, being a 
true soldier, and one whose military ex- 
perience might well be relied upon, the 
Puritans were glad to have him with them, 
for it was quite to be expected that they 
might have to encounter wild savages in this 
new land, and that his strong arm and 
knowledge of war might be of great value. 

The intention of the emigrants was to sail 
first to Southampton and there join theyl/^y- 
flozuer, whence the two vessels would sail 
together for the northern part of Virginia. 
Southampton was duly reached on the 5th of 
August, and then dividing their number and 
their baggage and implements into the two 
ships, they sailed down Channel. Scarcely 
had they set forth, however, before it was 
found that the Mayflower was sadly out 
of repair, and they were compelled to put 
in at Dartmouth to refit. 

Eight precious days passed in the Devon- 
shire port, and then they set sail once more. 

Every day was precious now, for the 
summer was well advanced, and they wished 
to land as long before winter time as possi- 
ble. But no sooner had the two little vessels 
seen the last of their loved England recede 
below the blue line of the sea, and they 
began to experience the long roll of the 
mighty Atlantic waves in all their majestic 
force, than Reynolds, the captain of the Speed- 
well, became afraid of facing the ocean in his 
little barque at that season, and he refused 
to proceed. There was no help for it there- 
fore but to return to Plymouth. Here they 
abandoned the Speedwell and its timorous 
captain. Some of their number being now 
obliged to return to London, because there 
was not sufficient room on board the May- 
floiver for all, they re-embarked, and on the 
6th of September the little vessel — the lonely 
pioneer of freedom — set forth on its solitary 
way to the land of the setting sun. 

The Landing at Cape Cod. 

Storms and rough weather delayed their 

passage sadly, and the captain mistook his 

reckoning and sailed much farther north 

than was intended, consequently the voyage 



581 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



which is now completed in about ten days 
took them sixty-five I 

In the meantime, much had been done, 
for the constitution of their body-politic had 
been decided upon, — a constitution which 
affirmed the great principle of American 
government to be a righteous democracy 
based upon equal laws and equal rights. On 
board the little Mayflower, before landing, 
the following compact was drawn up and 
signed by all the men present: — " In the name 
of God, Amen. We, whose names are under 
written, the loyal subjects of our dread sove- 
reign King James, having undertaken, for the 
glory of God, and advancement of the Chris- 
tian faith, and honour of our King and coun- 
try, a voyage to plant the first colony in the 
northern parts of Virginia, do, by these pre- 
sents, solemnly and mutually, in the presence 
of God, and of one another, covenant and 
combine ourselves together into a civil body 
politic, for our better ordering and preser- 
vation, and furtherance of the ends aforesaid ; 
and by virtue hereof, to enact, constitute, and 
frame such just and equal laws, ordinances, 
acts, constitutions and offices, from time to 
time, as shall be thought most convenient 
for the general good of the colony. Unto 
which we promise all due submission and 
obedience." 

After signing this document, John Carver 
was elected governor for the first year, with 
five magistrates to assist him. 

There were forty-one signatures, being the 
names of all the men present, who, with their 
wives and children, — numbering 102 souls all 
told, — constituted the first Pilgrim band to 
New England. 

They had selected the country near the 
Hudson River as their point of settlement ; 
but by reason of a mistake on the part of the 
captain (or, as some writers state, by reason 
of his treachery, being bribed by some Dutch 
settlers who wished to occupy the land fixed 
upon by the emigrants), they were taken much 
further north, to the barrenest part of 
Massachusetts. 

Wearied and wasted by their long, rough 
voyage, there were overjoyed to see the dark 
headland of Cape Cod loom out of the wil- 
derness of waves at last, and soon after they 
rounded the cape, and cast anchor in the 
Bay of Fundy. 

Their position was miserable in the 
extreme. The weather was bitterly cold, 
and the shores wild and bleak ; low sand- 
hills, sparsely covered with stunted woods, 
sloped drearily down to the sea. A far 
different picture indeed from that they had 
expected to find. Their stock of provisions 
was very low, and their health much en- 
feebled by the long and trying voyage ; 
one of their number had already succumbed 
to the inclemency of the season and the 



trials of the journey. But nothing could 
daunt the bold spirit and resolute will of 
these stout-hearted Englishmen. They had 
come to found a colony, and found it they 
would, or perish in the attempt. 

As it was useless now to attempt to reach 
the land they had first decided upon, they 
had no alternative but to look about them 
for a suitable spot for settlement. The 
present spot would not do — a few minutes' 
walk upon the barren shore soon convinced 
them of this ; they decided, therefore, to sail 
round the coasts in the large boat they had 
brought with them, known as a shallop. 

But this, like the Mayflower herself 
when they had first started, was sadly out of 
repair, and it was nearly three weeks before 
the slow carpenter pronounced it fit for sea. 

While these repairs were being executed, 
Standish and some other of the boldest 
among them frequently landed, and made 
excursions to explore the surrounding coun- 
try. But no suitable spot could be found. 

The cold was excessive ; the spray froze 
on their steel corslets, and the bitter wind was 
their only welcome. In ranging over the 
country, they came at times upon a few 
graves of Indians ; occasionally they saw a 
group of deserted wigwams, near which they 
once found a few heaps of maize ; and on one 
occasion saw a desolate house, where they dis- 
covered more maize and an iron kettle ; the 
latter had apparently been washed ashore 
from some European ship, and utilized by 
the Indians. Of these the explorers saw but 
little on this their first expedition, and' 
those of whom they did obtain a glimpse, 
fled at their approach. To add to their diffi- 
culties, snow fell in great quantities, and 
dreariness, desolation, and death seemed to be- 
their only portion in the land of their choice. 

Covering over, the graves they had unwit- 
tingly opened, — for they did not wish to be- 
sacrilegious or needlessly provoke the hostility 
of the Indians, — they carried away the corn 
and the kettle and returned to their ship. 

When the shallop was ready, they set sail 
along the coast and landed at various places, 
but only to meet with disappointment. The 
snow lay half-a-fodt thick, and they soon 
became tired of ploughing their way through 
it. And this day they found "no more corn,, 
nor anything else but graves." 

Again, on the 6th of December, they set 
forth — Carver, Standish, and others — on 
another voyage of discovery. This time they 
intended to venture farther afield, for it was 
evident that there was no spot near, suitable 
for a settlement. The first night they 
kindled a watch-fire at Namskeket, or Great 
Meadow Creek. Huddled around the blaze^ 
they passed the hours of darkness ; and next 
morning, before the red winter dawn streaked 
the eastern sky, they were up, and had scarce 



582 



THE MEN OF THE ''MAYFLOWER:' 



finished their prayers before a yelling war- 
whoop and a cloud of arrows— which rattled 
harmlessly on their steel corslets — gave evi- 
dence that Indians were near. Betaking 
themselves to their little boat again, they 
continued their course around the dreary 
shore. The weather was bitterly cold ; the 
wild wind blew fiercely ; hail and snow beat 
in their faces ; the spray froze on their 
clothes ; the sea became so rough and bois- 
terous that their rudder broke. Steering with 
their oars they unfurled more sail, for the 
Sabbath was near, and they had determined 
to rest upon the holy day. They wished to 
find a suitable spot where they could keep 
it in devotional exercises, but they could 
make but httle headway. The wind was 
still rising, and presently their little mast, 
yielding to the great pressure upon it of the 
extra sail, snapped like a withered branch, 
and the shallop rolled helplessly in the 
roaring surge. The pilot wished to run the 
boat ashore, but the others persisted in keep- 
ing her before the wind. "If you are men," 
cried one, " turn her about ! " They did so, 
and providentially they were presently able 
to shelter themselves under a high rock. 

The First Sunday on Shore. 

The dull twilight of the short winter after- 
noon had now deepened into night, and all 
was dark about them. The rain beat pitilessly 
upon them, but they managed to effect a 
landing, and with great difficulty they kindled 
a fire among the rocks. Crouching over the 
cheery flames they ate their scanty supper 
and dried their wet clothes, and then sought 
the rest they so much needed. 

On looking about them next morning, they 
found their landing-place to be a small island 
— which they subsequently named Clark's 
Island— situated just inside a fair harbour. 
They were too weak and tired to explore 
far, but saihng gently round the shore, they 
saw that the soil appeared better here than 
the barren sand-hills they had left, and they 
decided to stay to make further investi- 
gations. 

But the next day being Sunday, they 
desisted from all efforts, and went through 
their religious observances as though they 
had been comfortably situated in their old 
homes. On Monday morning, the nth of 
December, they sounded the harbour and 
found it sufficiently deep for shipping. 
Gratified by this encouraging circumstance, 
they then landed and proceeded into the 
interior, where they found what had been 
cornfields, and running streams of fresh 
water. The whole neighbourhood seemed to 
promise better than any they had yet seen, 
and with joy they returned to the Mayflower 
to report their good news. 

In a few more days the sea-worn and 



weary party landed at the same spot ; and,, 
true to their purpose to found a New England,, 
where they might reproduce the best charac- 
teristics, and even the names, of their old 
home, they named the place New Plymouth,. 
in grateful remembrance of the last town.; 
they had seen in the old country and the- 
"God speeds" they had received from its 
inhabitants. The large boulder of rock upon 
which they landed, and upon which probably 
the pioneers had landed when a few days- 
before they had come here, is still preserved,, 
and named Pilgrim, or Plymouth, or Fore- 
fathers' Rock to this day. Part of its face 
has been removed to a spot in the town 
near the court-house, and the remainder is 
still pointed out with pride at the head of 
the longest wharf of the busy town. 

According to tradition, a young woman 
named Mary Chilton was the first to step- 
ashore. She shortly afterwards married John 
Winslow, and her sister Susannah, Edward 
Latham; and the direct descendants of both, 
the Winslows and the Lathams are living to- 
day in Boston and Bridgewater. 

But though the emigrants had landed on a 
favourable spot, the sufferings of these bold, 
colonists were but little lessened. The soil 
was hard bound in the bands of an iron 
frost ; wind and snow fell continuously ; and 
although the woods soon resounded to the 
unusual noise of their axes, their progress was 
but slight. The majority were still obliged 
to live on board ship. The terrible weather 
to which they had been exposed, and the- 
insufficient food, brought on sickness, which 
swept away half their number. At one period 
so many were ill that only seven were suffi- 
ciently well to tend the sick. These sufferings,, 
and the almost daily burials in the wilderness, 
sadly hindered and depressed the survivors. 
The first work to which they set their hands- 
was to build houses, and it was agreed that 
each man should raise his own. But the bad 
weather was so continuous that it was only 
now and again that they could work. In 
course of a few months, however, nineteen 
little wooden tenements were erected, which 
were quite enough to contain the survivors of 
the little pilgrim band. Around this group 
of houses they then proceeded to erect a 
strong palisade, while .on an eminence, also 
within the walls, they erected as strong a 
fortress as they could, on which they mounted 
six cannon. This fort served two purposes ;. 
for while the upper part was useful as a point 
of observation and work of defence, the lower 
part was used as a church. 

And thus, in tending their sick, burying 
their dead, and building their little town, the 
dreary winter passed, and in March the south 
wind blew and brought warm and welcome- 
weather. The snow melted, the birds sang, 
bright and beautiful spring beamed over the 



5B3 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



land. Then they bethought themselves of 
planting cornfields. 

" Welcome, Englishmen ! " 

Up to this time they had seen but little of 
the Indians. Occasionally they had marked 
the smoke of the Indian watch-fires rise 
against the cold, grey winter sky ; and in 
their exploring expeditions they had found 
deserted wigwams and other signs of the 
presence of savages in the vicinity. But one 
day in early spring they were greatly startled 
by the sudden appearance of an Indian in 
their midst, who exclaimed, in their own 
language, "Welcome, EngHshm,en ! " He 
proved to be one of the Wampanoa^s, and 
had picked up a few words of the English 
language in his intercourse with the fisher- 
men of Penobscot. He was disposed to 
be very friendly, and soon introduced them 
to Massasoit, the chief, with whom they 
made a treaty of friendship, which lasted a 
considerable time. In their intercourse with 
the natives they learned that a terrible pesti- 
lence had recently swept over this part of 
the country, which not only accounted for 
the numerous graves they had seen, but also 
explained the absence of the aborigines, who 
had fled farther south. The mistake of the 
Captain, therefore, in bringing the May- 
fiower here instead of taking the emigrants, 
as had been first decided, to the neighbour- 
hood of the Hudson, probably proved their 
salvation, for at that time that part of the 
country was crowded with savages who had 
fled there from the pestilence which had 
raged in the neighbourhood of New Ply- 
mouth. 

Unfortunately there were other tribes of 
Indians far less favourably disposed towards 
the English settlers. Among these were the 
Narragansetts, who were also at enmity with 
the friendly Indians ; and one bright morn- 
ing the English were astonished at receiving 
a serpent-skin filled with arrows as a declara- 
tion of war. William Bradford, the head of 
the little colony, promptly returned the skin, 
filled with powder and shot, which bold reply, 
significant of the contempt in which the Eng- 
hsh held the Indians, produced the intended 
effect, for the savages had witnessed the 
deadly powers of the English guns, and for 
a time the settlers were unmolested, until 
some years later their enmity was rearoused 
by the evil deeds of some of the other settlers. 

Soon after the visit of the Indian who had 
so strangely bade them welcome, the little 
colony was greatly grieved by the death of 
their first governor — John Carver. William 
Bradford was elected in his stead ; but the 
new governor ruled over a sadly diminished 
number, for only fifty were now left alive. 
The others had fallen victims to the terrible 



privations and severities of that long and 
bitter winter. When, therefore, the May- 
flower returned home in the early spring, it 
was to leave half her passengers as victims 
to their struggle for religious freedom. But 
there was no faltering in the hearts of the 
survivors, as they stood on the sloping shore 
and watched the spring sunlight glisten on 
the white sail now fast disappearing, and 
leaving them lonely and strange in a strange 
land. Yet resolute and stern though they 
were, their hearts were saddened and softened 
as they thought of the distant home to which 
their little vessel was returning, and which 
they themselves would see no more. 

The Colonists' First Summer. 

But there was no time to give way to these 
feelings, natural though they were. There 
was hard and stern work before these men 
and women, and well they knew it. A wild 
and desolate region had to be brought into 
cultivation, and meanwhile they were often 
famishing for want of food. '" I have seen," 
says Winslow, " men stagger by reason of 
faintness for want of food;" and frequently 
at night they knew not whence the food for 
the next day would come. For some time 
they had no corn, and subsisted entirely on 
fish. It is worthy of remark, however, that 
after the season of the greatest mortality had 
passed, the survivors — about fifty in number 
— lived to a good old age. 

Their material progress was but very slow. 
The land was not fertile, and their toil was 
incessant. A space of ground, three poles 
in length by half a pole in breadth, had 
been allotted to each person upon which to 
build a house and cultivate a garden, other- 
wise the land was held in common, and all 
shared alike. This arrangement produced 
great discontent, for the idle did not work, 
and yet reaped as large a proportion as 
those who were industrious. The plan v/as 
therefore continued only two years ; and in 
1623, land was allotted to each person, as 
had been the case with the gardens. This 
new arrangement answered much better. 
Each family felt that their bread depended 
on their own exertions, and, indeed, it pro- 
duced such good effects that even the women 
and children went out into the fields to work. 
Soon so much corn was produced that the 
Indians used to purchase it, giving beaver 
skins and the fur of other animals in ex- 
change. Before this prosperity was reached, 
however, the colonists had to pass through 
several seasons of scarcity and want, and it 
seemed as though their trials and difficulties 
would never end. 

More Emigrants arrive. 
During the summer and autumn of 1621, 



584 



THE MEN OF THE ''MAYFLOWER." 



other Puritan settlers — undeterred by the 
accounts taken home by the Mayflozuer 
of the difficuhies the first emigrants had to 
meet — arrived from England, and being 
totally unprovided with the necessaries of 
life, they made great demands on the slender 
stores of the early colonists. It is said that 
they were in these days frequently at star- 
vation point, at times being reduced to live on 
the shell-fish from the shore, their corn having 
been all used. Yet, notwithstanding all trials 
and difficulties, they never lost their faith in 
God nor in the future prosperity of their 
colony. 

In the summer of 1622, another community 
of colonists also arrived ; these men were 



form menial work for food. This appears 
to have led to a quarrel, and a conspiracy 
was formed among the savages to murder 
all the English. But Massasoit, with whom 
the Pilgrims had made the friendly treaty, 
and who had always treated him well, re- 
vealed the design. Standish saw the 
desperate nature of the situation, and, 
accompanied with eight men, immediately 
marched off to the wigwams of the chief 
conspirators ; and, without a word of parley, 
he attacked them. He had frequently been 
insulted by some of the savages because he 
was a small man, and we may perhaps 
imagine that he was not altogether dis- 
pleased to have an opportunity of giving 




Tut; PiLGUiJib' First Fort and JMeeting-house at New Plymouth. 



known as Weston's Company. They be- 
longed to the Church of England, and were 
brought over by Thomas Weston, one of the 
merchants who had advanced money to the 
Pilgrim Fathers. He imagined that a pro- 
fitable trade might be established in furs ; 
but neither he, nor the men whom he brought 
with him, were of the character likely to cope 
successfully with the difficulties of an early 
settler's life. They were improvident and 
disorderly, and soon exhausted the supplies 
brought with them. The emigrants at New 
Plymouth assisted them so far as they were 
able, but the distress continued. They 
parted with all their goods, and some of 
them took service with the Indians to per- 



them a taste of his quality. Seeing four of 
his tormentors in a wigwam by themselves, 
he instantly marched in with three of his 
followers, and, without a word on either side, 
a desperate hand-to-hand encounter took 
place. The door had been closed by the 
last Englishman who entered ; no help came 
from either side. With frowning brow and 
compressed lips they began the combat at 
once ; it was long and bloody, and did not 
end until three of the Indians were slain. 
Standish attacked his opponent with a de- 
termination and energy which bore down 
all opposition, and desperately though the 
Indian fought, he was killed at last. The 
fourth savage was taken captive, and finally 



58^ 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



hanged. After this the other Indians were 
soon put to flight, and Standish and his 
eight men returned victorious and exultant. 
This was the first fight with the Indians, 
and it is well worthy of note that it was 
not caused by the Pilgrims themselves. 
Indeed, they were anxious to be on friendly 
terms with the natives, and to trade with 
them. A triumphant account of this — Stan- 
dish's capital exploit, as it was termed — was 
soon forwarded to their friends at Leyden. 
But instead of the joyful congratulation they 
expected, their pastor, Mr. Robinson, sent 
them in reply a gentle rebuke. " How 
happy a thing," he wrote, "if you had 
converted some before you killed any." 
There is every reason to believe, however, 
that it was a stern necessity which compelled 
Standish's " capital exploit," and that it was 
of immense importance to the infant colony, 
not only in preserving it from a foul and 
treacherous conspiracy, but in intimidating 
the Indians, and showing them of what stern 
and resolute stuff the English settlers were 
made ; thus, it doubtless saved further blood- 
shed. As for Weston's Company, who were 
responsible for this unhappy episode, a few 
short months saw the end of its efforts. Some 
of the men died of hunger and cold, some 
returned to England, while a few seem to 
have cast in their lot with their preservers 
at New Plymouth. At all events, as a 
separate colony, Weston's Company was at 
an end. 

Disagreements with the Merchants. 

All this time Robinson and the remainder 
of his congregation at Leyden were anxiously 
seeking the means of joining their brethren 
in New England, but they could not pro- 
cure the necessary funds. The merchants 
who had advanced the money to the first 
colonists absolutely refused to risk any more ; 
they were not satisfied with the small profits 
from their investments, and contentions had 
arisen between them and their partners at 
New Plymouth. The merchants endeavoured 
to force upon the colonists a clergyman more 
favourable to the Established Church than 
they deemed desirable, and the goods sent 
were sold to the emigrants at the enormous 
advance of seventy per cent. Naturally 
these and similar acts of unfair treatment 
produced great dissatisfaction, and the emi- 
grants finally borrowed money at high 
interest to pay off their partners in England. 

Unhappily, when these arrangements were 
complete and the gradual increase of pros- 
perity enabled the remainder of Mr. Robin- 
son's congregation at Leyden to follow their 
friends, their good pastor had passed away. 
Like Moses, he died before he reached the 
promised land,— the land that offered a 
resting-place from pilgrimage and exile, — the 



land to which he had directed his followers. 
His bones were buried by the Rhine, and 
the colony which he did so much to esta- 
blish, and which never gladdened his sight,, 
flourished afar off. 

In 1626, the year following his death, his- 
wife and children, with the remainder of his 
congregation, joined their brethren at New 
Plymouth, At that time the little town con- 
sisted of about thirty-two small wooden 
houses, built within the palisades, and the 
population numbered nearly one hundred 
and eighty persons. They had established 
a manufacture of salt from the sea, with 
which commodity they cured fish, and were 
now so successful as to be able to freight a 
vessel with a cargo for export. In Novem- 
ber 1624, the little town of wooden houses 
had been nearly all burned down, but had 
been soon re-built. The principles of self- 
government had been steadily adhered to, 
the Governor and Council being chosen hj 
general suffrage, while for several years the 
numbers of the population was so small that 
all the male inhabitants were included in 
the Legislature. The laws enacted were ex- 
ceedingly severe, but as a matter of fact were 
very mildly administered. Thus, death was 
the punishment for most crimes, but it was 
never inflicted except in cases of murder. 
But in those early years, these crimes were 
never committed. 

The fact that the Pilgrims had been carried 
so far north from their contemplated place 
of settlement on the Hudson, and the fact 
also that the patent from the London Com- 
pany had been made out in the name of one 
of their number who eventually never sailed, 
rendered that patent of no value. The 
land on which they had settled belonged 
for colonising purposes to the Plymouth 
(England) Company ; and in the year follow- 
ing the landing of the Pilgrims (1621), they- 
obtained a patent from this Company, which 
secured to them their possessions, although, 
as James still refused to grant a charter, the 
settlers had no abstract right — according to 
the principle of English law then in vogue 
— to assume self-government and a separate 
jurisdiction. The Pilgrim Fathers, however, 
were made of far too stern stuff to be 
bound by nominal restrictions, and, as we 
have seen, they did not scruple to exercise 
their principles of self-government, and inflict 
punishments for crime whenever necessary. 

The Plymouth Company, with which the 
Pilgrims had now to do, appears to have 
originally consisted of forty noblemen and 
gentlemen, for the planting, ruling, ordering,, 
and governing New England in America. 
The title " New England " seems to have 
been borrowed from the Pilgrims, who were, 
however, for some time completely ignored. 
It was this Company which granted the 



S86 



THE MEN OF THE ''-MAYFLOWER:' 



patent to Weston's Company, and also to 
some others which proved as great failures 
as did that brought over by Weston. In 
1621, the Plymouth Company endeavoured 
to obtain some benefit from their vast tracts 
of land by levying a tax on the English fish- 
ing vessels. As they were not disposed to 
plant and cultivate themselves, this was the 
only plan for obtaining an immediate revenue. 
But these extortions were opposed by the 
House of Commons, and the debates which 
ensued reveal the unsettled state of affairs 
between the colonies and the mother country. 
And it is worthy of note that Sir George 
Calvert, the principal advocate of the claims 
of the Company, argued that the American 
settlements were outside the jurisdiction of 
Parliament, as they were not annexed to the 
realm of. England. On the other hand, it 
was argued that an Act passed by Lords and 
Commons and signed by the Sovereign would 
control the patents granted to the colonists. 

During several sessions these debates were 
continued, and a Bill was finally passed which 
strictly limited the rights of the Companies. 
And although the King refused to sign the 
Bill, yet the unmistakable expression of the 
opinion of the Houses of Parliament was of 
great service. Among other results may 
be noted the fact that many of the members 
of the Plymouth Company lost heart in their 
enterprise, and the colonization of New 
England was henceforth left almost wholly 
to private endeavour. It was clear that the 
best course the Council could pursue would 
be to abandon all absurd pretensions, and 
grant lands, if possible, to such parties of 
stern, hard-working, practical men who 
would be able to cultivate and occupy the 
soil within a few years. 

Meanwhile the Pilgrim Fathers, quietly 
ignoring all these discussions and claims, 
had been steadily working and gradually 
prospering. While others had been talking, 
they had been doing. A small community 
for trading had been established ; the Indians 
were friendly, and brought them many furs ; 
their corn-fields were flourishing. These facts 
are the more worthy of remark as nearly 
every other attempt to colonize New England 
up to this time appears to have failed. The 
other colonists had not the resolute character 
necessary to cope with difficulties, nor the 
zeal for religious liberty which caused these 
mighty men (for mighty they were if we 
regard the innumerable hardships and diffi- 
culties they had to overcome) to give up 
everything rather than forfeit so precious 
a right ; they had not the iron wills which 
had been born by the scenes of gloom and 
misery, of persecution and trial through which 
the Puritans had passed. The stern spirit 
of self-denial and of simple living, the thrift, 
the tact, the indomitable perseverance which 



characterized the Pilgrims, — all were wanting 
in the other colonists. 

Continued Emigration of the 
Puritans. 

The accounts brought back to the southern 
coasts of England of the success of the 
Pilgrim Fathers and the religious freedom 
which they enjoyed, coupled with the grow- 
ing discontent of the English Puritans at the 
constant persecution to which they were 
subject, stimulated their determination to 
follow the men of the Mayflower into the 
wild regions of North America. A Puritan 
clergyman named White, the Rector of 
Trinity Church, Dorchester, was prominent 
in urging his hearers to a great effort to 
colonize the wilderness, and to carry the 
pure Gospel to the benighted lands where 
a faithful few are already busy at work. 
"Think not," said he, "that better times 
shall come to you in England. This hope 
is a vain dream, and will prove a delusive 
snare. Prince Charles has espoused a 
Catholic wife, so that he does not promise 
to be well affected toward us when he shall 
come to the throne. Purity of religion and 
freedom of conscience can only be found ia 
the New World. Let us go there, and found 
a new nation that shall be both English and 
truly Christian." The aid of the press was 
also invoked, and publications were issued 
by eloquent and enthusiastic men urging 
their Puritan brethren to emigrate. Other 
arguments were also adduced, and by them 
we may suppose that the cries of " over- 
population " and " keen-competition were 
heard as much in the days of the first 
Stuarts as they now are. 

The consequence of these great efforts was 
that an extensive movement for emigration 
was organized among the Puritans of the 
south-western counties. Indeed, numbers all 
over the land prepared to follow the Pilgrim 
Fathers into the wilderness to seek an asylum 
from persecution. 

Negotiations for a tract of land were 
entered into with the Plymouth Company, 
who were all the more ready to accede to 
their proposals by reason of the complete 
failure of their attempts to obtain a monopoly 
of the fishery rights. And at length a deed 
was drawn up, dated the 19th of iVEarch, 1628, 
and called "The Colony of Massachusetts 
Bay Patent," by which the Plymouth Council 
sold to Sir John Young, Sir Henry Russell, 
and others, for the purposes of planting and 
settling all that part of North America which 
lies and extends between Merrimac River 
and Charles River, in the bottom of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, and three miles to the north 
and south of every part of Charles River, and 
three miles south of the southernmost part of 
the said bay, and three miles to the north of 



S87 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



€very part of Merrimac River, and all lands 
and hereditaments whatsoever lying within 
the limits aforesaid, north and south in lati- 
tude and breadth, and in length and longitude 
•of and within all the breadth aforesaid, 
throughout the mainland, thence from the 
Atlantic Sea in the east part to the Pacific 
Sea in the west part." 

About a year later, on the 4th of March, 
1629, this charter was contirmed by King 
Charles I.; by which we may gather that 
there was as much dilatoriness then as there 
is said to be now in governmental affairs. 

It will be seen that this charter, or patent, 
no more than any other, authorized the exer- 
cise of separate political or judicial power. 
These companies of colonists seem to have 
been regarded rather as trading associations, 
to which it was thought necessary to give 
certain rights, in order to facilitate the ex- 
pansion of trade, than as separate com- 
munities. It would seem, therefore, that 
many men in those days utterly failed to 
grasp the principal idea which animated 
the Puritans, and which they had in view 
when they emigrated ; for they went not only 
to plant and colonize for the purposes of 
trade, but to found a community, where they 
could practise those principles which were 
then denied them in England, and which 
have had their full fruition in the great 
American Republic. In anticipation these 
far-seeing men enjoyed the thoughts of their 
future influence on ages yet unborn, and of 
the fame which they would obtain as the 
founders of New England. 

The Dorchester Adventurers. 

As early as 1623, Mr. Whice had been 
Tnstrumental in forming an unincorporated 
joint-stock society, which, under the name of 
■"The Dorchester Adventurers," emigrated 
to Massachusetts Bay, with the object of 
prosecuting a ti'ade in dried fish. This at- 
tempt was a failure ; and next year the " Ad- 
venturers '■' obtained some land near Cape 
Anne from the New Plymouth emigrants. 
This proceeding also was not very successful, 
and all the settlers deserted save four, one of 
whom was Roger Conant, who seems to have 
been a wise and prudent man. He and his 
three colleagues removed to a better place 
for planting a colony, about twelve miles to 
the south-west of Cape Anne ; and here they 
hung on until just as they were on the point 
of returning from sheer necessity, letters of 
encouragement were received from White, 
promising to send over help if they would 
but continue in their endeavours. 

In 1628 the advance guard of this second 
great Puritan emigration set sail. It con- 
sisted of about a hundred colonists, under 
the leadership of John Endicot, a man of 
indomitable will and fierce religious zeal. 



His companions unanimously agreed that he 
was the best man to be leader in " this wild 
wilderness work." And, indeed, when he 
landed and saw the bleak and dreary wilder- 
ness to which they had come, and found 
Roger Conant and his three colleagues so 
much reduced by want and hardships, he 
felt indeed that he needed all his courage 
and resolution. Thick and gloomy forests, 
wild and uncultivated waste land, greeted 
them on every side, while, as winter came 
on, the severely cold weather and lack of 
comfortable homes caused many to sicken 
and die. The early Pilgrims sent them a 
doctor from New Plymouth, who stayed with 
them all through the winter. 

But notwithstanding all difficulties, English 
courage would not be beaten, and we find that 
seven of these dauntless men beat their way 
through the tangled woods to the spot where 
the city of Charlestown now stands. To their 
surprise they found that English enterprize 
had preceded them, for they found one of 
their countrymen already living there in a 
wooden shanty 

Next year a still larger number of colonists 
set forth. The news of the success of those 
who had already gone was published abroad 
all over the land, and Puritans everywhere 
began to think of voyaging across the At- 
lantic. 

Six small vessels were collected, — one of 
them being the MayJlozver, — 2iVi^ on the 
1st of May they departed for New England. 
Accounts differ as to the number who em- 
barked, from 250 to 350 being the numbers 
given. They took horses, cows, and goats, 
and also cannon and musketry, with which 
to arm a fort. The voyage lasted two months ; 
and it was not till the 24th of June that the 
colonists saw the few mud or wooden hovels, 
surrounded by rough corn-fields, which 
showed that they had arrived at their new 
home. One-third of the new emigrants went 
at once to Charlestown, and the remainder 
stayed with Endicot, and founded the town 
of Salem. 

In the following spring a still larger num- 
ber departed from England. Seventeen ships 
were chartered, and 1,500 Puritans, among 
whom were some persons of high rank, set 
sail from different ports for the distant West. 
From Southampton proceeded the Atabella 
and a few sister vessels, which sailed down 
Southampton Water in the glad sunlight of 
a bright May morning, amidst the resounding 
cheers of the crowds which lined the beach. 
And though the religious zeal of the exiles 
had been stirred to the utmost by the im- 
passioned appeals of their eloquent pastors, 
and their determination to suffer expatriation 
for conscience' sake never failed, yet as the 
loved shores of England faded from their 
view, their sternness melted, and instead of 



THE MEN OF THE ''MAYFLOWER:' 



denouncing their country as the home of 
persecution, they sorrowfully said with tear- 
dimmed eyes, " Farewell ! dear, dear 
England." 

At Yarmouth, also, a great number set 
forth under the leadership of John Winthrop, 
a man so highly esteemed for his sincere and 
unaffected piety, benevolence of temper, and 
righteousness of judgment, that he was ap- 
pointed governor of the new colony. Before 
leaving Yarmouth a declaration of their views 
was published, in which they set forth the 
reasons for their removal, and bade a touch- 
ing farewell to the countrymen and land of 
their birth. " Our hearts," they said, " shall 
be fountains of tears for your everlasting 
welfare, when we shall be in our poor cot- 
tages in the wilderness." 

At intervals during the latter part of June 
and early days of July, 1630, the ships arrived 
at Salem, — to find poverty, hardship, and 
sickness. IMany of the earlier colonists had 
died, and the others were on the brink of 
starvation. Tents of sail-cloth were speedily 
erected for temporary protection, and the 
colonists then sought for suitable sites for 
towns. Among other places, Boston was 
one city the foundations of which were then 
laid, doubtless by some settlers from Lin- 
colnshire. This spot was fixed upon because 
it had " sweet and pleasant springs, and good 
land affording rich corn-fields and fruitful 
gardens." But sickness soon became busy 
among these as among the former parties 
of colonists, and strong men who feared 
nothing, became utterly broken as they saw 
their loved ones fade from their eyes to a 
premature grave. Before the holy Christmas 
time came round, quite two hundred had 
died. Many were there who had been ac- 
customed to the refinements and comforts 
of life which wealth in those days could 
bring, and the arduous life they were now 
compelled to live told severely against them. 
Among the first to succumb was the excellent 
Lady Arabella Johnson, sister of the Earl of 
Lincoln, and wife of Mr. Isaac Johnson, one 
of the richest men in the colony, and very 
zealous for pure religion. Not long after her 
death he followed his wife to the tomb, pass- 
ing peacefully away. 

As winter drew on they were often reduced 
to subsist on mussels and shell-fish from the 
sea-shore. Acorns and ground-nuts also fur- 
nished them with many repasts. The first 
Pilgrims at New Plymouth rendered them all 
the assistance they were able ; but they had 
exhausted all supplies when, on the 5th of 
February, 1631, a vessel amved from Eng- 
land bringing the mucii needed stores. 

The reports of the great poverty of the new 
settlements and of the terrible hardships and 
bitter winters, deterred many others from 
coming over; and in 1631 only ninety new 



emigrants cheered those who had already 
gone. In 1632, about 250 came. But mean- 
while, in spite of all difficulties and privations, 
the infant colonies were slowly prospering. 
The trials through which the settlers passed 
served but to strengthen their faith, and no 
repining or rebellion against the Almighty 
appears in their records. At stated times their 
public meetings for worship were held— some- 
times in the open waste, and sometimes under 
a spreading tree. They had come hither to 
obtain civil liberty and treedom of conscie.vce, 
to put into practice certain doctrines they 
held dearer and more precious than life 
itself, and even as martyrs went cheerfully 
to the stake rather than yield, so these noble 
men and women calmly and contentedly 
pursued their course, believing they were 
doing God service and fulfilling His will. 

Adoption of a Confession of Faith. 

Not long after their arrival, the settlers at 
Salem held communications with the Pilgrims 
of New Plymouth as to their form of Church 
government ; and after some correspondence 
on the subject, they decided to establish a 
similar organisation to that which the older 
colonists had already adopted. The 6th of 
August, 1629, was devoted to fasting and 
prayer, and a confession of faith, embodying- 
Puritan principles, was drawn up and signed 
by many there present. Several ministers from 
New Plymouth attended, and after the cere- 
mony, a pastor, a teacher, and an elder of the 
New Church were elected, although there were 
some dissentients. The fact is that, although 
all the colonists were Puritanically inclined, 
all were not separatists from the Church of 
England ; and Dr. Cotton Mather says, in his 
" Ecclesiastical History of New England," 
that when the emigrants of 1629 were leaving 
their native land, their pastor, Francis Hig- 
ginson, said to his company : " We will not 
say, as the Separatists were wont to say at 
their leaving of England, ' Farewell Babylon ! 
Farewell Rome !' for such they used to call 
her in their exaggeration of their Puritanical 
fervour ; but we will say, ' Farewell, dear 
England ! Farewell, the Church of God in 
England, and all the Christian friends there. 
We do not go to New England as separatists 
from the Church of England, though we 
cannot but separate from the corruptions in 
it." 

It will therefore be readily understood that 
dissensions soon arose, for there were those 
among them who determined to worship 
according to the old form of the Anglican 
Church, and ignored the new organization al- 
together. Unhappily the true principle of 
religious liberty seems to have been quite for- 
gotten by many among them, and the Puritans 
themselves repeatedly violated the great law 
of freedom of conscience they had crossed 



589 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the seas to practise. They objected to the 
supremacy of the king or his archbishops 
in religious affairs, but they wished to sub- 
stitute their OAvn supremacy ; and their 
bigotry in favour of their own religious forms 
was, unhappily, quite as great as that of 
Laud himself. So long as the members of 
the community were separatists and thought 
alike, or fairly alike, well and good, but 
directly any one showed independence of 
judgment they quarrelled with him, pun- 
ished him, or in some cases sent him back 
to England. Woefully wrong though this 
was, we must yet remember the sufferings 
and persecution that had been inflicted upon 
them at home by the doiranant Church, and 
we cannot wonder at their dislike to it in 
any form. It was not, however, from feel- 
ings of revenge that they opposed its profes- 
sors in America, but because they appeared 
to believe that Dissent, or a very purified 
form of Anglicanism, was the only righteous 
form of religion. 

Passing of Civil Laws. 

Soon after the arrival of Governor Win- 
throp in 1630, a number of laws were passed, 
all decreeing severe punishments against 
evil-doers. Whipping seems to have been 
the principal penalty inflicted. Thus we 
find that one man was whipped for shooting 
on the Sabbath day ; another for striking a 
neighbour ; another for stealing ; another 
for uttering bad language against the court, 
etc., etc. This punishment was also varied 
by the stocks, while for criminal offences 
death was decreed. These severe laws were 
administered with the utmost impartiality, 
and there were careful restrictions, so that 
the magistrates could not impose penalties 
from individual malice. Thus we find that 
Endicot himself was fined forty shillings — 
a large sum in the colony in those day — for 
striking a man, even though he had received 
considerable provocation. One very impor- 
tant law that was passed required compensa- 
tion to be given to the Indians for damages 
done them by the colonists. 

It will thus be seen that the constitution 
of the Massachusetts colony was, like that 
at New Plymouth, essentially democratic ; 
and although the composition of the govern- 
ing body was frequently changed during the 
early years of its existence, yet the leading 
principles remained inuch the same. Un- 
fortunately, as time went on, the rulers did 
not relax their laws against religious liberty ; 
and Cotton Mather records the case of a 
man named Blaxton, who refused to join any 
of the colonies or towns, for he said, "As he 
left England because he would not be coerced 
by the Lord Bishops, so he left the colonies 
because he would not be coerced by the 
Lord Brethren." 



Meantime, constant intercourse was kept 
up with the colony at New Plymouth, and 
the most friendly relations were maintained 
with the Indians, many tribes of which 
solicited the help of the English against 
their enemies ; thus we find that in the 
autumn of 1632, Governor Winthrop and 
the Rev. Mr, Wilson, the pastor of Boston, 
walked from the latter settlement to New 
Plymouth without suffering any molestation. 

The early difficulties of both colonies were 
now overcome ; more emigrants arrived every 
year ; the system of electing representatives 
to a <:eneral assembly or parliament was 
adopted, and a true commonwealth began 
to arise out of the chaos of little colonies 
established by joint-stock enterprise. 

About this time there were twenty little 
towns scattered over the shores of Massa- 
chusetts Bay, and of these Boston was 
regarded as the capital and the fittest for 
public assemblies. These towns, most of 
which were known by familiar English - 
names, such as Ipswich, Dorchester, Wey- 
mouth, etc., were, of course, small and 
irregularly built, many of them consist- 
ing only of a few cabins made of mud 
and thatched with straw. Paper that had 
been soaked in oil and dried, served as 
a substitute for glass in the windows, while 
the smoke escaped by a hole in the roof. 
Others there were, more substantially built 
of wood, but generally speaking the dwell- 
ings were as rough as they well could be, 
and the furniture was as rough as the rooms. 
The group of buildings was enclosed in a 
palisade, as a protection against the attacks, 
not so much of Indians as of the wolves and 
other wild animals which infested the forests 
near. For the dense and tangled woods 
came close to the little cleared space around 
the villages, and lulled the settlers to sleep 
with their murmuring music in the still 
summer evenings, or kept them awake in 
the wild winter nights as the stormy 
wind moaned through their mysterious and 
gloomy depths. 

Here and there small spaces of ground had 
been cleared, and, together with the plots 
near the houses, were being steadily cul- 
tivated, principally with corn. Kine and 
goats, sheep and pigs, had been imported, 
and had increased in large numbers. Fish 
had been caught, dried, and cured, and 
formed a staple article of export ; furs and 
timber were also sent abroad, and formed a 
great source of profit to the colonies. Other 
trades and businesses were also established, 
although agricultural pursuits, hunting, and 
fishing formed the principal occupations of 
the emigrants. For food they entirely de- 
pended on the corn they raised, the animals 
they hunted, or the fish they caught. 

For several years the colonies of New 



590 



THE MEN OF THE ''MAYFLOWERS 



England were increased by the further influx 
of Puritans from Britain, and in 1634, the 
colonists numbered about four thousand per- 
sons. The iron rule of Laud and Strafford 
■caused numbers to leave their homes for the 
wilderness, especially as the accounts were 
now far more cheering, and the colony, 
liaving taken deep root, was now progressing 
rapidly. Bancroft, the historian of the United 
States, says that 21,200 Puritan emigrants 
left England from 1620 till the year 1640, 
when Laud was imprisoned, and the rule of 
the Long Parliament ended the persecution 
of the Puritans and caused the movement as 
a distinctive one to cease. 

The work accomplished by these men 
during these years was enormous, and the 
progress of the colony truly marvellous. In 
1643, they had cleared the ground for and 
partially built fifty towns, thirty villages, and 
forty chapels. Their export trade was largely 
increasing, not only to the mother country, 
but to the West Indies ; while, above all, they 
had commenced to build their own ships, and 
bad vessels on the stocks of over four hundred 
tons burthen. Other colonies on the same 
shores had not been equally successful. The 
Dutch, French, and Spanish had established 
settlements, and other men from England 
had planted, but none had achieved the 
success of the Puritan population of New 
England. 

Roger Williams, one of the noblest 
OF THE Pilgrim Fathers. 

Unhappily there were blots — foul and dark 
blots — on the early history of the New Eng- 
land settlements ; and amongst these we must 
mention the terrilale law which inflicted torture 
and even death upon any infringement of 
the severe code of Puritanical worship. The 
spirit of intolerance seemed to grow every 
year, and when any opposition manifested 
itself, it only caused the spiritual despotism 
to wax hotter. Roger Williams, a young 
Welsh preacher, one of the greatest and 
noblest of the Puritan emigrants, speedily 
detected this spirit of intolerance, and early 
preached against it. He denounced with 
all the force of his fervid eloquence the re- 
enactment of the very tyranny — though ex- 
hibited in a different form — which they had 
fled from England to escape. Roger Williams, 
in his enthusiasm, would tolerate all classes 
and all sects. He seems to have had some 
;glimpse of the great truth that the /arm of 
worship is of little value so that the spirit be 
sincere. The preaching of this pious and 
gifted man seems to have been eagerly 
listened to by crowds of colonists, and his 
influence was powerful and far-reaching. 
The Rev. Cotton Mather says of him that 
■*'the windmill in the young Welshman's 



head seemed likely to turn everything topsy- 
turvy in the settlement." 

At last it was decided to force him back to 
England. But when the armed men went 
to the settlement where his house was situated 
he had fled. Like the true pioneer of pro- 
gress and civilization that he was, he was 
forcing his way, alone and unaided, through 
the thick forests to the Indian settlement, 
bent on accomplishing alone the great object 
which the Pilgrims had so far failed to accom- 
plish, — the establishment of a settlement 
where true religious liberty should be the 
ruling principle. History records fewer 
examples of splendid courage and resolute 
endurance. "For fourteen weeks," he 
wrote, " I was tossed in bitter season, not 
knowing what bed or bread did mean," living 
on roots and berries. But the Indians 
grew so fond of him that " the barbarous 
heart of Canonicus, the chief of the Nar- 
ragansetts, loved him as his own son till his 
last breath." 

A deed from Canonicus granted to him 
the whole of Rhode Island; and crossing 
over to it in his canoe, Williams encamped 
on a spot which he named " Providence," and 
which is now the thriving and prosperous 
capital of a thriving and prosperous state. 

In the meantime the Narragansetts had 
come to terms with their enemies the Pequod 
Indians, and the latter urged them to break 
with the English. In the winter of 1636, 
therefore, a hasty summons was sent to 
Williams by the very men who had driven 
him forth, to come and exert his influence 
with the Narragansetts to prevent war. The 
dauntless man at once set forth, and travelling 
night and day through the frost-bound and 
snow-covered wilderness, he arrived at length 
at the camp of wigwams where the great 
Indian palaver was being held. Canonicus 
and Miantonimoh, chiefs of the Narragan- 
setts, and both devoted friends of Williams, 
listened quietly to his earnest entreaties, but 
for a long time they would not yield. For 
three days did the devoted man plead the 
cause of his countrymen who had wronged 
him, and for three nights did he sleep calmly 
near the houses of the enraged Pequods. At 
length the Narragansetts acceded to his pro- 
posals, and decided to hold by their treaty 
with the English and reject the terms of the 
Pequods. 

The latter, however, determined to attack 
the English alone, and two battles took place, 
in which the English were so successful that 
they struck terror into the hearts of the 
savages, and the colonists were unmolested 
for some time. 

Unhappily Roger Williams was not able to 
influence the authorities of New England 
against intolerance. They were anxious to 
secure his eloquence on their behalf when in 



591 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



trouble with the Indians, but they were not 
disposed to yield on points of ecclesiastical 
government. 

Another prominent victim was Mrs. Anne 
Hutchinson. She was a woman of peculiar 
doctrinal views, and the ministers soon ar- 
raigned her of heresy. 

She was ultimately banished, and with her 
family took refuge in Rhode Island with 
Williams, where, indeed, a great number of 
New Englanders were constantly arriving. 
Mrs. Hutchinson, fearing she was not sale 
from persecution even here, escaped even- 
tually to the Dutch settlements, when one 
fearful night she and her family, all but one 
child, were surprised and massacred by 
Indians. 

The news of the intolerance of the Puritan 
governors was not long in reaching England, 
and certain fussy females took upon them- 
selves to journey to the wilderness to pro- 
test against such doings, and to defy the 
authority of the ministers. Thus we find 
that one lady journeyed from London for 
this express purpose, and it is recorded that 
she received twenty stripes for her pains and 
was promptly sent home again. But others 
arrived, many of them young Quakeresses 
burning with lively zeal against the Puritans; 
and although they were banished to Rhode 
Island, they continued to return, until at last, 
in pursuance of the terrible laws of death 
passed against all persons of this sect, they 
were executed. The most prominent of these 
was Mary Dyar. Another of these prosely- 
tising young Friends— named Mary Fisher — 
subsequently sailed to Adrianople for the pur- 
pose of publicly rebuking the Sultan for his 
Mahommedanism. The innocent Orientals 
thought her mad, and treated her with the 
courteousness and kindness which they 
bestow upon all whom Allah has so terribly 
afflicted ; whereupon Miss Fisher drew a 
most affecting contrast between the persecut- 
ing New Englanders and the "gentlemanly" 
Turks. 

However much we may reprobate — and 
we do most strongly — the fierce intolerance 
of these early settlers in New England, and 
their forgetfulness of the wise words of 
Mr. Robinson and others of their leaders, yet 
we must remember that they only wished 
people who thought as they did to come to 
their colonies. There was plenty of room 
for the others to have gone elsewhere. The 
penal code against Quakers was well known, 
and all who entered the settlement entered 
it in gratuitous defiance of these laws ; 
whereas, in the Old World, the persecuted 
people were proceeded against in their old 
homes. Here, many of them deliberately 
walked into persecution, and did their ut- 



most to court a martyr's crown, when they 
might have easily remained in Rhode Island 
or have removed there when they found the 
existence of the penal laws. 

The law was however at length repealed. 
William Leddron was the last Quaker victim, 
and he was offered his life if he would leave 
the colony and promise never to return. But 
he reiused to compromise, and was hanged 
forthwith. 

And yet, we may add upon the authority of 
an unimpeachable witness, Roger Williams 
himself, that these pitiless persecutors were, 
in all other relations of life, the best and 
kindest of men. " I know they mean well," 
said the benevolent Williams; "I am sure 
they are earnest, sincere, and naturally kind- 
hearted men ; they verily believe they are 
serving God, whilst they are nevertheless 
doing the work of the devil." Thus the 
measure of their cruelty was the fervency of 
their zeal. 

Not less bitter was the fury of the New 
Englanders against witchcraft, a savage super- 
stition brought with them from the mother 
country, and which lingered there in nooks and 
corners of the land long after it had died out in 
America. Both Dr. Cotton Mather and his 
son, who rejoiced in the curious name of 
Increase Mather, were fearful foes to witches; 
and the latter lamented sorely when common 
sense and the increasing love of true liberty 
led the New England citizens to stop the 
cruel persecution. The last witch-court was 
held at Charlestown on Feb, 17th, 1693, 
and all the witches then in custody were 
discharged. 

But these internal dissensions, and wars 
with the savages, did not hinder the social 
and material progress of the New England 
colonies. When the first difficulties of emi- 
gration were over, the settlements rapidly 
increased in wealth and influence. And ever 
since New England may be said to have 
been the intellectual centre of the great 
Republic of the West, and to have impressed 
its own characteristics, to a large extent, 
upon the whole commonwealth. It was in 
New England that free schools were first 
established, and the slave trade was first 
declared a capital felony ; while her people 
were the life of that great agitation which 
finally swept the foul blot from the fair face 
of the New World. Through a stormy and 
troublous dawn she has passed on to the full 
light of a splendid day, and many thousands 
of our kindred across the sea acknowledge 
with pardonable pride that they are the lineal 
descendants of those hardy English Pilgrims 
who made the desert wilds to blossom as 
the rose. 

F. M. H. 



592 




Fort on the Island of Scio. 



THE MASSACRE OF SCIO: 

A STORY OF THE GREEK REVOLT AGAINST TURKEY. 

" Chios, the island of renown and wealth and noble men, which shone upon the Sea of Greece like the star of morning 
on the gloomy sky, the fairest seat of commerce, benevolence, and learning — Chios the Blessed." 

CONSTANTINE OiKONOMOS. 



The Centuries of Turkish Despotism— Origin and Fierce Temper of the Revolution— The Force of Wealth and Education- 
Secret Societies— Invasion of Hypsilantes— The Sacred Battalion— Noble End of the Patriot Georgaki— The Flag 
hoisted in the Morea— A Fighting Bishop—" Death to the Turks ! "-Bloodshed at Patras— Massacres by Greeks- 
Dreadful Scenes in Constantinople— Execution of the Patriarch— A Canopy of Vultures— The " Hares" of the A;gean — 
First Cruise of the Greek Fleet— Timid Scio— Individual Sacrifice and National Aspiration— W; y Scio did not rise— 
The Island overrun— The Harems and their Mastic— Despatch of a Turkish Force— The Chiote Peasant and the 
Samians— Wretched Rivalry of the Patriots— The Vengeance of the Turk— " Fire, Sword, Slavery "—Flight of the 
Samians— Dreadful Massacres, Ruin, and Universal Plunder by Asiatic Hordes— Slaughter of the Monks— The Slaves 
and Fugitives— Sailing of the Greek Fleet— The Vengeance of Kanaris— The Fire-ships— Fate of two thousand 
Turks — Navarino and the Independence of Greece. 



power 




Wrongs of the Greeks. 

HE scope and the method of the 
daring and ghastly revolution of the 
Greeks — when a nation only a mil- 
lion strong rose against a gigantic 

stretching from the banks of the 



Tigris to the deserts of Algeria — are un- 
fofded in a single paragraph from the pen 
of the English historian of modern Greece : 
" In the month of April, 1821, a Mussulman 
population, generally of the Greek race, 
amounting to upwards of twenty thousand 

593 QQ 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



souls, was living, dispersed in Greece, em- 
ployed in agriculture. Before two months 
had elapsed, the greater part was slain ; 
men, women, and children were murdered 
on their own hearths, without mercy or 
remorse. . . . The crime was a nation's 
crime, and whatever perturbations it might 
produce must be in a nation's conscience, as 
the deeds by which it must be expiated 
must be the acts of a nation," Whole Mus- 
sulman families were destroyed in hundreds 
of villages, and as no orthodox Christian 
would pollute his soul by digging a grave 
for an infidel, the carcases of men, women, 
and children were piled up in outhouses, 
which were then set on fire. 

The stormy dawn has broken over Greece 
after the long night of centuries, during which 
the Western World had almost lost sight of 
her except as a museum of classical anti- 
quities, and heard little of her servile and 
decayed inhabitants but that on occasions 
they were butchered and sold into slavery. 
Travellers and official Turks, who had the 
foolhardiness to venture their persons and 
their pockets among the independent moun- 
tains, fell into the clutches of the Klephts, 
robbers of a far more ruthless type than the 
brawny Scottish black-mailer immortalized 
by Scott and Wordsworth ; while those who 
were content to journey along the beaten 
tracks came back disgusted with the hope- 
less degradation of the modern Greek. They 
saw nothing to remind them of the ancient 
glory and civilization of the race whose 
subtle intellect had marched into the high- 
est regions of human thought long before 
the coming of the Saviour and of Paul of 
Tarsus ; whose eye and hand had shaped 
the finest types of strength and beauty ; 
whose bravery had driven back the vast 
hordes of Eastern despots, and carried their 
victorious arms into the heart of Asia. 

The last of the Byzantine emperors fell in 
an aureole of fatal glory at Constantinople, 
on a summer morning in the middle of the 
fifteenth century, amid a heap of slain ; and 
the Greeks, then debased and enfeebled, lay 
during these four intervening centuries at 
the mercy of the Turkish sabre and tax- 
gatherer, under land tax, capitation tax, 
" angaria " or gratuitous labour on public 
works, occasional levies in money or in 
kind, quartering of soldiers, sale of produce 
at compulsory prices, and other forms of 
oppression. But the worst feature in the 
whole category of Turkish iniquities was 
the absence of all proper justice ; for, as the 
fact has been grimly expressed in a famous 
novel, when the Tui'ks cut off the wrong 
man's head, they found comfort in the pious 
reflection that, after all, it could not be helped, 
as it had been so destined by the will of 
Allah. It was true, however, that the wily 



and servile Greeks had farmed the revenues' 
and become the oppressors of the toiling 
masses of their own countrymen — that they 
too had furnished the great generals, coun- 
sellors, and governors of the sultans — that 
the patriarchs were base enough to purchase- 
their lofty post as heads of the Greek Church 
from the emperor of the infidels, and in turn 
to sell the bishoprics ; while the inferior 
clergy were poor and ignorant, and had to- 
work as common labourers. 

Origin and Temper of the 
Revolution. 

But the brains and hands belonged still tO' 
the Greek people. And when at last their 
commerce flourished, and they acquired 
wealth as carriers at sea, through the neu- 
trality of Turkey during the Napoleonic 
wars, schools were planted at Smyrna, Scio, 
Patmos, and elsewhere ; Greek boys were 
sent to Paris and other stirring centres of 
thought ; Koraes and other learned men 
kindled the memory of the ancient wisdom 
and glory of the race, and the "chill, change- 
less brow " once again throbbed with a 
frantic love of liberty. Poets have arisen 
to make the songs of the nation, and the 
lads and lasses in the glens and isles sing 
them to their herds and playmates ; Voltaire 
has spoken with stinging satire, the Paris 
clubs and the revolutions of France, Spain,, 
Portugal, and America have infected even 
Greece with the epidemic ; Egypt, Tunis, 
and Algiers have almost cut themselves, 
adrift from the Ottoman rule ; Ali Pasha, 
the monster of Janina, defied it even within 
the bounds of Greece ; Russia, the mighty- 
defender of the Greek Church, is ready to- 
spring upon Constantinople ; the Sultan has 
become poor and sick, it is believed, even 
unto death. 

When a fifth of the present century had 
passed away, Greece had made up her mind 
to revolt. The military barbarians who had 
poured into Europe, driven by their own fiery 
fatalism from the coasts of Asia in the four- 
teenth and fifteenth centuries, were to be 
knocked ' down like cockchafers from the 
cushioned divans on which they sleep and 
smoke, pulled from their harems, stabbed 
and shot in their mosques, hustled out of 
Wallachia, Macedonia, Greece, the Morea,, 
and the Archipelago, and by some means or 
other made an end of. For Turkey, it v/as 
averred, never was, never could be, any- 
thing but a military despotism : by sword 
and butchery and plunder the Turks came, 
and by those same weapons they should 
be turned out. Learned professors, priests, 
generals, thieves, sailors, gardeners, would 
take up guns, scythes, pitchforks, fire-ships, 
daggers, and fight or assassinate them till 
not a Moslem man, woman, or child should 



594 



THE MASSACRE OF SCIO. 



breathe the same air with the countrymen of 
Epaminondas, and Themistocles. The cruel 
tyranny of centuries cannot be extinguished 
with rose-water from the Balkans. Quarter 
there shall be none, said the patriots, to 
the barbarians whose only right in this 
famous land is that of gun and yataghan, 
whose fingers are all thumbs, and who, as 
Gibbon justly said, are only encamped, not 
settled, in Europe. It is simply the crusade 
of Greece that is proclaimed by the short 
and sharp cry of the uprisen country : 
" Peace to the Christians ! Respect to the 
Consuls ! Death to the Turks !" The re- 
volution of Greece is the vengeance of a 
nation that is filled with shame, contempt, 
and hatred. The secret societies, which, 
working in silence and gloom, have scattered 
their active apostles over the isles and 
valleys of the oppressed country for several 
■ years, have determined on the principle of 
" burning their ships," of inaugurating the 
rebellion with a baptism of blood, so that 
retreat and a dishonourable peace shall be 
impossible. 

Our main purpose in the present paper is 
to afford a sketch of one incident in this war 
of extermination, when the whole of the 
lovely and peaceful island of Scio (the ancient 
Chios), three times the size of the Isle of 
Wight, was laid waste by Asiatic savages 
from the one end to the other ; five and 
twenty thousand men, women, and children 
butchered, and perhaps twice that number 
dragged into slavery. Many are the tragic 
convulsions, by war and plague and earth- 
quake, that have run through it since the 
birth of Homer, "the blind old bard of 
Scio's rocky isle," since the grand battue of 
its inhabitants by the Persians in the fifth 
century before Christ; but none was ever 
so appalling as the massacre of 1822, which 
sent a shudder through the whole of Europe, 
and called forth the invincible sympathy of 
the civilized Powers. The horrific episode is 
known in Chian annals as "The Catastrophe." 
Our story of the massacre will serve to show 
the uncompromising nature of the six years' 
struggle, and that Greece could only rise by 
deeds of superhuman daring, and by huge 
holocausts on the altar of liberty, from the 
abyss into which she had sunk by centuries 
of slavery. 

The Rising in the North ; The Sacred 
Battalion ; Noble End of Georgakl 
The first torch of insurrection was thrown 
into the Turkish empire, when, on the 6th of 
March, 1 82 1, attended only by his two brothers 
and eight other companions. Prince Alexander 
Hypsilantes, a Russian officer and the son of 
a former Greek governor of Wallachia, crossed 
the river Pruth, which separated the empire 
of the white Czar from that of the dark and 



savage despot. Sultan Mahmoud. He had 
been chosen by the secret societies to carry- 
out the scheme at which they had been 
plotting for several years ; but the election* 
was in many ways the very worst possible, 
and his attempt quickly and naturally ended 
as a rmsershlejiasco. He issued a manifesto,, 
plainly hinting that the movement was backed 
by Russia, under the expectation that with 
this promise the subject peoples would at 
once hasten to his standard ; but the Czar 
soon swept away this ground of hope by 
the most emphatic denial, at the same 
time striking the name of Hypsilantes from, 
the list of Russian officers. The aged 
patriarch of the Greek Church hurled his 
anathema at the rebels, — a terrible blow, for 
the people were most intensely devoted tO' 
their religion. The prince, however, kept 
the field, although he had but little artillery,, 
in spite of the collections made by the 
" apostles," as the secret agents were desig- 
nated ; officers too, some brave, some 
treacherous, rallied round him in Moldavia,, 
far north of Greece ; but he was without 
any of the virtues or accomplishments of a 
soldier, a leader, a hero, or a martyr. He 
chilled the willing nobles with his obtrusive 
and repressing vanity and haughtiness ; he 
aped at royal dignity, and indulged in the 
light pleasures of the play instead of preparing' 
for the grim tragedies of the battle-field. He 
adorned his brief career with two massacres 
of Mussulmans : in one of these, at Yassy,, 
fifty prisoners who had surrendered on assur- 
ance of their life were put to death in cold 
blood; he boasted of the other at Galatz, 
and raised the murderer to the rank of 
general. The dilatory Turks came face to 
face with him in May ; and after some, 
wretched blunders by himself and the 
drunken Caravia, he retreated to the Austrian 
border, was arrested, and shut up in a 
noisome Hungarian castle, where he pined 
away till 1827, shortly after which this con- 
temptible liar and mountebank patriot expired 
in the gay city of Vienna. 

But the brief campaign was not closed 
without leaving behind it traces of a true and 
incorruptible love of country. Greece will 
not readily forget the bravery of the Sacred 
Battahon, consisting of a thousand of the 
flower of her cultured youth, whose deter- 
mination to do or die was symbolized by 
their black dress and the death's-head on 
their caps : only a hundred of them survived 
the carnage, and, shoeless and almost naked,, 
succeeded in buying the privilege of crossing 
the Austrian frontier. Nor must the name of 
Captain Georgaki, proud only that he was a 
native of Olympus, pass unnoticed. His 
modesty and sublime courage were well fitted 
to inaugurate the freedom of a noble race. 
The wretched weakness of his health could 



595 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



not prevent him from straining every nerve 
to rouse the people to the conflict. After 
many marvellous escapes he was surrounded 
with a few followers in the monastery of 
Seko. For nearly two days he defended 
himself with gallantry, thrice declining the 
offer of the Ottoman general to depart un- 
molested, and at last, seeing that escape was 
hopeless, he called his followers together and 
addressed them in the style of the bravest 
days of ancient Greece : " Brothers, in our 
present circumstances, a glorious death is all 
we ought to wish for, and I trust there is no 
one here base enough to regret his life. Let 
us imitate those true Greeks, our comrades, 
whose dead bodies are stretched on the fields 
of Dragashan and Skuleni, and whose blood 
yet cries for vengeance. If we die like them, 
perhaps on some future day our countrymen 
will gather up our bones and transport them 
to the classic land of our forefathers I " Then, 
according to one version of his mysterious 
end, having observed that a number of the 
soldiers were anxious for surrender, he retired 
to the belfry, and, after a short prayer, blew 
himself and four companions into the air. 
Thus tragically closed, on the 26th of 
August, the rebelHon of the Greeks beyond 
the Danube. 

Better Success in the Morea; Fear- 
ful Massacres by the Greeks. 

It was hard to rouse the slothful Turks to 
think other than contemptuously of Greek 
courage, and, in spite of plain warning, they 
delayed all steps for the prevention of re- 
bellion in the south of Greece until their 
power had almost collapsed to the crack of 
doom. Far away down in the Morea and 
in the brisk commercial isles the secret 
societies were strong and active ; and there 
even the lower classes were on the qui vive 
for some impending shock; their nerves were 
strung up by the mysterious hints of the 
apostles, by the visions of the hermit monks, 
and by the news of the war in the Epirus 
under the ferocious lion of Janina. North 
of the Gulf of Corinth the people were also 
rendered doubly wretched by the constant 
march of troops against the old rebel, Ali 
Pasha, and all through the winter there 
ran along the coast and among the moun- 
tains a feverish rumour that a Russian fleet 
was coming into the Mediterranean to thrust 
the Turks for ever out of the country. In 
the early spring of 182 1 the provincial divan 
(or council) of Tripolitza, the capital of the 
Morea, crept out of its shell. It imposed a 
double poll-tax for that year, issued a pro- 
clamation for disarming the rayahs (or non- 
Mussulmans), and summoned the leading 
clergy on the pretence of taking counsel as 
to the condition of the country. Several 



bishops were tame or foolish enough to put 
their heads into this Tripolitza trap. 

On the night of the i8th of March, Ger- 
manos, archbishop of Patras, the chief com- 
mercial town of the Morea, and a hot-bed of 
Russian intrigue, situated in a lovely valley 
by the sea at the foot of lofty hills, turned his 
face eastward along the road to Tripolitza. 
But he did not travel far in that direction. 
In a fortnight he raised the standard of the 
Cross in the little town of Kalavryta, high 
up among the mountains on the way from 
Patras. Already the first blows had been 
struck : tax-gatherers and a military party 
had been murdered, and an aga (or noble) 
had been robbed of his treasures, escaping 
with difficulty to the capital. On the 3rd of 
April a large number of Mussulmans were 
driven into Kalavryta, besieged, murdered, 
or carried off as slaves. The news travelled 
quickly down to Patras, and within two days 
the balls of the Turkish soldiers in the for- 
tress were whizzing amid the burning houses ; 
old men, women, and children fled from the 
flames, which a high wind drove furiously 
after them ; Greeks and Turks stabbed each 
other among the smoking ruins without a 
thought of mercy. The primates, or head- 
men, of Vostitza, which lay to the east along 
the shore of the Gulf of Corinth, marched 
into Patras with five Mussulman heads borne 
before them as trophies ; and on the 6th — 
the day on which the secret society at Vos- 
titza had fixed for proclaiming the insurrection 
throughout all Greece — the valiant archbishop 
came down to Patras from his mountain perch, 
the monks and clergy in the front chanting 
psalms, followed by thousands of peasants 
with guns, slings, clubs, daggers stuck on 
poles, all rendered courageous by the faith 
that every man who fell against the infidel 
should gain the crown of martyrdom. The 
crucifix was planted in the great square, 
Grecian banners floated from the mosques, 
the proclamation of "Peace to the Chris- 
tians ! Respect to the Consuls ! Death to 
the Turks ! " was issued, and within a week 
from the unfurling of the flag in the mountain 
village a Greek senate was assembled at 
Calamita, on the southern shore of the 
Morea. Its president was no less a man 
than the Bey of Maina, a wild district that 
had never been subdued, and he had brought 
down with him a still more famous warrior, 
Theodore Colocotrones. The latter was a 
large and powerful man, cunning, but with 
an air of persuasive frankness ; from his big 
head there waved a wealth of black hair ; 
his intellect was keen, and his heart as hard 
as the nether millstone ; he was now fifty 
years of age, and for twenty-seven of these 
he had pursued the career of a notorious and 
murderous brigand. He recited the stories 
of his butcheries with glee. Yet he and his 



596 



THE MASSACRE OF SCIO. 



klephts did valuable, if sometimes atrocious, 
service in the cause of Greek independence. 
Within three months the rebels -were 
masters of the whole of Greece south of 



some of the fearful massacres perpetrated 
by the Christians. Vrachori, the most im- 
portant town of western Greece (north of 
the Straits), had a population of 500 Mus- 




SciOTE Pfasamts driven away by the Approach or the 1li b 



the famous battle-field of Thermopylse, but 
most of the fortresses remained for some 
time in Turkish hands. We shall here 
move forward a little out of the order of 
our narrative, with a view of mentioning 



sulman families, with 600 Christians, and 
200 Jews. It was besieged by 4,000 armatoii, 
or Christian militia, formerly employed by 
the Porte to keep order in their respective 
districts, — warriors who were inured to the 



597 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



severest hardships, and were accustomed to 
sleep on the ground in all weathers with no 
'Other protection than their shaggy cloaks. 
The Turks and Jews laid down their arms 
Tunder a promise of safety, but, in spite of 
this, they were all immediately murdered by 
the ferocious mountainers under circumstances 
■of the most shocking cruelty, only a few of 
the richer being let off unscathed. 

The town of Navarino was starved into 
capitulation on the 19th of August ; and on 
the surrender of all the public and private 
property, except wearing apparel and house- 
hold furniture, the Greeks undertook to 
convey the inhabitants to Egypt or Tunis. 
A dispute having arisen on the delicate sub- 
ject of searching the women for concealed 
valuables, every single human being that 
had not yet gone on board was put to death 
with the most ruthless barbarism : women, 
bleeding from the cuts of sabres, or stripped 
■of their very clothing, ran into the sea to hide 
themselves, and were shot down ; children 
of the age of three or four years were tossed 
into the waves, and tender infants were torn 
from the maternal bosom and dashed against 
the rocks. 

During the sack of Tripolitza at the begin- 
ning of October, women and children were 
in many cases tortured before being put to 
death ; but still greater fiendishness^perhaps 
the deepest stain on Greece during the whole 
period of the revolution — was shown when, 
after the city had been occupied by the 
Greeks for two entire days, two thousand 
men, women, and children were led out to 
a neighbouring ravine and murdered in cold 
blood. One writer declares that years after 
the event he saw the unburied bones of 
the massacred victims lying in the hollow, 
bleached by the winter rains and summer 
suns. No wonder that Raybaud and other 
friends of Greece hung their heads in shame 
and sorrow ! 

Dreadful Reprisals at Constanti- 
nople; Execution of the Patriarch; 
Canopy of Vultures. 
It was not the Greeks alone, however, who 
built up this barrier of blood ; for if we cast 
■our eyes back to the beginning of April, we 
shall witness in the streets of the capital of 
" the butcher," Sultan Mahmoud, scenes that 
far eclipse in magnitude and reckless atrocity 
the horrors enacted by the fierce klephts and 
armatoli. The melancholy Sultan, who is 
credited with having at one time seriously con- 
templated the extermination of every single 
Greek in his dominions,-^the financial loss 
probably alone prevented him from the 
attempt, — no sooner learned of the appear- 
ance of Hypsilantes in Moldavia, than he 
-appealed to the religion and loyalty of the 
iaithful, and called on every Mussulman to 



provide himself with arms. It was simply 
a Holy War that was announced between 
the Cross and the Crescent. In consequence 
of this proclamation a hundred thousand 
armed Turks, not only men of mature years, 
but mere ignorant children of the "tender" 
age of ten, were let loose into the streets of 
Constantinople like a host of demons to 
murder and mutilate the Greeks, who could 
not venture from their homes for food except 
at the risk of perishing by the long daggers 
of the desperadoes. But Turkish justice was, 
if possible, more fiendish than Turkish law- 
lessness. When the news reached Constanti- 
nople that hundreds of Mussulmans werebeing 
murdered in Greece, the Sultan gave orders 
to Benderli Ali, the Grand Vizier, to seize 
the leading Greek officials and execute them 
as hostages. On the i6th of April, Constan- 
tine Murusi, the first dragoman (or interpreter) 
of the Porte, was beheaded in his official 
dress. Other dignitaries met with the same 
fate ; but there was one especial blow struck 
at the Greek Church, which sent a thrill of 
horror through millions, from the hills of 
Greece to the banks of the Neva, and placed 
the topmost layer on the barrier of blood. 

On Easter Sunday, 22nd of April, 1821, an 
unusually large crowd of wretched Greeks 
assembled in the cathedral of the Phanar to 
witness the most solemn ceremony of high 
mass, and to hear from the lips of the 
venerable head of their Church the sacred 
salutation, " Christ is arisen !" which had for 
them a peculiar and deep significance in 
those weeks of agony, fear, and slaughter. 
Doubtless the patriarch conceived himself 
secure, for he had issued a pastoral condem- 
ning the revolution and its supporters ; but 
to the horror of the worshippers, just as 
he had uttered the words of benediction, a 
party of tchaouses entered, and seized him 
under an imperial warrant. A janissary, who 
had been appointed to guard his person, 
and had acquired a deep reverence for the 
aged prelate, rushed forward to defend him, 
and was stabbed by the yataghan of an 
associate. The three officiating bishops and 
his two chaplains were led with him to exe- 
cution. " The patriarch was hanged on the 
doorway of his palace, and left to struggle in 
his robes with the agony of death. His 
person," wrote a member of the British 
Embassy, " attenuated by abstinence and 
emaciated by age, had not weight sufficient 
to cause immediate death. He continued 
for a long time in pain, which no friendly 
hand dared to abridge, and the darkness of 
night came on before the last convulsions 
were over." His lifeless body, dragged by 
Jews through the streets of the Greek 
quarter, and tossed into the harbour, was 
shortly after cast up on the shore, and 
interred with due solemnity in the island 



598 



THE MASSACRE OF SCIO. 



•of Corfu ; but the memory of this horrid in- 
sult to their religion rankled in the breast 
-of every Christian Greek, and the name of 
the murdered Gregorios became a vengeful 
war-cry in the fierce struggles of the revolu- 
tion. 

Foreign residents of Constantinople vs'it- 
nessed in the streets of the capital and the 
neighbouring cities scenes of horror that 
surpass conception or description. These 
places were for several weeks in anarchy 
and at the mercy of murderous mobs ; every 
day the bodies of fresh victims were seen 
hanging on walls and doors, headless trunks 
were trampled in the streets, vultures and 
other birds of prey gathered overhead and 
covered the capital like a canopy, ravenous 
dogs prowled by night, uttering dismal howls 
;and fighting for possession of the trunks and 
skulls of hapless Greeks . We must leave to 
imagination the fearful agonies of women, 
many of the most refined tastes, whose 
husbands, fathers, and sons were dragged to 
prison, torlure, and death, who were them- 
selves reduced to absolute starvation, and 
lived in sickening suspense lest still more 
■dreadful and unnamable outrages should 
be inflicted, if the brutal passions of the 
Turkish mobs were suffered longer to con- 
tinue unrestrained. Where were the repre- 
sentatives of the civilized Powers of Europe ? 
What was done to put an end to this 
abominable anarchy ? To our shame be it 
said, that the Russian ambassador proposed 
the despatch of a combined European fleet 
to protect the Christians, but that the 
English ambassador objected to this pro- 
cedure, and the Powers satisfied themselves 
with a remonstrance ! Of course this was a 
necessary piece of statesmanship ! And so 
poor Greece must wade her own solitary way 
through seas of blood. Perhaps it was best 
that it should be so ; for intervention at this 
early stage might only have thrown her down 
again, under certain limitations, beneath the 
detested domination of the Crescent. 

The conflict proceeded; and on the ist of 
January, 1822, the independence of Greece 
was proclaimed. Its first president was 
Alexander Mavrocordatos, a Phanariot of 
Sciote origin. He was a little man with a 
fine, massive head, set off with a profusion 
of jet-black hair ; he had large and sparkling 
eyes, with bushy eye-brows, and immense 
whiskers and mustachios. He wore an air 
of goodness, but lacked dignity, not in dress 
only but in mien ; and his character had one 
prime and fatal fault which prevented him 
from being a splendid leader, — he was with- 
out decision. Indeed, in all the period of 
struggle, Greece had not one central and 
commanding spirit. Meanwhile thousands 
of pairs of ears were sent to the Sultan from 
different parts of the revolted country, and 



piled up as ghastly trophies before the gate 
of the seraglio. 

The Island Hares ; Their Importance 
IN THE Struggle, 
The Turks were in the habit of showing 
their contempt for the Greek inhabitants of 
the Archipelago by bestowing on them the 
nickname of " hares " ; and to some of the 
islands the epithet was not ill applied. But 
however true it might be that many were 
more adapted by nature for the timid occu- 
pations of the kitchen, the nursery, and 
the garden than for the arts of cruel 
warfare and selfish diplomacy, on which 
alone the Ottoman sets any value, the fact 
turned out to be that the fabric of Greek 
independence was to find its surest materials 
on some of these same barren, mountainous, 
and, it was fondly believed by the jesting 
tax-gatherer, timid isles. With the exception 
of Samos, none of the little rocks which 
came to the forefront as glorious stars on the 
forehead of new Greece had even the slightest 
importance in the annals of ancient Hellas. 
You will search in vain through the pages of 
old Lempriere for one decorative gleam of 
light on the rocks of Spetzia, Hydra, and 
Psara. They had no history. They had 
sprung up from the depths of the sea, as it 
were, quite recently. During the eighteenth 
century the Sultans, in order to give a fillip 
to native commerce, very kindly — fatally to 
their own power after the lapse of a century 
— relieved the three rocky islets above 
mencioned, along with that of Kasos, and 
the two barren promontories of Trikeri and 
Galaxhidi, from the heavy blight of taxation 
that destroyed the vigour of the empire ; 
and during the period when the noisy and 
imperious Frenchmen were playing the part 
of Ishmael against the whole of Euiope, 
these little rocks became the outlets of 
Greek enterprise, acquiring very considera- 
ble wealth as traders, especially in carrying 
grain between the Black Sea and the south 
of Europe. They administered their own 
affairs, almost like independent republics. 
It must be noted, however, that the mer- 
chants and sailors of Hydra and Spetzia, off 
the coast of Argolis, were not Greeks but 
Albanians, races quite as distant and dis- 
tmct from each other in origin and character 
as are the Welsh and English. The Alba- 
nian is proud and turbulent, but truthful and 
honest ; the Greek is more intellectual, bul 
crafty to his finger-tips. Hydra, with her 
four thousand families, was the wealthiest 
and most populous ; her merchants, such as 
the Conduriotti, had amassed great sums, 
and their ships were ungrudgingly placed 
at the disposal of revolutionary Greece. 
When Hydra, Spetzia, and Psara showed 
the national colours at the mast-head in 



599 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the spring of 1821, they had respectively 
115, 60, and 40 ships over 100 tons 
burden. The most brilHant deeds of the 
fierce vi^ar of vengeance were to be accom- 
pHshed by the money, the men, and the 
vessels of these traders v^'hom the Turk 
ridiculed as coward conies, and from them 
there was destined to arise one glorious 
figure, who seemed to the Ottoman a demon 
wrapped in flames of fire, yet who was after 
all but a pious, poor, and simple sailor of 
the rock of Psara. Constantine Kanaris, the 
Garibaldi of Greece, and Andrew Miaoulis, 
his fellow Psariot, admiral of the Greek fleet, 
stand out conspicious by their simple honesty 
and unsullied patriotism more than by their 
bravery, from the herd of unscrupulous, 
murderous, plundering, ambitious phanariots, 
primates, captains, and robber-chiefs who 
fought with Turkey, quarrelled with each 
other, and gave the Western World a very 
sorry impression of the latter-day Greek and 
of his fitness for independence. 

First Cruise of the Greek Fleet ; 
Visit to the Isle of Scio. 

With all haste the isles transformed their 
merchant vessels into ships of war; and early 
in the spring of 1821, a little fleet of over 
twenty vessels was ready to sail forth on its 
first cruise, under the command of James 
Tombazes, one of the primates of the rock of 
Hydra, and the only man in that enterpris- 
ing centre who was not suspicious and 
positively rude to strangers. Its original 
destination was the coast of the Epirus, 
where the Ottoman fleet was then cruising. 
Had it proceeded there, as was intended, 
the ill-manned Turkish vessels would have 
fallen into its grasp as a heap of dead logs, 
and the spirits of the western Greeks would 
have been roused. But when it was on the 
eve of departure, there arrived at Hydra a 
native of the Isle of Scio, named Neophytos 
Vambas. He was a man whose opinion and 
advice could not well be despised at such a 
critical moment ; he had spent years of his 
life in France, and, though in feeble health, 
had shown himself a true patriot by re- 
nouncing his peaceful and scholarly life as 
head of the famous college in his native 
island for the noise of camps, the hardships 
of the battle-field, and the spectacle of carnage. 
He afterwards acted as chief secretary of 
Demetrius Hypsilantes (who was leader of 
the insurrection during hisbrother's captivity), 
and did high service to his country in later 
years as a teacher, by cultivating the moral 
feelings as well as the intellect of his distin- 
guished pupils. But Vambas was too much 
of a doctrinaire to be a sound political adviser. 
By his counsel Tombazes made Scio instead 
of the Epirus the destination of the fleet. 

The particulars of this ciniise, which was 



projected with the commendable object of 
stirring up Scio and other large and wealthy 
islands to declare for the revolution, form an 
interesting narrative, but a very sad one, in 
view of its complete failure, of the horrible 
deeds committed by the fleet, of the still 
more horrible cruelties perpetrated by the 
Turks under the name of vengeance, and of 
the selfish rapacity of the patriots which was 
displayed in quarrels over the division of the 
spoil, and the unpatriotic separation of 
several of the ships to act as privateers on 
their own account. It is true that now for 
the first time fire-ships, of which we shall 
have more to say by-and-by, were used with 
deadly effect on a Turkish ship of the liae, 
compelling her companions to fly in terror to 
the shelter of the Dardanelles ; but, on the 
other hand, such a dark deed as that enacted 
by the Hydriot brigs on a richly-laden 
Turkish vessel, when ladies of rank, beau- 
tiful slaves, infant children, and helpless old 
men, were all butchered in cold blood, was 
impolitic and selfish, to say the least, for it 
gave a colour of justice to such easy and awful 
reprisals as that taken on the flourishing 
young city of Kydonies on the Asiatic coast, 
which contained thirty thousand Greeks within 
itself and the surrounding villages. A general 
massacre took place, and droves of innocent 
and industrious Greeks, when the barbarous 
thirst for blood was sated, were led away to 
stock for months the slave-markets of Smyrna, 
Brusa, and Constantinople. 

On the 9th of May the Greek fleet cast 
anchor at Pasha Fountain, a bay situated a 
little to the north of the town of Chios or 
Castro, on the eastern side of the island, and 
secret agents were sent ashore to proceed 
through the villages with proclamations, 
appealing to the people to throw off the 
Turkish yoke and avenge the death of the 
patriarch Gregorios. The moment was well 
chosen, for the castle which commanded the 
port of Chios was in a bad state of repair and 
held by a feeble garrison. The town itself had 
a population of thirty thousand, that mighi 
easily have crushed the keepers of the citadel. 
The handful of Turks were thrown into a state 
of consternation. " Are you not,'' said they 
in alarm to the Greek natives, '' the happiest 
Christian subjects of the Sultan ? Remain 
tranquil in the midst of this general confla- 
gration : if your brothers are conquerors, we 
shall be ' rayas ' in our turn ; if the Crescent 
triumphs, you will not have to suffer the con- 
sequences of a revolt to which you will be 
strangers." The emissaries of the Greek 
invaders were seized; the "primates" of Scio 
wei'e afraid to compromise themselves in the 
eyes of their Turkish masters, and beseeched 
the navy to depart, entertaining, however, an 
inward reserve in favour of the patriotic cause, 
Tombazes, afraid that his presence mighs 



600 



THE MASSACRE OF SCIO. 








An Amblscadf or Sciotes watching tht Mo\emlnis of the Turkish Army 



60 1 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



provoke a rigorous treatment of the inhabi- 
tants, abandoned the main purpose of his 
cruise and sailed off into other waters. Such 
was the first voyage of the fleet that had set 
forth with the grand idea of repeating the 
ancient glory of Salamis. 

The Paradise of Greece ; Why the 

Hares of Scio did not rise. 
The question is interesting, how this im- 
portant island, with a Greek population of the 
purest blood amounting to perhaps more than 
one hundred thousand persons, refused to enter 
the alliance and break from the barbarous 
despotism of the Turks, The Sciotes were the 
most flourishing community of Greeks under 
the Ottoman sway ; their rich merchants 
had houses established in all the great cities 
of the Levant and Europe, in England, 
Amsterdam, Marseilles, Leghorn, Trieste, 
Malta, Alexandria, Moscow, Taganrog, 
Odessa, Vienna, Constantinople, and in 
many Asiatic towns, such as Beyrout and 
Smyrna, the whole cloth- trade of this last 
city being in their hands. Their culture was 
the foremost ; they could boast of the first 
Greek scholar of the day, Koraes, whose 
'"sublime apostolate," carried on in France, 
sought to regenerate his country by present- 
ing the purest models of the ancient tongue, 
— striving to arouse at once an equal love of 
knowledge and of liberty, — and whose elo- 
quent exposition of the state of Greece in 
1813 first opened the eyes of Western scholars 
to the fact that it was something more than a 
museum ; and since the year 1792 they had 
possessed a handsome college, where at this 
time five hundred pupils of the island and 
two hundred from abroad received the advan- 
tage of a free education. Travellers, like our 
own Chandler, represented the hilly Scio as a 
sort of fairyland. The town was filled with 
splendid structures of white marble, and 
surrounded with mansions embowered in 
gardens that were fragrant in spring-tide with 
oranges and citrons and the rarest flowei's, and 
were enlivened with the songs of nightingales; 
the honey of Scio rivalled that of Hybla and 
Hymettus ; the slopes were dotted with 
villages, vineyards, pomegranates, olives, 
and other fruit-trees; and the mastic tree 
flourished in the south-west, yielding the 
delicious gum so pleasant to the palates of 
the ladies of the East and of the Sultan's 
harem. The fragrance of the balmy island 
was felt miles off at sea. Its women, luscious 
Ionian Greeks of unadulterated type, were as 
lovely, says Bulwer (not the novelist), "as 
God or even Sir Godfrey Kneller could have 
made them." If there were any spot of Greece 
that could and should have given effective 
aid and European sympathy to the revolution 
against Turkish tyranny, it was the isle of 
Scio. And at this moment the whole troops 



in command of the island were the seven or 
eight hundred frightened janissaries in the old 
citadel that had been built by the Genoese 
while masters of the island, from the four- 
teenth to the sixteenth century ; the fortifica- 
tions were sadly ruined, and most of the guns 
were without carriages. There was a proverb 
which asserted that it was as rare to find a 
green horse as a prudent Sciote. Unfor- 
tunately this referred to the reckless gaiety, 
not the patriotic instincts, of the citizens. 

Finlay and others have stood up for the 
policy of the Sciotes. There were thousands 
of its natives engaged in business or as 
gardeners in Turkish towns like Smyrna and 
Constantinople, so that a large amount of 
human life as well as wealth was involved in 
the insurrectic-n of the island. Their hands 
were tied by the bonds of commerce far more 
firmly than those of any other spot of Greece. 
To take up arms against a foe whose hands 
were deep in your pockets, and whose sabre 
hung over the necks of your absent fathers 
and sons, was a resolve that would make the 
heart of the stoutest patriot tremble and his 
face grow pale. There was this further fact, 
that the despotism of Scio was of an ex- 
tremely mild type. The inhabitants were to 
all intents and purposes independent. Their 
prosperity was greatly due to the circum- 
stance that the island had lived under the 
gentle sway of several successive sultanas. 
Every year the town of Chios chose its own 
five native demogeronts, who held almost 
complete control. 

True enough all this. And we shall add 
that at the outbreak of the revolution the aim 
of the Greeks was not so much to erect an 
independent nation as to sweep away the 
Turks. The movement was to a large extent 
of an ecclesiastical character. Hypsilantes, 
and thousands of others, had no higher aspi- 
ration than to transfer Greece from the heel 
of the Sultan to that of the Emperor of 
Russia, the chief patron of the Eastern 
Church, But this argument breaks down 
after the proclamation of independence on 
the 1st day of January, 1822, The spring 
and summer of that year will tell a horrid 
tale and teach a great political lesson, "The 
more far-sighted and consistent friend of 
liberty," says an anonymous writer, "will 
recognise in this case one of those instances, 
of rare occurrence, in which the duty of the 
citizen is to sacrifice his property, his tran- 
quillity, the security of his family, in pursuit 
of a good, abstract and remote as far as his 
own enjoyments are concerned, for the pure 
and unmixed love of his country. And s«uch 
policy is in truth the safest, as a thousand 
instances have proved, no less than the 
manliest. Had the Sciotes taken the national 
side, and fortified their island in co-operation 
with their Samian neighbours, they, with 



602 



THE MASSACRE OF SCIO. 



•wealth and population such as theirs, were 
secured almost against the remotest contin- 
gency of capture from the wild and desultory 
efforts of the Ottomans." We shall only seek 
to enforce this by remarking that the Sciotes 
were so deeply distrusted by patriotic Greeks 
that they were at first excluded from becoming 
members of the secret society known as the 
Philike Hetairia. They were the true "hares " 
of the Turkish tax-gatherers. They were 
doomed to be worried as excellent game by 
the wild dogs of Constantinople and Asia. 

Arrest of Leading Citizens ; The 
Island overrun by an Asiatic Horde. 

Immediately on the departure of the fleet, 
the musselim, or governor of the island, gave 
•orders for the disarming of the Christians, 
■strengthened the fortifications, and sent to 
the divan at Constantinople for military 
stores. He summoned the mesas, or council 
of demogeronts, and, in spite of their distinct 
aversion from rebellion, shut them up in the 
citadel as hostages of peace, along with the 
archbishop and thirty men, heads of the 
leading families of the town, who were in- 
vited or forced into the fortress under the 
pretence of taking counsel on the situation. 
The archbishop was never allowed to pass 
from the safe du^-ance of the citadel, but the 
others were permitted to exchange the in- 
sufferable confinement of their gaols for that 
of a Turkish coffee-house, where they occu- 
pied together one large room with thick 
walls, almost subterranean in aspect, and 
•cheered by a very small portion of the bright 
Chian sunshine. In a few days the number 
was increased to forty-six, and, besides these, 
twelve leading men were brought down from 
the chief mastic villages to share their prison. 
After a time thirty-two other citizens entered 
as hostages, an equal number being permitted 
to go out on business for a month ; this 
monthly alternation of prisoners continued 
until the destruction of the island. Even in 
the worst sickness no one was permitted to 
enjoy the affectionate care and comforts of 
his home, and, in consequence of this treat- 
ment, two of the hostages died during their 
incarceration. Another was shot by way of 
amusement by the pistol of a savage soldier. 
As if these precautions were not sufficient, 
three of the most prominent Sciotes were sent 
as prisoners to Constantinople, and confined 
in the horrible dungeon of the Bostangi 
Bashi (or police minister), which had a ter- 
rible reputation for the marvellous severity 
of the tortures there inflicted in the name of 
justice. Murders were of daily occurrence 
in Scio, the markets were opened only by 
•order, and the people -were continually kept 
in terror by red-handed violence. 

A wild horde of armed Asiatics, a thou- 
:sand in number, soon arrived in the island, 



attracted by the wealth and helplessness of 
its inhabitants. .Not a day passed without 
some fresh tale of murder, plunder, and such 
foul crimes as were sufficient to rouse the 
spirit of the tamest and make the blood run 
cold. People scarcely dared to move along 
the streets, or even show their faces at the 
windows. The leading Turks were also 
alarmed by their presence ; neither the com- 
mand of the Sultan himself, nor the efforts 
at restraint made by day and night by the 
musselim and his few soldiers, had any effect 
on the plundering savages. Commerce was 
at a standstill ; the ships which were accus- 
tomed to supply the town with provisions 
did not appear, and the dread of famine laid 
the copestone on the woes and despair of the 
unhappy people. The threatened outburst 
of an insurrection was only driven off by the 
generosity of the demogeronts, who supplied 
the wants of the starving poor. At last, under 
the pressure of the Sciote merchants in Con- 
stantinople, a force of eleven hundred soldiers 
was despatched under the command of Vehid 
Pasha ; the horde of Asiatics was controlled 
and dispersed, and the people again breathed 
freely. But the island had only changed 
the ravages of bandits for the stern exactions 
of a military despotism. Vehid imposed a 
tax of 34,000 piastres monthly for the main- 
tenance of his troops, laid his hands on 4,000 
centals of grain that had been stored up by 
the demogeronts for the use of the inhabi- 
tants ; the goods in the markets were seized 
by the brutal soldiers, who then sold them 
on their own account ; the poor niiserables 
in town and country were compelled to work 
at the trenches of the citadel without pay, 
spurred to energy by the application of the 
bastinado. 

Invasion by the Samians ; Blunder 

and Disgrace. 
In the month of November 1821, shortly 
after the conquest and horrible carnage of 
Tripolitza, a Sciote peasant from the village 
of Vrondado, named Antonaki Bournia, who 
had served in Egypt under Napoleon, pre- 
sented himself before Demetrius Hypsilantes 
with a fantastic scheme for the redemp- 
tion of Scio, asking authority and means for 
raising and completing the insurrection in 
that island. The Greek leaders — Vambas, 
the Sciote who had instigated the invasion of 
Tombazes' fleet, among the number — not dis- 
covering in him any special capacity for such 
an enterprize, or that he had any great in- 
fluence among his co-patriots, rejected his 
proposal. They were reluctant to compromise 
an immense population of unwarlike tastes, 
and they thought it best that the island, lying 
only a few miles from the hordes of the Asiatic 
continent, should hold its choice in reserve 
until the issue of the bloody struggle was 



603 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



decided. But the unlettered peasant — what 
the French call a inmcvazs stijet — had a strong 
determination and lust for fame, if he was 
destitute of genius or character. In spite of 
his cold reception from Hypsilantes, he betook 
himself to the brave historic island of Samos, 
affiliated himself with four other Sciote adven- 
turers who had fled as bankrupts from the 
bazaars of Smyrna, and secured the active 
service of the Samian adventurer, Lycurgus 
Logothetes, a physician by profession, and 
the accepted dictator of his native island. The 
attack was concerted with an enthusiasm that 
amounted to impatience : there was nothing 
so easy as to master Scio. The island would 
surrender with the willingness of a loving 
maiden. Their victory would be as simple 
to record as that described by Cassar — Veni, 
vidi, vicij they dreamed of nothing but the 
expulsion of the Turks and the chastisement 
of the primates who had refused to join in 
the national struggle. The leading Sciotes 
and Psarians, however, were opposed to the 
project of an invasion.* 

Suddenly there spread through Scio a 
rumour that the men of Samos were arming 
for the " deliverance " of that island ; the 
most responsible inhabitants were thrown 
into consternation, which was aggravated by 
the fact that it was now the mastic season ; 
the archbishop and demogeronts instantly 
despatched agents through the villages to 
warn them against raising a hand in favour 
of the conspirators, and a deputy was sent 
off to Samos to investigate the truth of the 
report. But the fact was only too certain 
long before the possibility of his return. On 
the evening of Saturday, 22nd of March (or 
at break of day on Sunday), a flotilla of forty 
to fifty boats, with about two thousand five 
hundred men, under the joint command of 
the Samian dictator and the whilom captain 
of the Chasseurs d'Orient, landed at the Bay 
of St. Helen, a few miles south of the port 
of Scio. A Turkish force of five or six 
hundred men was sent to oppose the advance 
of the Samians, but retreated in haste with 
great loss ; four thousand other Turkish 
inhabitants fled into the citadel along with 
the hostages, victuals, and ammunition. Soon 
the van of the invading army was seen on 
the heights of Turlotti above the town, and 
a little firing of their cannon was directed 
without effect at the citadel, serving no other 



* Our statement as to Bournia's visit to Hypsilantes 
is based on the Memoires sur la Grcce of Raybaiid, 
the French philhellene, who was present. Finlay, 
however, mentions that Hypsilantes authorized a 
Sciote merchant, Ralli, to undertal^e an expediuon 
with Lycurgus ; that in January 1822 he wrote to 
Lycurgus to defer it, and that Lycurgus replied, on 
the ist of February, that he would do so, but praying 
that the delay might not be long as he " considered 
the conquest of Scio to be a sacred duty." 



purpose than to waken up the country people 
to the fact that something unusual was go- 
ing on. Signals waving on the mountains 
announced the arrival of the liberators, whO' 
soon marched into the town with a host of 
twenty thousand peasants, armed with blud- 
geons, fusils, picks, sickles, spits, and pitch- 
forks. " Popes," or priests, advanced in 
front of the regiments, bearing the banner 
of the Cross, and the frantic, motley crowds 
raised the shout of " Liberty ! " 

The Greek inhabitants of the town did nofe 
welcome the disturbers of their peace. At 
first they shut themselves up in their dwell- 
ings, but in the course of the afternoon they 
thought it prudent to raise a feeble cheer as 
the Christian standards were borne past 
through the streets. All night long there 
were illuminations. A large number of 
priests, clothed in their sacred habits, moved 
about among the excited crowds, bearing 
crosses and waving incense ; the intonatioa 
of sacred hymns mingled with the music of 
patriotic songs. During the nineteen days- 
of occupation by the Samians, the town was 
one continual scene of anarchy and pillage z 
not only were the custom-house, two mosques, 
and the dwellings of Turks plundered and 
destroyed, but even the stores of the Sciote 
merchants had their turn and were looted 
by the Samians and the native mobs. This 
disorderly conduct caused many of the 
wealthy families to flee across the country 
from the island. Bournia, styling himself 
" commander-in-chief," gave orders to the 
ephors to prevent the " great and rich " from 
taking flight ; officers imprisoned some of 
the leading merchants and black-mailed large 
sums of money from others on the plea ofi 
protecting them from the violence of the 
soldiers ; a domiciliary inquisition v/as esta- 
blished, authorizing the houses of the chief 
men to be entered at any hour of day or 
night on the pretext of stopping "desertions." 
The invasion was at once a blunder and 
a disgrace, and yet somewhat typical of the 
whole Greek revolution in its selfish rivalries, 
and robberies. The demogeronts had been 
deposed, and a revolutionary junto of six 
ephors set up in their place ; but the two. 
leaders, instead of concerting on active and 
effective measures for the reduction of the 
fortress and the defence of the island whose 
prosperity and inhabitants they had thrown 
in jeopardy, quarrelled with each other for 
the chief command. Lycurgus snubbed all 
round, and exacted a respectful kiss of hand ;. 
Bournia flaunted the tricolour, and gathered, 
round him a huge tail of peasants. Thsre 
was no artillery of sufficient power to telli 
upon the citadel. The invaders were so> 
deficient of aminunition as to pick up the 
spent balls fired from the fortress. Lycurgus 
several times made offers to Vehid for capi- 
604 



THE MASSACRE OF SCIO. 



tulation, but the Turkish pasha only rephed 
with bombs from the citadel, which the 
Greek patriots — such was their contempt of 
■the stupid Turks — had expected to surrender 
without a blow. Two deputies, one of 
whom was the honest and peaceful patriot, 
Glarakes, afterwards a minister of state 
under King Otho, were despatched to the 
central government at Corinth to ask for 
aid ; the news of the revolt created a sensa- 
tion not of the most hopeful character, but 
a promise was dutifully given that two 
mortars and five siege batteries should be 
sent to Scio, along with competent gunners. 
A fortnight passed before this necessary aid 
was furnished, and within that period the 
death-knell of the isle of Scio had been 
sounded. 

Arrival of the Turkish Admiral; 
Flight of the Samians. 

Sultan Mahmoud was infuriated by the 
attack on Scio,' which he regarded as a 
personal insult ; and the ladies of the 
harem, afraid of losing their delicious mas- 
tic, insisted on the utter destruction of the 
people who had dared to deprive them of 
the chief luxury of their existence. The 
three Sciote hostages who had been sent to 
Constantinople from the island were ordered 
to be hanged, the Sciote merchants and 
bankers had their counting-houses pillaged, 
and such as did not succeed in making their 
escape were thrown into prison, and sub- 
jected to the unspeakably savage tortures of 
the Bostangi Bashi. The Sultan uttered the 
fate of the island in the three terrific words, 
"Fire, Sword, Slavery !" 

Little did the peaceful and wealthy por- 
tion of the inhabitants of Scio's rocky isle, 
when they welcomed with manifest delight 
the news that a Turkish armament was on 
its way, under the command of the Capitan 
Pasha, or admiral, Kara Ali, imagine the 
terrible mission with which he was entrusted ; 
little did they dream that this monster, who 
had been raised to the head of the Ottoman 
fleet because of his single small success 
against the Greek navy in the previous 
autumn, when he had entered the port of 
Constantinople amid the tremendous roar of 
greeting cannon with gulls screaming over 
the thirty bodies that hung lifeless from the 
yard-arm of his flag-ship, was now sailing, 
with the most truculent and blood-thirsty re- 
fuse of the East, with plain orders to con- 
vert their lovely island into a vast cemetery. 
There was no secret in Constantinople as to 
the destination of the fleet ; the report was 
spread that the island would be given up to 
the volunteers ; every ruffian who could lay 
his hand on a knife or pistol hurried on 
board, and the expedition was manned and 
equipped with a celerity that had never been 



605 



approached in the annals of the Turkish navy. 
The pashas on the coast of Asia Minor also 
received orders to send boat-loads of men and 
provisions over to the island so long as the 
Greeks remained upon it. A hundred thou- 
sand barbarians assembled with alacrity 
when the news spread in Anatolia ; all the 
ports were crowded with them ; for weeks, 
in spite of the pasha's attempts to suppress 
the reign of anarchy, every Greek who dared 
to show himself in the streets of Smyrna was 
instantly murdered ; and the eyes of the 
faithful were filled with tears of joy at the 
sight of a regiment, composed entirely of 
imaums, marching along through that city 
to join in the plunder and massacre of the 
infidels of Scio. At last the fleet of the 
Capitan Pasha entered the northern channel 
between Scio and the mainland on the nth of 
April, crossed to Chesme on the Asiatic coast, 
eight or nine miles distant from the town of 
Scio, and having added some ten thousand ■ 
porters from Smyrna and other ruffians to 
those brought from Europe, sailed across 
with its host of attendant boats ; and on the 
1 2th of April, the vast army of savages 
was vomited upon the shore of the island, a 
little to the south of the citadel and harbour. 
The forces of Lycurgus made a very feeble 
resistance ; the battery of Turlotti was taken 
in an hour; and the ''dauntless Samians" 
fled with precipitation to the western shore 
of the island, where they embarked on some 
Psarian vessels, leaving the poor Sciotes, 
whom they had forced into rebellion, to the 
fury of the countless savages who swarmed 
across like locusts, attracted by the riches 
of the island and the far-famed beauty of its 
women. 

The Massacre; The Slaves and 

Fugitives. 
It would be impossible to describe the 
massacre which followed the first rush upon 
the town of Scio, and was continued without 
interruption for fifteen days, and even nights, 
upon a population that was almost entirely 
without arms. All that could be wrought by 
the hands of human fiends was done there — 
done by the " unspeakable Turk," by direct 
orders of the Sultan of Turkey, the head of 
a great European power. Who would care 
to read the details of the horrid carnage at 
the first storming of the town, when it is 
thought no less than nine thousand persons 
fell before the fury of the armed savages — of 
the roar of cannon, the report of guns, the 
hissing of balls, the cries of rage from the 
assassins, and of anguish from their helpless 
victims — how the inmates of the mad-house, 
the hospital, and the asylum for the deaf and 
dumb were butchered in the thirst for blood 
— how the famous college was destroyed, its 
professors hewn in pieces, and its pupils 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



carried off to slavery — how the people, when 
not benumbed by terror, fled with the speed 
of panic to the mountains, seeking the highest 
and roughest spots, hiding in caves and brush- 
wood, dying in the agony of hunger and thirst 
— how delicate mothers, who had lived in the 
bosom of luxury, flung themselves over preci- 
pices, in order to save themselves and their 
infants from a more cruel destiny — how ladies 
had their fingers chopped off to test whether 
they were still alive— how churches and every 
other building of importance were set on fire 
and laid in ruins — how in the delirium of 
fanaticism and plunder the very tombs were 
rifled and the ashes of the dead trampled 
underfoot and thrown to the winds — how 
dervishes, drunk with the aromatic wine of 
Scio, decorating their brows with garlands of 
ears, formed a fiendish dance round the piles 
of human heads ? A few hundreds found a 
refuge in the consulates, and fifteen thousand 
are said to have escaped in boats of Psara, 
many of the fugitives having gone through 
terrible sufferings before they succeeded in 
reaching the shore. When the lust for blood 
was sated, the savages led off their victims 
into slavery ; and in this way more than forty 
thousand persons were thrown into the slave- 
markets of Constantinople, Smyrna, and other 
Eastern cities. Of these victims, who were 
attached by cords and tossed pell-mell into 
the boats of their Asiatic captors, a large 
proportion consisted of young girls and 
children : many died from fear, wounds, and 
brutal treatment, some committed suicide, 
and others who tried to starve themselves, so 
as to escape from the horrors of slavery, 
were compelled by horsewhips to take food. 
At this time the mastic villages were to 
a large extent saved from the general mas- 
sacre and pillage, a matter about which 
the Capitan Pasha was particularly anxious. 
On his invitation the consuls proceeded, in 
uniform, at their own great peril, into the 
country with an amnesty from the Sultan 
and a letter from the Archbishop, urging its 
acceptance by the i-nhabitants. They suc- 
ceeded in their useless mission, and returned 
to the town on Easter Monday, the 22nd of 
April, with seventy primates from the mastic 
villages, and a train of mules laden with the 
arms which the peasants had surrendered in 
simple faith. On that same day the primates 
were hanged on the masts of the Turkish 
fleet, and on Easter Tuesday the Archbishop 
and seventy-five other hostages were similarly 
executed by order of the Sultan. After this 
the villages were again ransacked, when, as 
stated by an old priest in Volisso to a visitor 
in later years, "the lamentation began in true 
earnest : there was no more such a thing as 
concealment — those who hastened to hide 
themselves were soon discovered. As we 
hunt the partridges on the hills, so they 



tracked men up and shot them ; some, how- 
ever, saved themselves by mingling with the 
dead, and feigning to be dead themselves." 

Amid the wreck and ruin, the trepidation^ 
and the flight, there was here and there a 
stand made against the invaders with the 
courage of despair. The village of Vrondado, 
the native place of Bournia, whose vanity 
had to a large extent prompted the disaster of" 
Scio, was defended by fifteen hundred Greeks 
against a force of Asiatics double that num- 
ber : the latter were driven back to the for- 
tress; but they returned with considerable 
reinforcements to the charge, and succeeded 
in compelling the Christians to retreat. The 
Greeks in this instance exhibited the highest 
proof of courage by withdrawing in good 
order to the coast, whence they finally es- 
caped to Psara. A heroine in this company 
is said to have slain three Turks with her 
own hand before she was overpowered by 
her antagonists and fell. At Chimiano, a 
few miles to the south of the town of Chios, 
a few brave Greeks seized the guns of a 
frigate that had run aground, and burned 
her. 

Three thousand Sciotes had crowded inta 
the great monastery of St. Minas, five miles 
south of the town, where they were sur- 
rounded by the Turks and summoned to 
surrender. They refused, however, to lay 
down their arms, under the certainty that 
death or slavery awaited them in spite of their 
assurances. The result was, that the Turks 
stormed the place, butchered the monks and 
every other man, woman, and child, and 
carried off the sacred vessels and other 
valuables, — a sufficient load, it was said, for 
fifteen mules. In this case the poor Greeks 
were brought out in detachments of two 
hundred at a time, and mercilessly cut to 
pieces. At the ancient foundation of Nea 
Mone, the richest and most interesting of the 
nine monasteries then existing in Scio, and 
occupied by four hundred monks, some two 
thousand fugitives had found an asylum ; the 
building was carried by storm, the doors of 
the church were forced open, even women 
were slaughtered while praying to heaven on 
their knees, and, to save further trouble, the 
assailants set fire to the whole pile of build- 
ings, leaving the Christians who had escaped 
the sword to perish in the flames. At a 
convent in the north, near Mount St. Elias,, 
the ruffians dug out the priests' eyes, and 
then I'oasted their victims alive ! 

It is impossible to exaggerate the horrors- 
inflicted on those who were carried from^ 
their native home into the slavery of the- 
East, or the agonies endured by the fifteen or 
twenty thousand who escaped with their 
lives, many of them suffering from wounds,, 
disease, hunger, and nakedness, and wan- 
dered in search of a home to the mainland 



606 



THE MASSACRE OF SCIO. 



of Greece, to Trieste, to London, to Man- 
chester, even to Teheran, Astrakhan, and 
America. Raybaud has left a thrilling 
description of the fugitives he saw in Corinth : 
— "There was not a portion of wall still stand- 
ing that did not serve for shelter to some 
unfortunate who had escaped from the mas- 
sacres. Among the number we saw many 
beautiful and delicate women, who had long 
enjoyed the luxuries of opulence, obliged to 
resort to public charity in order to sustain a 
life from that time doomed to misery and 
sorrow. Others, attacked by the pangs of 
child-birth, and with none to attend them, 
lay in the open air, exposed to the heat of 
the sun and to the dampness of the night. 
The condition of these unhappy victims 
offered a touching contrast with the gold- 
embroidered rags which most of them wore." 

The Vengeance of Kanaris and his 
Fire-ship. 

When the Greek fleet of fifty-six sail put 
out to sea on the loth of May, there was 
nothing left for it to do at Scio but to take 
vengeance on the Turkish navy. Under 
the direction of Andrew Miaoulis, an able 
and prudent seaman, the " motley assemblage 
of vessels called the Greek navy " sailed tor 
the channel of Scio, and at the end of May 
made several attacks on the vessels of the 
Capitan Pasha, both in open engagement and 
with fire-ships, but without success. 

After this fruitless attempt, the Greek 
squadron met at Psara. There, in a secret 
council, the captains resolved on darting two 
fire-ships by night against the foe, and, after 
long deliberation on the choice of bi'iilo tiers .^ 
they fixed on Constantine Kanaris, of Psara, 
and George Pipinos, of Hydra. The former 
was a poor sailor, not more than twenty-eight 
years old, who had not as yet distinguished 
himself by any exploit ; his fellow-Psariots 
knew the extreme simplicity of his nature, 
and did not regard him as capable of any 
brilliant action ; he was of small stature, and 
this circumstance, taken with his timid ap- 
pearance and his melancholy air, did not 
dispose strangers to entertain a flattering 
idea of his courage. Yet this simple and 
pious boatman was destined to prove the 
Garibaldi of the Greek revolution. 

On the 1 8th of June, the last day of the 
Ramadan, Kanaris and Pipinos, after receiv- 
ing the benediction at Psara, stepped on 
board the two xebecs which had been con- 
verted into fire-ships. Each of the vessels 
carried four-and-twenty men. Before they 
reached the Spalmatori Isles, at the entrance 
of the Chian Channel, a calm struck them. 
The comrades of Kanaris were afraid, as 
they were within range of the cannon of two 
Turkish frigates, and appealed to him to 
make back for Psara. " If you are afraid," 



said the plain hero, " throw yourselves into- 
the sea and swim for it : as for me, I mean 
to burn the pasha!" His companions 
blushed for a moment at their cowardice, 
and then resolved to share their lot with him. 
" Don't let the calm trouble you," he said, 
by way of comfort ; " it hinders our foes as 
well as us ; we shall have wind by ten 
o'clock." At nine there sprang up a fresh 
breeze, and the two ships, which had been- 
hugging the shore all day, as if endeavouring 
to make for the Gulf of Smyrna, bore down,, 
at dusk, upon the Turkish fleet in the road 
of Scio. Kanaris, seeing that his boat had 
not the speed of that of his companion, said 
to him : " Friend, if you precede me, you will 
have burned a vessel before I can even enter 
the port, and our enterprise will be only half 
accomphshed : give me the lead ; you will 
always be in time to throw yourself on the 
prey, and both of us will have success.** 
Pipinos, thinking only of the interest of his 
country, agreed to the proposal. 

It was the close of Ramadan, the month 
when every true believer is not permitted to 
eat, smoke, drink, or even to swallow his 
own spittle from the first streak of morning 
light until sunset. This period of fasting 
winds up with the revelry of Bairam. The 
Mohammedans were on this fatal night 
celebrating the feast and the consummation 
of the destruction of Scio. The evening was 
dark, but the whole fleet was illuminated, 
and the eighty gun ship of the Capitan Pasha 
and the seventy-four gun ship of Reala Bey 
were conspicuous by the prodigious quantity 
of variegated lamps on their yards and mast- 
heads. No fitter moment could have been 
chosen for the blow of vengeance. The 
leading officers had gathered on Kara All's 
ship to celebrate the feast ; the air was filled 
with the sound of festive tambours, cymbals^ 
and trumpets ; the vessel of the pasha was 
filled with the riches stolen from the mur- 
dered Sciotes ; besides the two thousand 
sailors and warriors who formed the crew, 
a crowd had swarmed on board to gaze on 
the head and hands of the gallant French- 
man Baleste, who had just fallen in Crete in 
the cause of Greece. 

Like a flash of lightning the fire-ship of 
Kanaris darts into the centre of the fleet ; he 
runs her bowsprit into an open port of the 
flagship, fastens her grappling irons near the 
bows of the doomed vessel ; in an instant, 
standing on the platform at the poop of the 
fire-ship, he applies the torch to the inflam- 
mable material, and leaps into the skiff below, 
where his comrades are waiting breathless 
with their hands upon the oars. Away went 
the boat into the shade, while, in the twinkling 
of an eye, the powder, saltpetre, petroleum, 
camphor, and other combustibles on the 
deck and spars and cordage of the fire-ship 



607 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



are ablaze ; the flames sweep with the wind 
through the open ports of the great Turkish 
ship, and seize the tents that lie piled upon 
the lower deck ; the fire roars like a furnace, 
rushes up through the hatches, and envelops 
the vessel with the fury of a whirlwind, from 
stem to stern, from deck to top-mast. "Vic- 
tory to the Cross ! " shouted Kanaris as he 
sped in his scampavia past the poop under 
the luxurious cabin of Kara Ali. No boat 
could venture to approach the burning vessel ; 
the crafts which were lowered from the flag- 
ship sank with their overburdening loads : 
there was no escape but by plunging into 
the sea. Masses of molten iron, spars, and 
yard-arms fall around ; the cannon explode 
with a terrific roar ; the magazine bursts 
like an earthquake ; the crowds of prisoners 
who can make no effort to escape utter dis- 
mal shrieks ; and at last the sea, roaring and 
foaming around the hull of the ship, opens 
its jaws and swallows her up with her two 
thousand tyrants. The Capitan Pasha him- 
self was a victim to the vengeance of Kanaris. 
As he leapt into a boat from the ship, he was 
struck by a burning spar, and died in agony 
on the beach. 

We need only add further that the fire-ship 
of Pipinos, although it succeeded in grapphng 
the vessel of Reala Bey, was set adrift by the 
Turkish sailors, and burned to the water's 
edge without doing much damage ; that the 
Ottoman fleet vanished in terror towards the 
Dardanelles; that after its departure even 
the remaining mastic villages were destroyed 
by the Asiatic savages. 

During that eventful night of the i8th of 
June, the inhabitants of the Rock of Psara 
kept watch in arms and in prayer ; they saw, 
wavering between hope and fear, a brilliant 
light on the coast of Scio. When, at the 
dawn of day they peered into the horizon, 
they beheld a sail in the distance, with a 
purple streamer flying as the sign of victory, 
they hastened to the beach, they climbed on 
masts and roofs to catch a ghmpse of their 
seaman brother, whom one night had trans- 
figured into an immortal hero. And the 
simple sailor — destined to be sung by Victor 
Hugo and to offer the crown to a king of 
independent Greece— moves forward, bare- 
footed and with uncovered head, heeding not 
the clapping of hands or the shouts of " Long 
live Kanaris ! " throws himself in gratitude 
before the altar, and then runs from the 
acclamations of the crowd to his humble 
home and the bosom of his family. And 
when his comrade, Pipinos, arrived at the 
rock of Hydra, — " the island which produces 
prickly pears in abundance, splendid sea- 
captains, and excellent prime ministers," — 
and reported to the senate the news of the fate 
of the Capitan Pasha, Lazarus Conduriottes, 
the wealthy president, rose from his seat and 



said : " It belongs to you and to Kanaris to 
sit here ; you have made yourselves greater 
far than me by saving your native land." 

Miaoulis and his comrades were rightly 
suspicious that the fire which gleamed so 
brightly over the channel on that night of 
Mahommedan rejoicing would kindle the 
fury of the Mussulman savages to deeds of 
still more brutal vengeance on the few 
poverty-stricken Christians that had not 
succeeded in escaping from the island, or 
had been protected hitherto by the guardians 
of the mastic villages. They were by no 
means mistaken as to the character of their 
ibes. The sight of the body of the Capitan 
Pasha at once roused the passion of the des- 
peradoes, who rushed to the consulates, in 
which several hundred refugees had found 
shelter ; but their attempts were baffled. 
Vessels of the Greek fleet cruised along the 
shores of the island to pick up any chance 
fugitives who might escape from the daggers 
and the sabres of the Asiatics, and a small 
party of marines landed in the north, so as 
to render aid, and witness with their own 
eyes a httle of the devastation and atrocities 
that had been inflicted on the innocent and 
helpless natives of the "blessed" isle. A 
report sent to the Hydriot Admiralty by 
M. Jourdain, a French captain in the Greek 
navy, states that at the first hamlets reached 
by a relieving party they saw the corpses of 
the inhabitants piled up in regular heaps, 
around which old men dragged their muti- 
lated frames, raising their hands to heaven 
and praying that an end might be put to 
their terrible sufferings ; elsewhere they saw 
women who had been cruelly murdered, with 
their dead infants clasped in their rigid 
arms, and others embracing the forms of the 
fathers and husbands, in whose defence they 
appear to have given up their last breath 
with the courage of true heroines. 

The dreadful massacre of the peaceful and 
cultured inhabitants of Scio opened the eyes 
of Europe to the nature of the struggle that 
was waged between the Turks and Greeks, 
and called forth the sympathy and aid of the 
West. The hope of the Greeks had become 
desperate when, in the month of July 1827, 
the European Powers recognized their inde- 
pendence by the Treaty of London. Then 
followed the battle of Navarino, on the 26th 
of October, when the allied fleets of England, 
France, and Russia almost annihilated the 
Turkish navy under Ibrahim Pasha, whose 
violation of an armistice and horrible atro- 
cities — almost rivalling those of Scio — had 
roused the blood of civilized Europe to war- 
heat ; and, on the 14th of September, 1829, 
thrashed in Europe and Asia by the Russian 
army, the Suhan signed the Peace of Adria- 
nople, and formally acknowledged the inde- 
pendence of Greece. M. M. 



608 




Leyden in the Sixteenth Century. 



JOHN OF LEYDEN AND THE 
ANABAPTISTS. 

THE STORY OF A GREAT DELUSION. 

" O terrible excels 
Of headstrong will ! Can this be piety? 
No ; some fierce maniac hath usurped her name. 
All peace destroyed ! All hopes a wilderness ! 
All blessings cursed, and glory turned to shame ! ' 



Wordsworth. 



Introduction — " Corruptio optlmis pesslma" — The Peasants' War — Rise ofthe Anabaptists— Luther's return to Wittenberg— 
— Principles of the Anabaptists — John of Leyden— Arrival of Matthys and Bockelson in Miinster — Anabaptisnx 
triumphant — The City Beleaguered — A Glimpse of City Life — John of Leyden Supreme — He is made King — ^The 
Progress of the Siege — A Failure — The King in Danger — Overthrow — The Execution — Retrospect. 




There 



Introduction. 
|HERE never has been, or will be, in 
this erring world, any great move- 
ment, however necessary or good, 
but it brings in its train some abuses. 
is a Latin proverb, Corricptio optiini 
pessima — "The corruption of that which 
is best is the worst corruption of ail." And 
there are words of our Divine Lord, which 
express the same truth : "No man putteth 
new wine into old wine-skins : else the skins 
burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins 
perish" (Matt. ix. 17. Rev. Ver.) We 
are about to look on a melancholy illus- 
tration of this truth. The new wine, the 
declaration of the liberty of conscience and 
the sole responsibility of man to God, was 
taught to men who had no desire to use that 
liberty aright, nor to walk in the truth that 
they might find. They v/ere as old bottles 
into which the new wine was poured ; and 
the truth was turned into a curse to them : 



"that which should have been for their 
wealth, was unto them an occasion of fall- 
ing." 

Even Luther was alarmed at the manner 
in which some of those professing his prin- 
ciples began to act ; and, in fact, it was this 
which caused him to come forth from his 
retirement in the Wartburg, and return to 
Wittenberg, where one Thomas Miinzer and 
other fanatics, of whom we shall hear pre- 
sently, were disturbing the peace. Luther's 
chief helper was Philip Melanchthon, a much 
younger man than himself, very gentle, and 
also one of the most learned men of his time. 
We cannot stay to dwell on the various con- 
troversies in which Luther became involved 
with other Reformers, but we have to record 
first of all the outbreak of v/hat is known 
as the Peasants' War. 

The Peasants' War. 
In another of these papers, some account 
has been given ofthe French Jacquerie, the 
609 R R 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



rising of the peasantry against oppression 
in the 14th century. The same causes had 
been at work in Germany; the peasants had 
been kept in utter poverty by the princes, 
who had not only exacted service from them 
and heavily taxed them, especially on their 
favourite drinks, but had frequently destroyed 
their crops with hunting parties. When, 
therefore, Luther had proclaimed freedom for 
them, they understood him to speak of 
political and social rather than spiritual 
freedom, and in 1524 they rose against their 
tyrants. They were greatly animated by the 
example of the Swiss, who had fought for 
and won their freedom against the House of 
Austria. The first outbreak was in Swabia, 
thence the agitation spread into Thuringia 
Franconia, Alsace, and Lorraine. They 
issued a manifesto, caUing for the right to 
choose their ov/n pastors, the abolition of 
serfdom, the right of hunting and fishing, 
and freedom of forest land. And they ap- 
pealed to Luther for his approval of their 
demands. He was greatly embarrassed, for 
he did not wish to break with the princes 
who had befriended him. He issued an ex- 
hortation by way of reply, teUing both sides 
some home truths : he ascribed the disturb- 
ances to the repression of the Gospel ; be- 
sought the princes to clemency and justice, 
and the people to submission. No wonder 
that both sides were angry with him ; he 
who preaches moderation in the mJdst of 
furious passions must expect such a result. 
At first all seemed to promise in their 
favour. Some nobles even joined them, — 
among themGotz von Berlichingen, one of the 
most famous of German knights,* — and they 
proceeded to deeds of violence and cruelty. 
Thus, having captured the town of Weins- 
berg, they put to death with great cruelty 
Count Ludwig von Helfenstein, with sixty 
of his followers, mocking the entreaties of 

* As honest narrators, we feel bound to quote a 
word or two here from a modern historian; — " The 
impregnable castles of the German knights, the 
nature of their arms and equipments, the number 
of their retainers, made them so many little sove- 
reigns, with no law but that in their own breasts. 
And how did they use this power ? — As the per- 
pretrators, instead of the redressers, of wrongs and 
grievances. They were nothing but public robbers, 
highwaymen on a grand scale, ready for any deed 
of violence. To illustrate this subject by a few in- 
stances. In May 1512, Gotz von Berlichingen and 
Hans Selbig von Frauenstein two of the most re- 
nowned of German knights, at the head of one hun- 
dred and thirty horse, attacked between Forcheim 
and Neusess the caravan which was returning to 
Nuremberg from the Leipsic fair, and carried off 
thirty-one persons and a booty valued at 8800 gulden. 
About the same time another troop assembled in the 
castle of Hohenkrahn for the abducdon of the daughter 
of a citizen of Kaufbeuern, whom a nobleman had 
wooed in vain. Such deeds were common." — Dyer's 
Hist, of Alodern Europe, i., 301. 



610 



his wife (who was a daughter of the Emperor 
Maximilian) that they would spare him. They 
followed this up by killing, first her child of 
two years old and then herself, while a boy 
who had been in the Count's service gam- 
bolled about the scene, and played a march 
on his flute. It was this deed which spoilt 
their cause in the eyes of Luther. He 
denounced them all as murderers, and called 
on the princes to show them no mercy, but 
to destroy them root and branch. By this 
time Luther and Erasmus, who had origi- 
nally been friends, had become alienated, 
Erasmus being terrified at the thought of 
leaving old moorings altogether; and this 
fierce denunciation of the rebel peasants 
by Luther led to a fresh bitterness between 
him and Erasmus. The peasants next laid 
siege to Wiirzburg, which the princes had 
made their head-quarters. It was nine 
o'clock in the evening of May 15th, 1525, 
when the rebel flag was unfurled against 
the citadel, and the peasants rushed to 
the attack, filling the air with horrible cries. 
The castle was under the orders of Sebas- 
tian von Rotenheim, one of the warmest 
partizans of the Reformation. He had put 
its defences into a formidable state, and the 
soldiers had responded to his appeal to 
defend it by solemnly raising their hands to 
heaven, and swearing to do so. The most 
terrible conflict ensued. The castle responded 
to the desperate efforts of the peasants by 
pouring upon them showers of burning brim- 
stone and boiling pitch and by a vigorous 
cannonade. Thus unexpectedly attacked 
by enemies whom they could not even see,, 
the peasants recoiled ; but, with renewed fury 
at being baffled, they rushed up once more. 
Night came on, and the battle still raged. 
Lit up with countless battle-fires, the for- 
tress stood out from amid the surrounding 
darkness like some huge giant, vomiting forth 
flames, and struggling alone amid thunders 
and lightnings for the salvation of the Em- 
pire against the ferocious valour of Pande- 
monium itself. At two o'clock in the morning 
the assailants turned and fled. After a day's 
pause they resolved to await the imperial 
army in the open field. They had not to 
wait long. The artillery and cavalry made 
hideous havoc in their ranks. Day after 
day fresh bodies of them were met, and the 
same terrible fate was for them all. Then 
princes, nobles, bishops proceeded to vie 
with one another in cruelty. Hundreds of 
prisoners were hanged on trees all along the 
roads, often having been tortured to death. 
The Bishop of Wiirzburg, who had fled, re- 
turned and went through his diocese, accom- 
panied by executioners, whom he kept un- 
ceasingly at work. Gotz von Berlichingen 
was condemned to perpetual imprisonment. 
Eighty-five rebel prisoners had their eyes 



JOHN OF LEVDEN AND THE ANABAPTISTS. 



pulled out, and then were turned loose to wan- 
der about and grope their way as best they 
could, stumbling over the roads, and begging 
their bread, if so be they might thus be saved 
from starvation. The wretched boy who had 
played on his flute at the murder of Count 
von Helfenstein was chained to a stake and 
burnt alive, enough length of chain being left 
him to dance about in his agonies, and so give 
the more sport to his tormentors. Similar 
outrages overtook the wretched peasants in 
Lorraine and Alsace, and more than one 
hundred thousand persons perished, whilst 
whole districts once fertile were turned into 
hideous solitudes and ruins. 



Rise of the Anabaptists. 

The peasant revolt would now have been 
at an end had it not been fanned into fresh 
life by a band of fanatics who had arisen in 
Wittenberg, called Anabaptists. " When any 
great religious ferment takes place," says 
the venerable historian of the Reformation, 
D'Aubigne, " some impure elements are ever 
found to mingle with the manifestations of 
the truth. One or more false reforms are seen 
to arise, and they serve as a testimony or 
countersign to the true reform. Thus, in the 
times of Christ, many false messiahs attested 
the appearance of the true." 

In the little town of Zwickau there were 
some persons who were so excited by the 
great events which were agitating Christen- 
dom that they aspired to direct revelations 
from God, and thought not at all of sancti- 
fication of heart and life. " What good is 
there," they cried, " in keeping so close to 
the Bible ? The Bible— always the Bible ! 
we are weary of it. It is by the Spirit' 
that we are illuminated. God Himself 
speaks to us then, and reveals to us what to 
do and what to say." A cloth weaver 
named Storch asserted that the angel Gabriel 
appeared to him in the night, and after com- 
municating matters which it was not yet 
time to reveal, said to him, "As for thee, 
thou shalt be seated on my throne." Then 
a student of Wittenberg joined him, one 
Mark Stiibner, who, abandoning his studies, 
declared that he had received a supernatural 
gift of interpreting the Scriptures. But a 
fanatic named Miinzer gave the new sect its 
regular organization. Under his guidance, 
Storch, professing to follow the example of 
Christ, chose twelve new apostles and seventy- 
two disciples ; and the new body declared, as 
has been declared by a sect in our own days 
which is rapidly dying out, that Apostles and 
Prophets had been restored to the Church of 
God. They began to deliver their message : 
" Woe, woe ! to the world ! woe to the 
Church ! Within a few years universal deso- 
lation will overspread the land ; a great 



tribulation is coming on the earth. The un- 
godly shall be hurled to destruction, and the 
earth being purified with blood, God will 
establish His Kingdom, and his saints shall 
reign gloriously. Storch will have supreme 
authority, and then there shall be only one 
faith, one baptism." The sect received the 
name of "The Zwickau prophets." Their 
rejection of infant baptism, which was in accor- 
dance with their view that all justification must 
be preceded byconscious faith in the recipient, 
and their consequent repetition of baptism of 
adults, became the distinctive badge of their 
party. This preaching profoundly impressed 
the people. Some godly souls were affected 
and overjoyed at the thought of prophets 
being restored to the Church, while all who 
loved the marvellous and were craving after 
novelties, threw themselves into the arms of 
the eccentric prophets of Zwickau. 

The pastor of Zwickau, Nicholas Hauf- 
mann, to whom Luther gave the beautiful 
testimon}', "What I teach, he practises," 
raised his voice against all this fanaticism, 
and not in vain. Then the prophets pro- 
ceeded to form themselves into societies, and 
taught subversive doctrines; tumults arose in 
the streets, and Storch and his followers 
migrated to Wittenberg (December 1521), 
where they appealed to the public, and 
claimed to be the true representatives of 
Luther. Storch, indeed, soon left Witten- 
berg, for he was a most restless spirit, but 
the rest remained, and the excitement grew. 

Whilst it was at its height, two young Swiss 
were, one stormy night in the spring of 1522, 
travelling through Germany, and arrived, wet 
through, at the " Black Bear " Inn, at Jena. 
The town was quite engrossed with the re- 
joicings of the carnival, and all its inhabitants 
were dancing, masquerading, and feasting. 
Fatigued, dispirited, and melancholy, they 
halted at the inn door; so woe-begone in 
appearance by the soaking which the rain 
had given them, that they paused at the 
door, ashamed to come further. But a knight 
who was seated by the fire, with his trunk- 
hose over-lapped by his bright red doublet, 
rose and kindly invited them in. He had 
one hand on the pommel of his sword, and 
the other grasped the handle, but in front of 
him lay a book, which he seemed to be read- 
ing attentively. However, he made much of 
the deluged travellers, invited them to sup 
with him, and pledged them in some beer. 
"You are Swiss," he said, presently, after 
some conversation ; ''. I can tell it by your 
tongues. What is your canton ? " " St. 
Gall," was the answer. " You are students ?" 
"We are." "You must study Greek and 
Hebrew if you want to understand Holy 
Scripture." The youths stared. " We are 
going to Wittenberg," they said, "to hear 
Doctor Luther, and, if God spares our lives. 



611 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



we will not return till we have done so. Can 
you tell us whether he is there or not ? " "I 
believe he is not," was the answer ; " but 
Philip Melanchthon is there ; you should go 
and hear him; and there is a countryman 
of yours there, a good man, Dr. Schurff." 
Pausing for a moment, he continued, "Where 
have you been studying lately ? " They told 
him at Basel. "Is Erasmus of Rotterdam 
still there?" said the knight. The youths 
stared more than ever. Imagine a knight 
talking about learned Erasmus, and Dr. 
Schurfif, and the need of the study of Greek 
and Hebrew! "What do they think of 
Luther in Switzerland?" pursued the knight. 
"The opinions are very various," was the 
reply ; " some cannot praise him sufficiently, 
and some hold him an abominable here- 
tic." " No doubt," said the knight, drily. 
Encouraged by his cordiality, one of the 
students ventured to take up the book that 
the knight was reading, and found, to his 
amazement, that it was a Hebrew Psalter, 
Whilst they were wondering afresh at this, 
the landlord quietly beckoned one of them 
out. " You have a great desire to see Luther," 
he whispered. " That is Luther that you have 
been talking to, but don't betray that you 
know him. / know him, in spite of his dis- 
guise." It was even so, though the youths 
were still incredulous. They supped together ; 
then, according to German custom, Luther 
took up a large glass, and with a serious air 
said, "Swiss, one more glass on returning 
thanks. But you are not used to beer. 
Pledge me in this light wine," Then, hold- 
ing out his hands to the students, he said, 
"When you arrive at Wittenberg, give my 
compliments to Doctor Schurff." " With all 
our hearts," said the youths ; " but in what 
name ? " " Tell him that he that ought to be 
there, salutes him." 

The great Reformer was even on his way 
to Wittenberg, to try to put down the anarchy, 
but he was obliged to travel thus disguised, 
for being under the ban of the Empire he was 
liable to be killed by any one who should re- 
cognize him. He had learned how his teach- 
ing concerning faith had been perverted in 
Wittenberg, and determined to run all risks 
rather than see his work undone. 

It was Friday, the yth of March, that he 
re-entered his native town. All the bur- 
gesses welcomed him, for they had again 
found the pilot whom they trusted to extri- 
cate the vessel from the shoals into which it 
had drifted. 

We can hardly imagine to ourselves the 
profound thrill with which the great congre- 
gation saw him mount the pulpit next day. 
His sermons, preached on that and on eight 
successive days, are among his very best. 
They were simple, noble, full at once of 
vigour and of mildness. He explained eagerly 



that justification is the work of God, that it 
must precede everything; that faith is the 
acceptance on the part of man of Christ's 
finished work. And thus he maintained that 
it was in accordance with God's will to bap- 
tize little children, seeing that from birth, they 
are spiritual beings, and to be formally pro- 
claimed such by outward sign. The work of 
f-dth in them is to believe as soon as they 
are able to learn that they have been pre- 
sented to, and accepted by, God. His 
sermons are earnest appeals to the people, 
yet having for their object the calming and 
allaying of passion, " You want more than 
faith ; you want charity. If a man with a 
sword in his hand happens to be alone, it 
matters little whether he keep it in the scab- 
bard or not. But should he be in the midst 
of a crowd, he ought to keep it from hurting 
any one. You think the abolition of the mass 
agreeable to Scripture. Agreed. But what 
regard have you for order and decency ? You 
ought to have been addressing the Lord with 
fervent prayers, and not to have proceeded 
with all this violence. Without sincerity of 
heart and Christian love no work can prosper, 
and I would not give for the finest of work 
which is without these even the stalk of 
a pear. When Paul arrived at Athens, he 
found there altars to false gods ; he dealt 
with them without tumult or violence or fraud. 
So did I when I began to preach. If I had 
appealed to violence, Germany might have 
been soaked in blood. Do you know what 
the devil thinks when he sees people employ 
force in disseminating the truth ? Seated with 
his arms crossed beside hell-fire he says with 
a spiteful leer, 'These fellows are sages indeed 
thus to do my work for me,'" Day by day 
the effect increased. Melanchthon and the 
magistrates saw with delight that peace was 
coming back, and even some of the Augus- 
tinian friars who heard him were persuaded 
to accept his doctrines. Then came a further 
task. He held a conference with the Zwickian 
prophets, but soon dismissed them as alto- 
gether contemptible. He listened calmly 
while Stiibner explained how the Church 
was to be changed and the world regenerated. 
When the latter paused to see what impres- 
sion he had made, "Nothing of what you 
have said rests upon the Holy Scriptures," 
said Luther, " it is all fables." Miinzer could 
not contain himself for rage. He shouted 
and gesticulated like a madman, and beat 
the table with passion, Luther remained 
calm, " The first apostles," said he, " proved 
their mission by miracles. Do you the same," 
" We shall do so," said the prophets. Stiib- 
ner added, " Martin Luther, I am going to 
tell you what is passing in your soul. You 
are beginning to believe that my doctrine is 
true;" and he fixed his eyes on Luther with 
a commanding look. Luther paused for a 



612 



JOHN OF LEYDEN AND THE ANABAPTISTS. 



moment while he returned the look with 
interest, then he said, " The Lord rebuke 
thee, Satan." Then the "prophets," foaming 
and gnashing their teeth, withdrew, after 
pouring upon him all the hard names which 
their anger could invent. Grievous mischief 
was hereby caused to the Reformation, for 
the Duke of Bavaria and others who had 
espoused it, disgusted at the fanaticism of 
the Zwickian party, began to draw towards 
Rome again. 

Miinzer having been expelled from Witten- 
berg, went to Alstadt in Thuringia, where he 
protessed to be inspired by the Holy Ghost, 
and announced that he was about to restore 
the Church to what it was under the apostles. 
First he abolished Church music and all 
ceremonies, and maintained that to obey 
princes who were not " spiritual " was to 
serve both God and Belial. Next, marching 
at the head of a number of parishioners to a 
chapel near Alstadt, and to which people 
had resorted on pilgrimages from all quarters, 
he pulled it all down. But this exploit was 
a little too much for the good townsfolk, and 
he was driven from thence, and then from 
Nuremberg ; but at Miihlhausen the people 
rallied to him, and helped him to drive the 
magistrates from their seats and the monks 
from the convents. He then established a 
" Perpetual Council," of which he himself 
was president, that proclaimed equality and 
community of goods. No wonder that Miihl- 
hausen was speedily filled with idle knaves 
and ruffians. And, as usual in such cases, 
he soon lost all control of them. A renegade 
monk named Pfeiffer, a still more violent and 
dangerous fanatic than himself, persuaded 
the sect to make an inroad into the neigh- 
bouring country, where they plundered 
churches, convents, and castles, and returned 
home laden with their booty. The country 
rose in arms against them. Philip of Hesse, 
the leader of the forces chosen to put down 
the disorders, was unwilling to shed un- 
necessary blood, and sent a young nobleman 
to treat with the Anabaptists. Miinzer re- 
sponded by torturing him to death. Of 
course there was but one course open now — 
that of war. Miinzer went forth with his 
herd of fanatics on the ii^th of May, 1525, 
exactly a year after the siege of Wiirzburg. 
He promised them the miraculous protection 
of God, and invoked the Holy Spirit with 
cries and chants. "We shall this day," said 
he, " see the arm of the Lord revealed, and 
all our enemies shall be destroyed." At that 
moment there appeared a rainbow ; and in it 
the fanatical crowd, who bore a rainbow on 
their standards, saw a sure token of the pro- 
tection of heaven. " Fear nothing," said Miin- 
zer, " I shall catch in my sleeve all the bullets 
which are shot against you." 

The artillery soon broke their rude ram- 



part to pieces, and carried dismay and death 
into the midst of them. Fanaticism and 
courage disappeared together ; they fled 
panic-stricken in all directions ; but five 
thousand perished on that day alone. 

When the battle was over one of the 
soldiers went up into a loft in the house in 
which he was quartered, and found a man 
lying on the floor. " Who art thou ? art 
thou a rebel?" he asked; and as he spoke he 
took up a portfolio, and found in it letters 
addressed to Thomas Miinzer. "And art 
thou Miinzer?" was his next question. " No," 
was the terrified answer. But the soldier 
did not believe him, and was right. Miin- 
zer it was. " Thou art my prisoner," said 
his captor, and dragged him off to the im- 
perial commander. In a few minutes his 
head rolled on the ground. 

A nobleman discovering among the prison- 
ers a fine-looking rustic, went up to him and 
said, " Well, young man, which government 
do you like best, that of peasants or that of 
princes ? " " Ah, my lord," said the poor 
fellow with a deep-drawn sigh, "no knife 
cuts so keen as when one peasant lords it 
over others." 

The remains of the insurrection were ex- 
tinguished in blood. 

And thus ended the Peasant War, with so 
much to cause us to sympathize with the 
oppressed, but brought to nought through the 
brutality of these fanatics. The new wine 
had broken the wine-skins, and the burdens 
upon the peasantry for many a long year were 
heavier than ever, while the cause of the 
Reformation was identified in the minds of 
honest but not deep-seeing men with the 
extravagances and perversions of Scripture 
of the Anabaptists. 

Principles of the Anabaptists. 

Here seems the proper place for endea- 
vouring to form some idea of the principles 
which underlay the movements which caused 
so much disaster at the time and was the 
cause of much of the division which has so 
deeply afflicted Christianity ever since. The 
question which first engaged the attention of 
men was a deeply practical question. It re- 
lated to the acceptance of the soul before 
God ; the forgiveness of sin. In one word, 
it was the question of Justification. This 
being put foremost, there came this further 
question : How did the doctrines of the 
Church and the Scriptures bear upon it ? 
What had the doctrine of the two natures of 
Christ to do with it, for example ? How far 
has man freedom of will ? The different 
answers given by different parties were the 
causes of strife. 

One school held that man could win salva- 
tion by his own endeavours, and that Christ 



613 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



is his teacher and example to that end. This 
was the meaning of our being saved by 
Christ. The first leader of this doctrine was 
one Hans Denk. He was a learned and 
conscientious young man, who, making "God 
is love" the basis of his teaching, formulated 
a scheme which differs little from Unitarian- 
ism, except that he appears not to have held 
universal salvation. However, he is said 
to have retracted his views shortly before 
his death. A disciple of his was Ludwig 
Hatzer, a man of immoral life and of vio- 
lence in the expression of his opinions. He 
formally denied the divinity of Christ, but 
the manuscript of the treatise which he wrote 
upon it was burned after his death. These 
views spread through Germany, blown about 
apparently like thistle-down, for there is no 
evidence how they got, for example, to Salz- 
burg, where dwelt a community of people who 
rejected all divine worship, established bro- 
therhoods by voluntary contributions, and 
called themselves "Garden Brethren " {Gart- 
ner Briider). They were laid hold of ; those 
who would not recant were burnt alive, those 
who would were beheaded and their bodies 
burnt. In some cases they were locked up 
in their meeting-houses^ and the buildings set 
on fire. There was one beautiful girl of 
sixteen who refused to recant ; but the people 
pitied her so much that the executioner took 
her in his arms, held her head in a horse- 
trough till she was drowned, and then threw 
her into the fire. 

Another school started opinions which 
seem to be identical with those of the 
Gnostics of the first two centuries. They 
began with the distinction of the flesh and 
the spirit. Instead of holding that man is 
able to fight against evil and overcome it, 
they held that sin is in the flesh alone, not in 
the spirit, and that the spirit is free from the 
evil which the flesh commits. Christ was 
altogether spiritual; He took not on Him the 
bodily nature of man because it is accursed. 
The leader of this party, Melchior Hoff- 
mann, invented adult baptism as a badge 
of those who adopted these "enlightened" 
views. 

These diversities branched off into a 
hundred lesser ones. Some thought infant 
baptism merely useless ; some thought it an 
abomination. Some were of opinion that 
Sabbath observance was a breach of liberty ; 
others thought it wrong to affect separation 
and singularity. Some were for communism, 
others for voluntary charity. Some refused 
to perform military service, others to take an 
oath. Some held the marriage tie to be only 
binding when it was concluded in the spirit. 
Such reformers deserted their wives and took 
others. All held Church government to be 
insupportable bondage. All these vagaries 
of course very soon brought them into contact 



with the civil power ; but they showed them- 
selves ready for this, for their numbers in- 
creased equally with their fanaticism. They 
were convinced that the time was close at 
hand which should give them complete 
victory over all their opponents ; and Hoff- 
mann, after travelling far and wide over 
Germany, at length settling himself in Stras- 
burg, announced that it was to be the seat of 
the New Jerusalem, and that a hundred 
and forty-four thousand virgin apostles were 
to go foith from thence and gather all the 
people of God into the fold. They were to 
seal the elect of God, after which Christ 
would come and deliver the sword into their 
hands, that they might utterly sweep all 
the ungodly of the earth away. Then the 
saints were to reign gloriously, without 
laws or authorities or restrictions of any 
kind. They were to live in overflowing 
abundance. 

The dream was too intoxicating not to find 
believers, and the next movement followed 
inevitably and obviously, — those who would 
not accept the truth must be compelled by 
the sword The attempt of the civil power 
to repress those who held themselves to be 
"the elect people," did but add to their 
arrogance and precipitate violence 

John of Leyden. 

Holland at this time was full of Anabaptists, 
many having fled thither on the suppression 
of the Peasants' Revolt. John Matthys, a 
baker of Leyden, a disciple of Hoffmann, who 
had adopted these last-day views with wild 
enthusiasm, announced himself as Enoch, 
sent to preach to the ungodly, ordained a new 
apostolate, and sent them to the neighbouring 
provinces to seal the people of the Lord. 
One ofthis new "twelve" was John Bockelson. 
He was the bastard son of a magistrate at the 
Hague named Bockel and of a serf woman 
who had been bought from her husband. 
The youth became a tailor, and after wander- 
ing about Europe, from Lisbon to Lubeck, 
finally married and settled at Leyden, where, 
growing discontented with his business, he 
opened a beer-house. Of handsome presence 
and agreeable manner, he was also possessed 
of a powerful eloquence, and it was his great 
ambition to cut a figure in the " Rhetoric 
Chamber," which had been estabhshed at 
Leyden as in the other Dutch towns. At one 
time he became a player, and wrote comedies; 
but this did not prove lucrative, and he cast 
about for something else, and found it. Hos- 
tility to the Church was fashionable in these 
chambers, and Bockelson followed the fashion. 
Thus it was that he adopted Anabaptist views, 
and became one of Matthys's "apostles." He 
went successively on a preaching mission to 
Briel, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Enkhuysen, 



614 



JOHN OF LEYDEN AND- THE ANABAPTISTS. 



Alkmar, baptizing wherever he went, and 
ordaining " elders," who, in their turn, were 
to be propagators of his doctrines. 

The course of this narrative now carries 
us into Westphalia, the name which had been 
given to that portion of the great ancient 
duchy of Saxony which laybetween the Weser 
and the Rhine. In Westphalia the Reformed 
principles had made great progress, and for the 
most part peacefully. But there were a few 
exceptions, as at Soest and Paderborn, where 
there was cruel persecution of the new doc- 
trines, which put them down indeed, but 
kindled a fierce feeling in the hearts of the 
persecuted, who looked forward to an oppor- 
tunity of reasserting their opinions. But the 
disorders and conflicts nowhere reached such 
a height as in the city of Miinster, the 
Westphahan capital. It is, as it stands at 
present, a well-built and interesting looking 
as well as flourishing town of some twenty- 
three thousand inhabitants, standing on the 
river Aa, in the midst of a flat country 
covered with fields of flax and hemp. In 
ancient times it was called Meiland, but 
when Charles the Great forced the Saxons 
in a body to accept Christianity, he founded 
a monastery and bishopric here, and the 
name Miinster has ever since superseded the 
original iMeiland. 

In this city there was living in 1530 a 
certain man named Wiggers, — a worthy, 
respectable man, but with an unworthy and 
not respectable wife. Passionate admirers 
were in attendance upon her every day, one 
of whom was Bernhard Rottmann,a Lutheran 
preacher. Her husband died, and she was 
suspected, rightly or wrongly, of having 
poisoned him in order to marry Rottmann, 
which she immediately did. But public 
opinion was so unequivocal in its condem- 
nation of Rottmann, that he strove to set 
■ himself right by ostentatious profession of 
the severest morality. He denounced the 
corruption of the world, inveighed against 
the Lutheran Reformers for want of thorough- 
ness, rejected infant baptism, and invented 
a ceremonial of his own for the Lord's 
Supper. He was bribed to go out of "the 
city by persons anxious to avoid disturbance, 
and afterwards visited several German towns 
without settling anywhere. At length he 
returned to Miinster, and fixed himself for a 
while in the suburbs ; but his influence in the 
city so increased that his friends brought 
him back, and, after some struggle, succeeded 
in securing for him the church of St. Lambert. 
Not only so, but his partisans at length 
obtained a majority in the city council, and 
succeeded in passing a decree that all the 
churches were to be delivered up to the new- 
fangled preachers. Upon this the clergy 
and the minority of the council quitted the 
city, betook themselves to the surrounding 



country, and devoted themselves to raising 
public opinion against Rottmann and his 
devotees. All communication between the 
city and the country was cut off, supplies 
were stopped, and any citizens that could be 
caught were imprisoned. The bishop was 
at Telgte, a mile from Miinster, and from 
hence a summons was issued to the citizens 
to return to their ancient faith. Their re- 
sponse was to march at night, fall upon 
their sleeping enemies, upon councillors and 
church dignitaries, and .carry them back 
prisoners at daybreak. The bishop dared 
not attempt force, lest they should slay their 
prisoners, and negotiations ensued, the result 
of v/hich was that the victorious citizens were 
to have the six parish churches for worship 
on Rottmann's system, while the bishop and 
his chapter might practise their own. The 
bishop himself, like Hermann, Bishop of 
Koln, seems to have desired to carry out 
reform without abandoning the main prin- 
ciples of the ancient liturgy. He would, in 
fact, have taken, if he could, the same ground 
as the body now known in Germany as the 
" Old Catholics." 

But it was evident that the divergence 
between the two parties was too great to 
allow the peace to be lasting. There was no 
hope of formulating any terms which should 
include the professors of the ancient creed 
and a man who refused to consider baptism 
an essential of Christian life. Rottmann felt 
that his position was precarious ; the outside 
world was against him, some of his own 
folfowers were alarmed at him, and he saw 
that the civil power would in the long run be 
too strong for him. But he saw a way of 
escape from his difficulties. His followers, 
in the general moral and intellectual con- 
fusion in which he had landed them, were 
easily persuaded to take up Anabaptism. 
For the Lutheran system ascribed great 
power to the civil government and recognized 
the secular element in the state. The ac- 
knowledgment of an authority in the civil 
power is simply, when it is looked into, the 
acknowledgment of the rights of the citizens 
who make up the state. On the other hand, 
Anabaptism was an exclusive despotism ; it 
claimed to have no authority controlling it. 
Its members were the servants of the Lord 
alone, and refused any other lordship. But 
for a while the organization was lacking which 
should direct these high aspirations, and give 
them aim and object. We are now to see it 
suddenly furnished. 

Arrival of Matthys and Bockelson 

IN MiJNSTER. 

On the day of the Epiphany, 1534, the 
prophet Matthys and his fanatical apostle 
John Bockelson of Leyden suddenly ap- 



615 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



peared in the city in the house of one 
Knipperdolling, a rich burgher who had 
adopted Anabaptist opinions. Their re- 
markable dress, their commanding bearing, 
their self-possessed confidence in their preach- 
ing, and withal their persuasive manners, 
made a deep impression on the citizens, 
tossed as they were by all kinds of doubts, 
and ready to close with anything that offered 
them certainty. The prospect held out to 
them by the new-comers is easily expressed, 
— " holy sensuality ; " and when men are cut 
away from their religious moorings, and at 
the mercy of any wind that blows, there can 
be none more powerful than this : " Please 
and gratify any desire that offers itself, and 
believe that all the while you will be pleasing 
God." 

All the city seemed to have gone mad. 
Wives came to the meetings by stealth, and 
brought their jewels as the first-fruits of their 
devotion. Their husbands began with indig- 
nation against them, and ended by being 
converted too. Nuns openly blasphemed 
the mass in the market-place, girls danced 
while they shouted, "Woe to sinners ! " The 
burgomaster was mobbed by women because 
he remained firm on the side of the town 
pastor, who refused assent to the new opinions. 
A blacksmith's boy began to preach the new 
gospel, and when the Council ordered him to 
be imprisoned, all his comrades assembled 
and let him out. 

About a month after the delirium began, a 
tumult broke out between the Anabaptists 
and the Town Council, who were by no means 
ready to go at such a pace. It was soon 
clear that the Anabaptists, though noisy, 
were in a great minority, and the word went 
round that they were to be expelled. But 
who shall attempt to gauge the power of 
fanaticism ? Their danger seemed to raise 
them altogether above the earth. They saw 
visions in the air : a man -wearing a golden 
crown, with a sword and a scourge in his 
hand ; another with blood streaming from 
his hands ; the conqueror of the Apocalypse 
on the white horse going forth conquermg 
and to conquer. The calmer Lutherans 
were moved with pity, if not with secret 
sympathy ; they feared, too, that the putting 
down the fanatics might be followed by 
thraldom to the bishop, and they began to 
propose terms. These were, that every one 
should enjoy liberty of conscience, but should 
obey the civil magistrate in temporal matters. 
The Anabaptists rightly regarded this as a 
victory to themselves. They were wild with 
dehght. " The faces of the Christians be- 
came beautiful in colour," said one of them 
(Christians being themselves exclusively). 
Children of seven years old prophesied. 
" We do not believe that ever such joy was 
known before," said another. 



And now there came additions to their 
number every day. For their existence being 
now legally recognized, men of like opinions 
came pouring into Miinster, — women who had 
left their husbands, and husbands who had 
deserted their wives. Rottmann promised 
them all tenfold compensation for whatever 
they had given up. And thus within two 
months from the first appearance of Matthys 
and Bockelson in the town, their followers 
had gained a majority. How they used their 
power was soon to appear. 

Anabaptism Triumphant. 

The elections for the Town Council, which 
showed how the tables had been turned, 
were held on the 21st of February, 1534. 
" The electors," was the triumphant boast, 
"were not now men of the flesh, but of the 
spirit." On the 27th a great meeting of 
Anabaptists for prayer was held in the town- 
hall. In the midst of it the prophet Matthys 
seemed to sink into a deep slumber, when he 
suddenly started up and announced that the 
will of God had been revealed to him that all 
unbelievers who refused to be converted must 
be instantly driven out. "Away with the 
children of Esau," he cried ; " the inheritance 
belongeth to the sons of Jacob." The cry 
was taken up instantly, " Away with the un- 
godly ! " The snow lay deep on the ground, 
the wind and the rain were converting it into 
horrible mire, when every house was entered, 
and all who would not abjure their infant 
baptism were driven into the streets. Women 
with half-naked babies, little children knee- 
deep in slush and snow, old men with not a 
penny left of their life's earnings, went forth 
homeless. Young lads, with scared faces, 
holding in their hands a bit of bread which 
their schoolmasters had givento comfort them 
or to allay their hunger, went side by side with 
their parents with bare feet through the snow. 
But on reaching the gates all the wanderers 
were searched ; the fanatics took away from 
the mothers the bottles of milk which they 
had secured for their children, and the bread 
which the lads were conveying to their 
mouths, and the few small coins which the 
men had been able to secure for their wants. 
If their clothes were good, they took these 
too. Then they drove them out, with the 
cry, " Away, ye wicked pagans ! " The Ana- 
baptists were thus masters of the situation. 
They gathered together all the property that 
could be found, and Matthys appointed seven 
"deacons" to distribute it among the faith- 
ful. All intercourse with the " pagans " was. 
strictly forbidden. Those who received the 
new baptism alone were saints. Marriages, 
previously solemnized were annulled ; laws 
w^ere abolished as infractions of liberty. AH 
distinctions of rank were suppressed. 



616 



JOHN OF LEYDEN AND THf. 



The City Beleaguered. 
The fanatics would olarii-,, \. 
-tend .heir don^^i'^^^L^K^ - Jo 



and leave the Bishon of \r- ! °'".' '^°°^^' 
own ,a„.e3. B„^.,°41r';Vaf gji^i? 




Anabaptists plundering thf C»„^r~ ■ 

THE Churches and breaking the Images. 






b?p"!s.rs;ccVed"L™"''" ^''°""<' 'he Ana- 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Should these be victorious, might he not turn 
on those who refused their help, and humble 
them before the bishop of Miinster? They 
resolved, therefore, to send help, artillery, 
cavalry, infantry; only stipulating that the 
see should compensate them. The promise 
was made, the helps were sent, and by the 
end of April 1534 a strong army beleaguered 
the town. 



A Glimpse of Citv Life, 

Besieging a town is not the same thing as 
taking it, and the allied princes knew that 
they had their work to do. The city was 
well provisioned and well armed, and the 
besieged fanatics betrayed no signs of fear. 
They at once showed that they would tolerate 
nothing that was not altogether identified 
with themselves. All the pictures and statues 
in cathedral and market-place were destroyed. 
It is said that in richness they had no equal 
save at Ko!n. A splendid collection of manu- 
scripts, which had been brought from Italy, 
and had cost twenty thousand florins, was 
solemnly burnt in front of the cathedral. No 
book v/as to be allowed but the Bible, and 
this also was to be subjected to the judgment 
of the prophets. Next, all property was de- 
clared to be common. Not only the property 
of the exiles, but that of the faithful also, all 
gold, silver, and jewels had to be brought 
forth for the common use. Each man was 
to exercise his own craft as heretofore, but 
tailors were enjoined to introduce no new 
garment or fashion. Meat and drink were 
provided at public cost, at which the 
" brothers and sisters " sat apart from each 
other, while one i-ead and expounded a 
chapter of the Bible. As for the civil 
government, nothing could be simpler. The 
prophet Matthys was supreme and absolute, 
Avith Bockelson for his lieutenant and Rott- 
mann for his chief preacher. The besieged 
made no progress. The town was not only 
well fortified, but it stood in a plain, and 
there was no rising ground in its neighbour- 
liood on which the besiegers could erect their 
engines. Some of their soldiers who were 
taken prisoners in the sorties were beheaded 
by order of the prophets, and their heads 
were set up on the walls to show their com- 
rades what fate awaited tliem. But accidents 
will happen even in the best regulated 
states. On Easter Day of that year, before 
Matthys had been two months upon his 
throne, an attack was made by the besiegers. 
He rushed out to put it down with a strong 
hand, and was killed. Bockelson claimed 
to have foretold it; there were some who 
even averred that he had contrived it. He 
now took his place, and ruled not less 
absolutely. 



John of Leyden Supreme. 

The new monarch for a while kept silence. 
Those about him were not slow to declare 
that even in civil matters merely human laws 
were to -be disregarded, and that the Word 
of God, as interpreted by His servants, was 
the only supreme authority. At length he 
spake. God, he said, had made known to 
him His will ; there were to be twelve elders 
in the new, as in the ancient, Israel, and he 
proceeded to nominate them. The faithful 
Rottmann assured the congregation from the 
cathedral that a revelation to himself con- 
firmed the prophet's utterance, and presented 
the newly appointed elders to it. No sort of 
objection was made, no form of election was 
gone through. Six of them were to sit each 
day, morning and afternoon, to administer 
justice: the prophet was to proclaim their 
sentences unto Israel, and Knipperdolling 
was to execute them. Then further, a code 
of laws was put forth. It consisted entirely 
of extracts from the books of Moses. 

What next ? One might almost answer this 
question from the analogy of other similar de- 
lusions. Fanaticism is usually accompanied 
by debauchery, and he who throws over his 
faith may look to throw over also his morality 
before long. Prophet John was already mar- 
ried, but he desired Divara, the young and 
pretty widow of his predecessor, who, we may 
say in passing, had divorced his aged spouse to 
marry Divara. What wonder that the great 
man found no difficulty in seeing his way! 
He announced that it was as lawful now as 
it was under the old covenant for a man to 
have a plurality of wives. Such a proposition, 
indeed, had been made to Luther, who in- 
dignantly rejected it. W^e need not say that, 
Bockelson was not likely to be affected by 
such scruples ; was he not living entirely by 
the Scriptures ? and was not he the inter- 
preter of them ? Yet the consciences of the 
citizens were not yet prepared for such 
abominations, though Rottmann thundered 
for several days together in defence of the 
new utterance, and practically demonstrated 
his own conviction by taking four wives. 

A smith named Mollenhok raised his voice 
in defence of decency, and called upon the 
citizens not to return to barbarism. All o( 
the old-fashioned people who were not utterly 
given up to the new opinions rallied round 
him, and some of the prophet's partizans 
were imprisoned, while proposals were made 
for recalling the exiles. But John's organiza- 
tion was too strong, and the lowest class 
were staunch to one who had taught them 
confiscation. Mollenhok's party were driven 
from one post to another till they took refuge 
in the town-hall. Their enemies immediately 
invested it, and planted cannon, which women 
had dragged thither, in front. The besieged 



6i8 



JOHN OF LEYDEN AND THE ANABAPTISTS. 



saw that their case was hopeless, and an- 
nounced their surrender from the windows. 
They had better have died at their posts 
than trust such ruffians, John ordered that 
they should be tied to trees and shot, an- 
nouncing that he who fired the first shot 
would receive the special favour of God. 
But as presently the fear arose among the 
faithful that the continual discharge of the 
guns would induce the belief that the citizens 
"were fighting, and as also it was considered 
that this was a waste of powder, it was 
ordered that the rest, sixty in number, were 
to be slain with the sword, and the execution 
was committed to Knipperdolling. At first 
he proceeded in a leisurely and capricious 
manner, as if he would lengthen out the 
sweet delights of his task, killing one or two 
a day. But presently, fearing that by chance 
the prophet might somewhat relent, he 
finished off the whole in a batch. From 
this time he had the power of putting to 
death on the spot any man whom he detected 
disobeying the new laws. He stalked about 
the streets with a drawn sword in his hand, 
preceded by four heralds, and striking terror 
into all hearts . 



BOCKELSON IS I^IADE KiNG. 

All was now ready for the next move. A 
fellow-prophet, Tausendschuer, declared one 
morning that God had revealed to him that 
John of Leyden was to be king ; the preachers 
with one consent supported him. Declared 
and agreed to, every man came forward and 
signed allegiance. Then the king called on 
the congregation to join him in prayer that 
he might have good assistants in his govern- 
ment. After they had all prayed, Rottmann 
produced a list of those whom the Divine 
will had appointed. Rottmann himself was 
to be biirgermeister, and Knipperdolling lieu- 
tenant, the most eminent of the preachers 
were to be privy councillors. 

The views of the Anabaptists as to the 
course of the world were set forth by Rottmann 
in a treatise. All things, he said, run in 
triads. The first period of the world ended 
with the deluge ; in the second, God had 
called men by Abraham, by the prophets, by 
Christ. But all was in vain, none would 
hear ; therefore the wrath of God was about 
to descend once more, as in the days of Noah, 
and destroy all the ungodly and bring in the 
perfect kingdom. The kingdom of the world, 
the ungodly empire under which they had 
been living, was already reft and falling to 
pieces ; a few years more and all its riches 
would come into the hands of the true be- 
lievers, among whom Christ would reign for 
a thousand years. True that sacrifices were 
needed before the happy day would dawn ; 
the siege which they were enduring was such 



a sacrifice. But God would not only deliver 
them, He would put His sword into the 
hands of His people that they might cut off 
all that believed not. And inasmuch as the 
Old Testament prophets had foretold a uni- 
versal king, it followed that John of Leyden 
was the king of the whole earth ; as such 
Tausendschuer saluted him, and he accepted 
the title and assumed it in his edicts. Here 
is a specimen of one : — 

'• Be it known and proclaimed to all lovers 
and followers of 'truth and godly righteous- 
ness, as well as to all who understand not 
like those who are learned in the hidden 
things of God. Inasmuch as the Christians 
and their disciples have gone forth under the 
banner of righteousness as true Israelites in 
the new Temple in the present kingdom 
long foreseen, promised by the mouth of the 
prophets, begun by Christ and His apostles 
in the wisdom of the Spirit, and now come in 
the person of John the Righteous, the pro- 
mised and incontestable occupant of the 
throne of David," etc., etc. 

He wore a gold chain round his neck, on 
which was suspended agolden globe transfixed 
with two swords. His uniform was of three 
colours — green, the symbol of youth, white, 
of innocence, grey of death to his enemies.* 
Thrice a week he appeared in crown and 
gold chain in the market-place, seated him- 
self on his throne, and administered justice, 
while Knipperdolling stood one step lower, 
sword in hand. When he rode through the 
town, two boys walked beside him, one with 
an Old Testament, the other with a naked 
sword. All who met him knelt down. "Had 
he been a king born," says one writer, "he 
could not have arranged more ostentatiously, 
for he was a wondrous manager of pomp and 
show." 

To all this ostentation he added debauchery. 
Besides Divara, who was his queen, he took 
fifteen wives, and he declared that he would 
have three hundred. His queen and these 
young girls he attired magnificently, having 
seized all the rich vestments from the 
churches for the purpose. Each of his apos- 
tles and adherents also had several wives. 
He considered it necessary to keep his 
followers in a state of drunkenness, to pre- 
vent them from foreseeing the catastrophe 
which hung over them. 

Knipperdolling was not far behind him in 
extravagant pretension. Once he caused 
himself to be suspended over the heads ol 
the crowd in the market-place that he might 
breathe the Holy Spirit upon them all. He 
danced indecent dances before the King, and 
broke out into horse-play with him. Once 

*This use of the tricolor as a revolutionary sym- 
bol is one of many resemblances, pointed out by 
Ranl<e, to the proceedings in the French Revolution 
of 1789. 



)I9 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF PI I STORY. 



they had a quarrel ; but it was dangerous 
v/ork to both sides quarrelling in such a 
state of the atmosphere, and they soon made 
it up. 

In October 1534 there was a great religious 
festival, which he called the Lord's Supper ! 

Tables were set for the Lord's Supper for 
all the adult women, and for those of the men 
who were not watching upon the walls — in all 
four thousand two hundred persons. John 
of Leyden and Divara appeared with all their 
courtiers and served. After the general 
meal the King took wheaten cakes and the 
Queen took wine, and, after having first 
partaken themselves, they gave of them to 
the others, saying, " Brother (or sister), take 
and eat ; as the grains of wheat are baked 
together, and as the grapes are pressed 
together, so are we also one." Then they 
sang the hymn, " Glory to God in the H ighest." 
Whilst this was proceeding the King thought 
he saw one who had not on a wedding gar- 
ment. He ordered him to be dragged out, 
followed him, and with his own hands cut off 
his head. Then he returned to the feast, 
and many times burst out laughing at the 
thought of what he had done. 

When the feast was over, he asked if they 
were all ready to do the will of God. " All," 
they replied. "Then," said the king, " His 
will is that some of you should go forth to 
make known the wonderful things which 
God hath wrought for us. Thereupon he 
chose six, who were to go to Osnabruch, and 
the same number who were to go to other 
towns in the neighbourhood. To each he 
gave a piece of gold of the value of nine 
florins, and also a charm for safety. They 
all left Munster the same night ; and those 
who succeeded in reaching the town assigned 
to them, made night horrible, filling the air 
with outcries. " Ee converted and repent," 
they shouted. "The time which God in His 
mercy has lelt you is short. The axe is laid 
to the root of the trees ; if you do not receive 
peace, your town will be soon destroyed." 
Next, presenting themselves to the Town 
Councils, they spread their cloaks on the 
ground, on which they laid the piece of 
gold. "We proclaim peace to you," they 
proceeded; "if you accept our peace, bring 
hither all that you possess, and lay it on 
this gold. Our king will ere long have 
conquered the world, and subdued it to him- 
self in righteousness." It seems as if the 
Bishop of Miinster had contrived to make 
himself hated, for the envoys were in some 
cases well received at first, simply on the 
ground that they were hostile to him. But 
presently they were all arrested, and seme 
were put to the torture. But not one would 
confess himself in the wrong. " We wait for 
new troops from Friesland," they said ; "when 
these arrive, the king shall go forth in his 



might and subdue the whole earth." They 
were all put to death as guilty of sedition. 

There was one woman in the city who 
boasted that no man could control her. The 
boast excited John of Leyden to desire her 
for another of his wives. Accordingly he 
married her, and she lived with him for 
some time ; but, finding his morals and the 
manners of his harem intolerable, she left 
his house and sent back all his presents. In 
his fury the Anabaptist king had her brought 
into the market-place, beheaded her himself, 
and kicked the corpse about with his foot,, 
while his wives once more joined in singing 
the Gloria in Excelsis. 

The Progress of the Siege ; 
A Failure. 

There was still, however, one drawback to 
John of Leyden's perfect triumph, namely, 
the beleaguering army of the bishop out- 
side. Within, for the time, all opposition 
seemed at an end ; the people one and all 
professed willing homage. They had bartered 
their liberty for grotesque and horrible living, 
seeking to fill themselves with the husks 
that the swine did eat. As for the leader he 
is past all analysis of character. Spiritual 
pride, fleshly brutality, enthusiasm, crafti- 
ness, lofty pretension, hideous coarseness, 
all mingled together into such a being as 
the history of the world has rarely seen. 
And still his devotees believed in him. A 
woman who had come a long way to dwell 
in Munster, "in order to seek the salvation 
of her soul at John's hands," had heard the 
story of Judith read at table, and resolved 
to imitate her, and deliver the besieged city 
by killing the bishop, as the Jewish heroine 
did Holofernes. She dressed herself in fine 
garments, borrowed jewels from the treasury,, 
in fact, imitated Judith in all particulars 
except in her success. For on presenting 
herself in the camp, she was suspected and 
questioned, confessed the truth, and was put 
to death. 

In August the bishop had made an unsuc- 
cessful attempt to storm the city. Nothing 
could have been more complete or better 
arranged than the counter preparations. 
All threatened places were carefully guarded ; 
and on the walls, between the men-at-arms, 
stood women and boys. The boys had bows 
and arrows, the women cauldrons, some filled 
with boiling pitch, others with lime. The 
stormers carne on in six parties, planted 
their ladders, and began to climb. The fire 
of musketry which poured upon their crowded 
ranks, deadly as it was, was less horrible 
than the tortures produced by the women's 
attack. " The victims of it," says one nar 
rator (Kersenbroik), "maddened with the 
flames which penetrated through their ar- 



620 



JOHN OF LEY DEN AND THE ANABAPTISTS. 



mour, rushed hither and thither distractedly, 
but only to strengthen the fire the more by 
their movements. In vain they tried to 
drag off their burning garments ; they only 
increased their agony by covering their hands 
with the fiery pitch. Some of them rolled 
on the earth with horrid cries ; others threw 
themselves into the ditches, where the weight 
of their armour sunk them.'' 

Such a catastrophe as this was sufficient 
to rob the landsknechts of any desire to 
renew the attack ; it was clear that there 
was skill as well as desperate courage 
matched against them. Nothing was left 
to the bishop but to make the blockade 
closer. 

We have already told how, in October, 
after the communion which we have de- 
scribed, emissaries were sent by " the King 
of Zion " to go into the neighbouring cities, 
and relate the signs and wonders that were 
done on behalf of the people of the Lord. 
But many failed to run the blockade, were 
seized by the bishop's people, and put to 
death. Yet John's courage was not broken by 
tl|is. He knew that the Anabaptist principles 
had taken deep root among the German 
peasantry, and in some places among the 
nobility as well. In Erfurt and Anhalt and 
Wiirtemberg, there were thousands of them ; 
in Augsburg another Anabaptist king was 
actually set up. Still their stronghold was 
the Netherlands, especially in Amsterdam 
and Leyden. In February 1535, hundreds of 
these fanatics ran naked about the streets 
of Amsterdam by night, crying out, " Woe ! 
woe ! woe!" They were arrested and be- 
headed. So were others who formed a plan 
to anticipate the Divine judgment by burning 
down unbelieving Leyden. Near Franeker, 
in Friesland, three hundred of them took 
possession of a convent. They, too, after 
some trouble, were seized and put to death. 
Yet the opinion was universally held among 
them that if John of Leyden could only win 
a few more victories, the whole of Lower 
Germany would rise in his favour. For he 
abated none of his pretensions ; he still laid 
claim to the monarchy of the world ; and he 
now proceeded coolly to apportion it among 
twelve dukes, that of Germany being the 
first. He wrote to the Landgrave of Hesse, 
addressing him as "dear Phil.," that if he 
would but study the Bible he would see that 
the King of Zion had not unlawfully usurped 
his title. 

It seems strange to us that this upstart, 
vile brute as he was, should thus be able to 
Jiold all Germany at bay. But his impunity 
lay in the jealousies which divided the princes 
and states. We have seen how Koln and 
Cleves had been induced to join against John 
more through jealousy of Hesse than for 
love of righteousness. The failure of the 

621 



assault upon the city was very near caus- 
ing them to withdraw their assistance ; but 
better counsels prevailed, and they agreed to 
furnish fifty thousand gulden to the bishop. 
They had already sent him sixty thousand. 
But they did more. They made an appeal 
for help to the surrounding states. The 
councillors of the Palatinate, of Mainz, Trier, 
and Wiirzburg, met them accordingly at 
Obervvesel ; and, again, jealousy was as 
powerful as patriotism, for Mary of Bur- 
gundy had already given hints of gathering 
succours for Miinster from her states in the 
Netherlands ; and should the city be de- 
livered by her means, it would at once be 
lost to Saxony and won to Burgundy. There 
were other wheels within wheels in the whole 
matter ; but this was the guiding principle, 
and the results proved favourable to the 
bishop. The three circles of the Lower 
Rhine, the Upper Rhine, and Westphalia, 
met in conference at Coblenz in December, 
and agreed to raise fifteen thousand gulden 
a month to keep up the blockade. And they 
also drew up a petition to the Emperor Fer- 
dinand, who had just succeeded Charles V., 
to convoke a general assembly at Worms, 
with a view to delivering the bishop of 
Miinster from his troubles. Nearly all the 
States agreed to send help. The Elector of 
Brandenburg, it is true, responded that the 
three circles concerned should do their own 
work ; but the agreement of the rest assured 
the bishop that he would now be enabled to 
continue the blockade. A commander-in- 
chief, too, was appointed, Count Whirich 
von Dhaun, 

The King in Danger, 

And now for the first time the besieged 
realized the possibility of starvation. They 
by no means lost heart. They knew that 
there were zealous Anabaptists through- 
out the Netherlands, crying, "Death to 
all priests and nobles ! The only lawful 
sovereign in the world is the King of Miin- 
ster!" They even rose up in many centres 
simultaneously at Easter 1535, and the 
Anabaptists actually got possession of the 
Stadthius at Amsterdam for one night. Jan 
van Geelen, a clever, crafty man, set on by 
Bockelson, having first, by a feigned renun- 
ciation of his errors, won the good-will of 
Mary of Burgundy, gathered a large number 
of followers and burst into the city in the 
dead of night, and seized the Stadthius, The 
townsfolk, however, aroused by the tocsin, 
drove away the fanatics with cannon shot, 
not without suffering great losses themselves, 
particularly in the death of a burgomaster. 
The rebels were cruelly treated. Many of 
then\ were stretched on butcher's blocks and 
had tbeir hearts torn out. The women who 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



had taken part in the rising were drowned. 
It soon became evident that the fanatics had 
no chance. Everywhere they were dispersed 
by the armed forces of the country without 
any difficulty. One legitimate commander, 
who expected to meet an armed host of 
some thousands, found five men and thirteen 
women. He says naively, that he soon con- 
verted them from their errors. 

These dispersed, the last hope of the 
upstart king was really gone. He had 
continued to encourage his people ■ with 
promiises of assistance. Their fellow-be- 
lievers, he declared, would not be hindered 
from coming to their king by sword nor 
fire nor water. But murmurs arose ; and a 
deserter from the city to the blockading army 
on the 7th of May announced that the King 
had much work to prevent insurrection. 
Many fled from the city, whom the besiegers 
would have driven back but that pity stayed 
their hands ; and the landsknechts handed 
food to the women and children who sat 
down in despair in the ditches by the 
stockade. Men moved to and fro in the 
city, mere skeletons covered with skin, with 
necks which seemed not equal to supporting 
their heads, with ghastly cheek-bones and 
blue lips and starving, wolfish eyes, which 
opened and shut with sudden jerk. They 
ate the flesh of horses, of dogs, and cats, and 
dormice, as well as grass and leather. They 
tore up books, and devoured the parchment. 
Half the population, it is said, died of star- 
vation. Bockelson had told them that if it 
were necessary for the saving of his subjects 
the stones would be turned into bread ; and 
some of his devotees were seen biting the 
stones, and breaking them in pieces, in hope 
of the fulfilment of the prophecy. Despair 
led to madness of the most hideous character. 
The wife of one of the King's " senators " 
killed her three children, salted their bodies, 
and placed them away in jars ; and on this 
awful provision she fed day after day. In 
the midst of this frightful spectacle, which 
seems to rival the last days of Jerusalem 
itself, the King's palace continued daily to 
be the scene of feasting and debauchery. 

And even now there were those who were 
determined, to use John of Leyden's phrase, 
"not to go back into Egypt." A summons 
to them, to surrender on terms which was 
sent to them in the beginning of June by the 
commander-in-chief was indignantly rejected. 
They hoped, now all other hope failed them, 
that though the beast, of which Daniel 
had spoken and which their King had inter- 
preted of the Empire, should crush them 
under his hoofs, yet that the great stone, 
which the same prophet had foretold, would 
crush him in turn and the kingdom be given 
to the saints of the Most High; and they 
resolved when all should be lost to set 



fire to the city, and rush out on the enemy's 
guns. 

Overthrow. 

The wretched victims of delusion had no 
opportunity of attempting to carry out their 
intentions. A deserter came to the besiegers' 
camp, and, offered to show them a way by 
which they might enter the city. They were 
glad enough to hear of it, for they were tired 
of their straw beds in the block-houses, but 
their terrible experience when they made the 
attempt to storm the place was fresh in their 
memories. But they knew that if they, could 
only surmount the dangers of the ditch and 
outer wall, the enemy within was not in a 
condition to make any resistance v/orth the 
name. Under such conditions we are not 
likely to find a record of brave deeds and 
heroic exploits. It was the eve of St. John 
the Baptist's Day, June 23rd, 1535, when the 
betrayer led a few hundred landsknechts 
across the ditches where they were narrowest, 
and showed them where to plant their ladders 
on the safest spots on the walls. He had 
possessed them with the Anabaptists' watdii- 
word, and so they were able to deceive the 
sentinels till they were ascended in force, 
then they threw the sentinels over the wall. 
Securing a bastion in their reai', they pressed 
on to the cathedral close, then shouted the 
war-cry and beat their drums. The Anabap- 
tists sprang from their beds in terror, and 
rushed to defend themselves. But by this 
time the gate was opened from within, and 
the main body of besiegers came rushing 
through it. 

The unhappy fanatics fought for a brief 
hour with all the fury and energy of despair. 
A hundred and fifty nobles and officers who 
were in the foremost ranks of their enemies 
fell by their muskets before they were subdued. 
The King and Knipperdolling were seized and 
made prisoners in a bastion within which 
they had hid themselves. Rottmann resolved 
to escape from the ignominy of execution or 
captivity by rushing into the thickest of the 
fight and meeting death there. A few 
hundreds of them still held out, and en- 
trenched themselves behind some carriages, 
presenting such a fierce and determined front 
that the besiegers fell back and treated with 
them. If they would yield they should be 
allowed to go quietly home, and when the 
bishop came he should determine their fate. 
There was poor comfort for them even in this, 
for it is not likely that he would have spared 
their lives. But they could hope for nothing 
better ; had they held out, they would have 
all been killed to a certainty. ' They yielded, 
laid down their arms, and turned their faces 
to their homes. But the landsknechts, furious 
at the loss of their comrades, after a minute's 
hesitation, rushed upon them and smote them 



622 



JOHN OF LEYDEN AND THE ANABAPTISTS. 



down in their helplessness, even hacking 
them to pieces. The few that were not 
killed were reserved only for formal exe- 
cution. 

What a miserable and ghastly story it 
makes ! The wretched creatures thus 
butchered had given themselves up to crime 
and debaucheries. Yet who can refuse them 
pity in their horrible misery ? And who can 
wonder at the fury which had gotten the 
mastery in the souls of their victorious foes ? 
We at this distance of time can pity and 
sympathise. For the moment, one thought 
alone seems to have taken possession of the 
conquerors' souls, namely, that Anabaptism 
must be destroyed, root and branch. Even 
the women were driven out of the city ; every 
one offering them shelter was to be treated 
as an Anabaptist. What became of them was 
never known. No record remains to tell. 
Those who had been driven out of the city 
before were suffered to return ; but as they 
were not held entirely guiltless, they had 
to pay a fine. Any man suspected of 
Anabaptism had to give security to the 
amount of 400 gulden before he could be re- 
admitted. 

Cleves and Koln were so shocked at the 
severity of the reaction, that they tried to 
mitigate it. A deputation of the Empire 
called for the restoration to the city of its old 
privileges and rights. But of this there was 
no hope. The nobles and cathedral chapter 
were determined to keep the power now that 
they had it, and to crush the independence of 
the city which had long been hateful to them. 
They built a fortress in the very heart of the 
city at the expense of the citizens, though the 
princes of Koln and Cleves protested against 
it as tyranny. This fortress they placed 
under the command of one of the nobles, 
and made him swear allegiance to themselves; 
he was to obey only them, though even the 
Emperor himself should be present. Even the 
Town Council must be approved by them 
before its election could be valid. 

Thus the city was once more entirely at the 
feet of the nobles and clergy, though it had 
once emancipated itself from them. And 
this was the result of the fanaticism and in- 
tolerance of the so styled ''faithful Christians." 

The Execution. 

Meanwhile, John Bockelson ofLeyden,the 
captive King, with his chief councillor Knip- 
perdolling, were brought to trial. John at 
tirst braved it out. He assumed the air of a 
king, and spoke arrogantly to the bishop. 
When reproached with his polygamy he an- 
swered with insolent jests, and declared that 
he would never have surrendered the town, 
though his people should all have died of 
hunger. Two theologians of Hesse were 



62^ 



sent to endeavour to bring him to repentance ; 
he treated them with the same insolence, and 
affected an air of complete superiority. 

Reflectian,however, soon wrought a change. 
For he was an impostor rather than a mis- 
guided enthusiast, and he was ready to do 
anything to save his life. He asked for a 
second conference with the Hessians, and 
affected to be converted. '-'I confess," he said 
to them, " that the resistance which I have 
offered to authority was unlawful ; that my in- 
stitution of polygamy was rash and untimely ; 
and that the baptism of children is obliga- 
tory on Christians. If pardon should be 
granted me and to Melchior Hoffmann and 
his wives, I undertake to obtain from all my 
adherents obedience and submission." He 
likewise acknowledged to the bishop's chap- 
lain that if he were to suffer ten deaths, he 
had deserved them all. This is the language 
of a knave willing to give up his imposture 
if it may save his life. Knipperdolling and 
Krechting, on the other hand, were perfectly 
obdurate. They were not so clever or so 
well-skilled in theological language as John 
of Leyden, and they asserted that they had 
but followed the guidance of God. 

Cruelties of various kinds were inflicted on 
the miserable wretches. They were led about 
publicly, sometimes chained, sometimes in 
iron cages, and exhibited like strange ani- 
mals to the various princes and their courts. 
After a month of this, they were sentenced to 
death for high treason. They were brought out 
into the great square of Miinster, to the spot 
where John as king had borne the sceptre 
and worn the crown, and where his executive 
minister Knipperdolling had held his sword 
of office. Here they were stretched out naked, 
and their bodies were plucked to pieces 
with red-hot pincers. The horrible scene 
lasted for an hour. All three bore the torture 
with courage ; not one cry, it is said, escaped 
Bockelson. After he had breathed his last, 
they pierced his heart with a dagger. His 
wife Divara and the rest of the chief fanatics 
were beheaded. 

Relics of this strange phenomenon of his- 
tory are still to be seen at Miinster. The old 
fortifications have been dismantled, but there 
are still the ancient ramparts, now a pleasant 
walk planted with lime-trees. In the cathe- 
dral is to be seen the tomb of the victorious 
bishop. There is also the beautiful Gothic 
church of St. Lambert, and outside the towers 
are two iron baskets in which the bodies of 
John of Leyden and his two fellow-sufferers 
were hung up after execution. His house, 
ornamented with curious carvings, is in the 
market-place. In the Rathhaus, are the tongs 
and pincers with which the poor wretches 
were tortured ; and in the Friedensaal (so- 
called because the peace of Westphalia 
was afterwards signed here, May 1648) are 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



shown John of Leyden's shrivelled and dried 
hand, cut off before his execution, his bed, 
and Divara's shoes. 

Lutherans and Catholics had united to put 
down these wicked and wild fanatics, and 
it has been said that the combination had 
the effect of promoting a better understand- 
ing between the two confessions (Hardwick's 
"Reformation," 276). But it was not very 
cordial apparently. One of the two Hessian 
divines who received Bockelson's confession, 
and who, it is not unlikely, was moved with 
compassion towards him at the last, writes 
indignantly to the court chaplain of Saxony 
that "the mass priests" showed a savage 
dehght over the execution, and that he is sure 
that they would like to serve the Lutherans 
the same. Without question, the cause of 
the Reformation was all but lost in Miinster 
by these wild excesses and crimes. Protes 
tantism barely exists there at present. 

Retrospect. 

Three causes had combined to produce 
this hideous chapter of history. First, the 
cruel persecution of Charles V. of all who 
asserted the liberty of the conscience. Se- 
condly, the need which all men I'ecognized 
of reformation in the state and in social life. 
The poor felt that they were oppressed, and 
looked for a helper. Thirdly, the unbridled 
license and lust of the fanatics, who met the 
desire for deliverance by promising impos- 
sibilities, and who did not remember that 
man has duties as well as rights, and that 
unrestrained libertv to sinful beings must be 



After this terrible catastrophe, there still 
remained some enthusiasts and libertines. 
But the terror of mankind at the sight of 
them prevented their obtaining a following, 
and so they dwindled away, Ranke, in his 
"History of the Reformation," — a work to 
which we owe much of the information con- 
tained in this article, — has gathered together 
a great number of hymns written by milder 
members of this wild sect. There are refe- 
rences to " crafty serpents " and " the great 
dragon," resolutions not to be terrified by 
fire or sword, faith that God can and will 
save His true children, and will deliver their 
souls though their bodies perish ; and so on 
(iii. 620). 

At the moment of their total overthrow in 
Miinster many of them fled to England, and 
became important actors in the stormy 
period of the seventeenth century. A great 
deal of what is peculiar in the history ol 
George Fox and his followers was a mere 
reproduction of some of the more harmless 
vagaries of the Anabaptists. 

Let us close with the calm reflection of the 
good old historian of this period. Merle 
d'Aubigne:— " We have traced the horrible 
episode of Miinster, and we have exhibited it 
like one of those placapds which we have 
sometimes met with in the Alps, nailed to a 
post near an abyss, on which were to be 
read such words as these: — ''Traveller, be- 
ware ! Any one approaching, falls and rolls 
over. He is hurled from rock to rock till he 
is dashed to pieces and kiiled, the sad victim 
of his rashness.' " 

VV. B. 




624 




Entrance of Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, into Brussels. 



WHAT CAME OF THE BEGGARS' 

REVOLT. 

THE STORY OF THE FREEDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS. 

" But in the course of time the laws of the land were corrupted ; 
Might took the place of right, and the weak were oppressed, and the mighty 
Ruled with an iron rod." — Longfellow. 



How Duke Alva superseded Margaret of Parma— Arrival of Alva in Brussels— General Apprehension of Evil — The 
Treacherous Calm — Arrest of Counts Egmont and Horn — Escape of Hoogstraten — Trial and Condemnation of 
the Two Counts— Egmont's Last Letter to the King — The Execution in the Market-place at Brussels — How Duke 
Alva ruled in the Netherlands— The Reign of Terror— The Council of Blood— Vargas and His Colleagues - Atrocities 
and Oppression— Departure of Margaret of Parma — William of Orange, the Champion of Religious Liberty — His De- 
feat by Alva— The Duke's Insolence and Pride— The Statue — Taxation and Resistance— The Resignation of Alva — 
Renewal of the Contest — Beggars of the Sea — Alva's Successors — The Struggle and the Triumph — Death of William 
the Silent — Conclusion. 



How Duke Alva superseded Mar- 
garet OF Parma. 
HE 22nd day of August, 1467, may 
well be marked with a black stone 
in the annals of the Netherlands. 
For on that day the man whose 
reputation for ruthlessness preceded him, and 



whose subsequent proceedings more than 
justified the terror with which the news of 
his approach was greeted, appeared with his 
formidable army of Spaniards before the 
gates of Brussels. That he came in the 
character of an avenger, armed with un- 
limited power — that he came as the minister 



625 



ss 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



of a monarch who never forgot and who 
never pardoned, and whose wrath had been 
fiercely kindled by the efforts of the Flem- 
ings to protect the ancient freedom and 
privileges Philip II. and his father Charles 
V. before him had consistently striven to 
subvert, — these things were sufficient to ac- 
count for the stupor of terror in which the 
city seemed sunk. But in addition to all this 
there was in the character of Alva a profound 
dissimulation equal to that of his master, 
and his open enmity was less formidable 
' than the insidious friendship he was known 
sometimes to extend towards those he had 
determined to ruin, until the moment for 
their destruction had come. 

The powers with which the gloomy noble 
had been invested by the tyrant, whose v/ill 
he was determined to carry out to the utmost, 
were starthng and almost unlimited ; and 
aroused the indignation and disgust of the 
Regent, Margaret of Parma, King Philip's 
half-sister, when he waited upon her to pre- 
sent his credentials. For she saw at once 
that her influence was entirely superseded 
and rendered of no effect by these astonish- 
ing commissions ; although, according to the 
literal purport of the first royal letter, while 
the command and control of all the garrisons 
and of all the troops were entrusted to Alva, 
the administration of civil affairs was still to 
remain in the hands of Margaret. But a 
second commission which the Duke put into 
the Regent's hands in private placed his 
authority in a very different light. This 
second commission gave Alva full power to 
carry on war, to build fortresses, to appoint 
or depose governors of provinces, and all 
officials from the highest to the lowest, at his 
will, to punish all who had been concerned 
in the late disturbances in Flanders, and to 
reward those whose conduct had merited 
the favourable consideration of the govern- 
ment. To the indignant remonstrances and 
inquiries of the mortified princess he replied 
by hints that he held a third commission, 
whose contents it would not be expedient to 
divulge, but which conferred upon him a 
mysterious power of still wider and more 
formidable extent. From that day Margaret 
of Parma clearly understood that the moderate 
counsels she had advocated were unpalatable 
at the Court of Madrid, and that the authority 
in everything but its outward signs had de- 
parted from her ; nor was it to be wondered 
at that she quickly determined to resign an 
office of which only the name remained. 

The troops were at once quartered in the 
suburbs, and in a few hours' time had spread 
themselves through the streets. Brussels 
appeared like a city smitten with the plague. 
The streets were deserted, the doors of houses 
closely barred. Friends and acquaintances 
hurried past one another on the open places, 



afraid to be seen in conversation, distrustful 
of the interpretation that might put upon 
a chance word^the taint of treason ; and 
whenever a Spaniard appeared in the streets, 
the few passengers hastened to get out of his 
way. " The two nations," says Schiller, 
" seemed to have exchanged their characters ; 
the Spaniard to have become communicative, 
and the Brabanter dumb." 

The nobles at first kept rigidly within therr 
own houses. Reminiscences of the part they 
had played at the assemblages of the " Gueux," 
and of the bold language held in that Cu- 
lemburg Palace, in which the union of the 
" Beggars " had once been jovially estab- 
lished, and where the fierce Alva had now 
taken up his quarters, made them anxious 
not to recall themselves to the recollection of 
the avenger ; and so general was the appear- ■ 
ance of distrust and apprehension that Alva 
began to fear that his victims would by a 
timely flight elude the vengeance he held 
ready to hurl against them. For it was his 
object to get the chiefs of the confederacy of 
the Gueux into his power; well knowing that 
the people, deprived of their leaders, could 
do little or nothing against the disciplined 
strength of the army by which his authority 
was upheld. 

Accordingly, during the first few days of 
his residence in Brussels, no steps of a hos- 
tile character were taken ; and the nobles, 
especially Count Egmont, a man of a jovial, 
open, and confiding disposition, began to 
hope that after all they might have exagge- 
rated the extent of the danger, and that the 
formidable Spaniards would content them- 
selves with maintaining order and quietness 
in the country. Accordingly Egmont began 
to show himself once more in public ; and his 
friend Count Horn, who had at first prudently 
retired from the capital, came back to Brus- 
sels, thus putting his head into the lion's 
mouth. It was Alva's especial desire to get 
possession of the persons of these two nobles, 
and of a third, the Count of Hoogstraten, 
who was also returning to Brussels, misled 
by the treacherous calm ; but, fortunately for 
himself, sickness compelled Hoogstraten to 
travel slowly, and he was some distance 
from the city when the blow fell upon his 
fellow nobles, and enabled him, by a timely 
flight, to avoid the fate that overwhelmed 
them. William of Orange, the silent, saga- 
cious judge of the character of men, had 
estimated Alva and his master with unerring 
prescience when he warned Egmont and 
Horn to depart from the wrath to come. 

How Egmont and Horn were arrested 

AND TRIED. 

Meanwhile the sons of Alva, Ferdinand 
and Frederick of Toledo, seconded the plans 
of their treacherous parent by meeting the un- 



6^„ri 



WHAT CAME OF THE BEGGARS' REVOLT. 



suspecting Flemish nobles with grave Spanish 
courtesy mingled with a feigned cordiahty 
that quickly won the hearts of the unsus- 
pecting victims. Gradually some of those 
heads of great houses who had fled from the 
capital began to return, and to resume their 
former manner of living, though in a some- 
what half-hearted way ; and the Culemburg 
House was frequented by a number of suitors 
ready to pay court to the stern Governor, 
and concealing anxious hearts under an out- 
ward aspect of enforced cheerfulness ; un- 
willing by their absence to give colour to 
suspicion, and yet full of apprehension that 
the calm that brooded over the city was but 
the precursor of a scathing tempest. 

In truth, Alva had determined to strike a 
blow worthy of himself and of the master he 
served. He would bring terror into the city 
and the whole country by doing a thing that 
should make the ears of all who heard of it 
to tingle. This was nothing less than the 
arrest of that Lamoral, Count Egmont, who 
had been the envoy of the Gueux to Philip, 
and whom the relentless and suspicious 
monarch hated as the most popular man in 
Flanders, the darling of the people, beloved 
for his open, hearty manners, his liberality 
and splendour, and for the ardour with which 
he upheld national customs, regulations, and 
sports. With Egmont was to be arrested at 
the same time Count Horn, a man of great 
position and influence, though far less im- 
portant than Egmont ; and Count Hoogstra- 
ten was to be the third prisoner. Before 
making the capture, Alva was anxious to 
secure certain persons of distinction at 
Antwerp, including the burgomaster of that 
city, and to get into his possession some im- 
portant documents that could be used against 
the prisoners at Brussels ; and until this was 
done he maintained an appearance of amity 
and good-will. 

On the day when he expected the news 
from Antwerp that the captures had been 
efi'ected, Alva summoned a council in his 
house, at which Egmont and various other 
nobles, Flemings and Spaniards, were present. 
The Duke caused the sitting to be unusually 
protracted, until a courier from Antwerp 
brought him the intelligence that his orders 
in that city had been fulfilled. Then the 
council broke up, and Egmont was proceed- 
ing to the apartments of Alva's son Ferdinand, 
to resume an interrupted game, when, to his 
astonishment, the Captain of the Guard, 
Sancho de Avila, appeared, followed by a 
company of Spanish soldiers, who had until 
then been kept in the background, and 
demanded the Count's sword in the name 
of th(; King. For a few moments Egmont 
gazed upon the Spanish officer in speechless 
bewilderment ; and then recovering himself, 
he calmly took his sword from his side and i 



delivered it up, observing with dignity that 
it had more than once done good service to 
the Spanish crown. Count Horn was arrested 
at the same time, as he was leaving the 
palace ; and on hearing of the capture of his 
friend, merely declared that "as he had 
regulated his conduct according to Egmont's 
advice, it was just that he should share his 
fate." The two prisoners were carefully 
guarded in difterent rooms of the Culem- 
bui'g House. 

Meanwhile the whole of the Spanish 
garrison, drawn up under arms in front of 
the palace, gave token that something serious 
had occurred, and a panic of terror spread 
throughout the city, increasing as the truth 
became known. And now the Duke threw 
ofl" the mask ; and the arrest of a number of 
citizens and nobles gave token of what was 
to follow. A hundred thousand people had 
already fled the country, and twenty thousand 
more now followed ; though every obstacle 
was put in the way of such a proceeding, the 
ports being strictly guarded and the punish- 
ment of death threatened to all who endea- 
voured to emigrate without permission. 
Granvella, at Rome, heard of the capture of 
the two counts. "Have they the Silent one?" 
he eagerly asked the messenger ; and when he 
answered in the negative, the astute Cardinal 
shook his head, and said, " Then they have 
nothing at all, as they have let the Silent 
one escape." 

In a few days the two illustrious prisoners 
were led away under a guard of three thou- 
sand Spanish soldiers to Ghent, v/here they 
were kept in confinement, for eight months, 
in the citadel. The proceedings against 
them were scandalous, for injustice and utter 
contempt of law and right, even in an age 
when State prisoners had little chance of a 
fair trial. Deprived of all means of calling 
witnesses, their papers seized and used 
against them with all the malignity of per- 
version, subjected to harassing interrogations 
with the object of entangling them in their 
talk and betraying them into admissions and 
contradictory statements, the unfortunate pri- 
soners saw that their chance of purgation was 
infinitesimal. Their servants were arrested 
and intimidated, and the secretary of Egmont 
especially was cruelly tortured to extract 
evidence from him against his master. But 
to his honour he remained firm and constant, 
and baffled the plans of his tormentors. The 
articles exhibited against Egmont were ninety 
in number, and those against Horn amounted 
to more than sixty. Many were entirely fri- 
volous ; but the chief crimes alleged against 
the prisoners were their approval of, and 
participation in, the actions of the Gueux 
confederacy. It was asserted and maintained 
by their enemies that, in conjunction with 
the Prince of Orange, they had treasonably 
7 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



conspired to destroy the authority of the 
King in the Netherlands and to seize the 
government for themselves. Every action 
of the two prisoners was viewed in the aspect 
of treason ; their concessions to the Protes- 
tants in their governments, Granvella's ex- 
pulsion, Egmont's embassy to Madrid — 
everything was interpreted as treasonable, 
and subversive of the rule of their lawful 
monarch. 

As the unfortunate men were accused of 
the crime of lese inajeste, no friend was 
allowed access to them. They were required 
to give in their answer to the voluminous 
accusation within five days. After they had 
done this, they were allowed advocates and 
defenders. Their first plea was, that as 
Knights of the Order of the Golden Fleece, 
they were entitled to be tried by the King 
alone, as the Grand Master of the Order ; 
but they were told that this privilege did net 
extend to men accused of the crime of high 
treason. The answers they gave to the 
various allegations against them are still on 
record, and are such that no impartial tri- 
bunal would have failed to acquit them ; but 
the whole protracted trial was a ghastly farce. 
Their condemnation had been determined on 
from the beginning. 

The relatives of the two Counts meanwhile 
made every effort to save them. The 
Countess Egmont appealed to one German 
potentate after another, to the King of Spain 
and to the Emperor ; and the mother of 
Horn, a high-born lady, related to various 
princely houses, did the same. The prisoners 
themselves protested against the competency 
of Alva and his council as a court to try 
them ; and after having been summoned 
various times to produce their documents in 
evidence, they were declared contumacious 
and guilty by the council of twelve on the 
1st of June, 1568; and three days afterwards 
sentence of death was pronounced against 
them. 

How Egmont and Horn were executed 
AT Brussels. 

When once the sentence was passed upon 
the prisoners, Alva became anxious that it 
should be carried out without delay. The 
numerous petitions addressed to the King 
of Spain, from princes and other exalted 
personages, might alter the determination of 
Philip ; and the Count of Aremberg, Alva's 
general, had been beaten in battle by Count 
Louis of Nassau. A revolt in I3russels 
might at any moment endanger the Spanish 
supremacy in the Netherlands and set the 
prisoners free. Again, the Emperor Maxi- 
milian n. of Germany had interfered in 
favour ol" the condemned men, and was so 
confident of success that he had announced 
to the despairing Countess of Egmont that 

6: 



she had nothing to fear for her husband's hfe. 
Accordingly the ruthless commander resolved 
to strike promptly and decisively. The exe- 
cution of twenty-five nobles in the market- 
place at Brussels within three days was but 
the prologue to the deeper tragedy shortly to 
be enacted on the same spot. And then 
came the reflection that perhaps Philip, 
trusting to the promptitude of his lieutenant, 
would yield to the various intercessors, and 
despatch a pardon to Brussels for the two 
condemned men, in the confident expecta- 
tion that it would arrive too late. There was 
thus every reason for despatch. Accord- 
ingly on the day after sentence had been 
pronounced, the two Counts were conveyed 
under a strong guard from Ghent to Brussels. 
The house, formerly the " Brodhaus," and 
now called the " Maison du roy," in which 
they were lodged, is situate in the great 
market-place. The council was assembled, 
and the sentences were opened and read. 
Both prisoners were declared guilty of lese 
majeste because they had favoured and for- 
warded the detestable conspiracy of the 
Prince of Orange, had taken the confederate 
nobles under their protection, and had 
served the King and the Church badly in 
their governorships and other offices. They 
were to be publicly beheaded, and their 
heads were to be stuck on spears, and not 
to be taken down without express permission 
of the Duke. All their estates, fiefs, and 
rights were forfeited to the royal treasury. 
The sentence was signed by the Duke and 
by Pranz the Secretary. 

Martin Bithov, Bishop of Ypern, a kindly, 
benevolent prelate, was entrusted with the 
mournful office of announcing their doom to 
the condemned men. Shocked and horrified 
he fell at the Duke's feet and implored 
mercy or at any rate delay for the prisoners. 
But Alva sternly reminded him that he had 
been summoned from Ypern not to criticise 
the sentence but to announce it to the 
culprits and to prepare them for death. 

The jovial and cheerful nature of Egmont, 
which always disposed him to look at things 
in a hopeful light, had made him confidently 
believe that his life would be spared. Ac- 
cordingly when in the night between the 
4th and 5th of June the bishop came to his 
prison with the sentence of death in his 
hand, and tears of compassion in his eyes, 
the unhappy nobleman turned pale, and his 
voice trembled. " That is, indeed, a severe 
sentence," he cried ; " I did not think I had 
so deeply offended His Majesty as to deserve 
such treatment. But if it must be, I submit 
to my fate with resignation. May this death 
wipe away my sins, and not be injurious to 
my wife or my children ! So much, at least, 
I think I may expect for my past services. 
I will endure deaih with a quiet mind since 



V/HAT CAME OF THE BEGGARS' REVOLT. 



k pleases God and the King." Still he seems 
hardly to have been able to believe that his 
sentence would be carried out. But when, 
on his urgent inquiry, the bishop replied that 
there was no hope of mercy, he turned his 
thoughts to the great change so soon and so 
unexpectedly to come upon him. He con- 
fessed to the bishop and received the sacra- 
ment ; and asking his spiritual adviser if 
there were any prayer more suited than 
others to his situation, received the admi- 
rable reply that the " Our Father," the sup- 
plication dictated by the lips of the Saviour 
Himself, was undoubtedly the best in his as 
in every case ; whereupon the Count recited 
it with great fervour. Then he thought of 
his family ; and he called for pen and ink 
and wrote two letters, one to the King, the 
second to the Countess Egmont. 

The letter to King Philip was as follows : — 
"Sire, this morning I have heard the 
sentence which it has pleased Your Majesty 
to have passed upon me. Far as I have 
ever been from undertaking anything against 
the person or the service of Your Majesty, 
or against the one, true, old, and Catholic 
religion, I yet submit with patience to the 
fate which it has pleased God to bring upon 
me. If during the late disturbances I have 
permitted, counselled, or done anything that 
seems contrary to my duty, it was certainly 
■done with the best intentions, forced from 
me by the power of circumstances. There- 
fore I entreat Your Majesty to pardon me 
for it, and, in consideration of my past 
services, to have pity upon my unhappy wife 
and my poor children and servants. In this 
firm hope I commend myself to the infinite 
mercy of God. 

"Brussels, the 5th of June, 156S, near my 
last moment. 

"Your Majesty's most faithful vassal and 
servant, 
"Lamoral, Count of Egmont." 

He was especially anxious that this appeal 
for his wife and family should reach the 
hands of the King, and even made a copy 
of the letter to be deposited with the town 
councillor, Viglius. As the petition was 
granted, the estates being restored to the 
family, there is no doubt the letter was duly 
■delivered to Philip. 

Meanwhile preparations were being made 
in the great square of Brussels for the last 
mournful scene. A scaffold was erected, 
hung with black, and provided at the two 
front corners with spiked poles planted erect 
to receive the heads of the criminals. A 
silent horror seemed brooding over the city, 
every man seeing in the deed about to be 
•committed a menace against himself. A 
large body of Spanish troops surrounded 
the scaffold ; for, cowed and disheartened 



as the people were, it was yet probable that 
the sight of the death of their favourite 
might excite them to some act of tumultuous 
vengeance. When the guard appeared in 
his prison, with cords to bind his hands, he 
refused to submit to the indignity, declaring 
himself willing to die. He had already cut 
off the collar of the jerkin he wore, to render 
the headman's office more easy. He was 
dressed in a gown of red damask, with over 
it a short, black Spanish cloak, embroidered 
with gold. It was about eleven o'clock when 
he mounted the scaffold, followed by the 
Bishop of Ypern and Don Juhan Romero 
and Salinas, Spanish officers. The execu- 
tioner was kept concealed beneath the scaf- 
fold until the last moment. 

It had been his intention to address a few 
words to the people before he died ; but he 
was dissuaded from this intention by the 
bishop, who pointed out that the Flemings 
were too far from the scaffold to hear his 
words, while the Spanish soldiers who stood 
near would not understand them ; and that, 
moreover, in the excited state of popular 
feeling, a disturbance might arise. The 
Count traversed the scaffold several times 
with long strides, deploring that fortune had 
not permitted him to lose his life gloriously, 
on a field of battle, in defence of his King 
and country. Even then he could hardly 
realise the idea that this was his death hour. 
He turned towards Romero and asked if 
no mercy was to be hoped for. Romero 
shrugged his shoulders and looked down in 
silence ; whereupon the unfortunate man 
ground his teeth in momentary anger ; and 
then recovering his composure, submitted to 
his fate. 

He threw off his cloak and robe, knelt on 
the cushion in front of the block, and re- 
cited the Lord's Prayer with the Bishop 
of Ypern, who afterwards, at his' request, 
repeated it. Then he took of his hat and 
the collar of the Golden Fleece, drew a cap 
over his eyes, and with the exclamation, 
"Lord, into Thy hands I commit my spirit!" 
calmly awaited the stroke. The executioner 
then advanced and severed his head from 
his shoulders at one blow. A black cloth 
was at once thrown over the bleeding 
remains. 

It had been the Count's last petition that 
he should die before his friend, Horn, for 
whose fate he in some degree considered 
himself responsible. This request, it has 
been seen, was granted ; and thus but a few 
minutes had elapsed after the Count had 
ceased to breathe, before the Count Horn 
appeared advancing to the scaffold sur- 
rounded by Spanish guards. Like Egmont 
he was not bound. He walked with head 
erect, calmly saluting those of his friends . 
whom he recognised in the crowd. He was 



629 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



dressed in black, but did not, like Egmont, 
wear the insignia of the Golden Fleece. 
As he mounted the scaffold, he cast his 
eye on the motionless heap concealed by 
the black pall, and asked if that was 
the body of his friend ; on being answered 
in the affirmative, he said a few words 
in Spanish, whose purport was lost. He 
caught sight of his own coat of arms 
reversed, and expressed some displeasure 
at the indignity, which he declared he had 
not deserved. He addressed a few words to 
the spectators, and desired them to pray for 
his soul. Then he joined in prayer with the 
Bishop of Ypern, and, like his friend, pulled 
a black silk cap over his face, and com- 
mended his soul to^the hands of his Creator. 
As in Egmont's case, his head rolled on the 
scaffold at the first stroke. 

The bearing of the two men in their last 
moments had been full of mournful dignity. 
Even Alva, who witnessed the execution 
from a neighbouring window, and whose 
iron nature was so far touched that un- 
wonted tears ran down his cheeks, declared 
in a despatch to his master, King Philip, 
that the Counts Egmont and Horn died 
'"''fort modestement et cathoUquement" The 
people were deeply moved. The oppressive 
silence that prevailed until the tragedy was 
over was broken by a confused sound of. 
groans, sobs, and weeping. Not all the 
terror inspired by the Spanish soldiery could 
prevent the citizens from pressing forward 
with handkerchiefs to the scaffold where 
Egmont and his friend had fallen, "to dip 
their napkins in their sacred blood ;" nor is 
it an undue stretch of imagination to suppose 
them "mentioning" these relics "in their 
wills, bequeathing them, as a rich legacy, 
unto their issues." Apart from the cruelty 
and treachery of the whole proceeding, 
Philip could not have committed a greater 
political blunder than he perpetrated by 
putting to death in Egmont the man who 
more than all others could have been useful 
to him in pacifying Flanders ; and who, 
exceedingly fond of pomp and splendour, 
ambitious for the sort of honours and dis- 
tinctions kings can readily give, and a devout 
worshipper alike of royalty and of the Ca- 
tholic Church, was at the same time the man 
to whom the Flemings would most readily 
listen ; while with regard to Horn, who was 
still less of a great man than Egmont, he 
was the very reverse of a dangerous character, 
being in general " indifferent alike to t^e cry 
of "FzW les Gueux I" and of " Vive k roy/'-' 
and caring nothing for Cardinalists or Confe- 
derates ; for, indeed, while he cordially detested 
Granvella, he detested Brederode also. He 
was a morose man, brooding over the injuries 
and slights he considered himself to have 
received, and little disposed to enter actively 



into political life. "How wretched is that 
poor man who hangs on princes' favours," 
seems to have been the sum of his expe- 
rience ; and though it was in his house that 
the Gueux met on a celebrated occasion, he 
sedately went to bed, and left them to shout 
and make speeches as they chose. On 
various occasions he manifested kindliness 
of feeling and even generosity ; and there is 
something approaching the romantic in his 
attachment to Count Egmont, whom he 
sincerely admired, and whose fate he pro- 
fessed, and indeed showed himself willing to 
share ; but of the talents and qualities that 
mark men out as leaders in times of national 
danger and perplexity, and that render them 
formidable foes to the persons and systems 
they oppose, he had absolutely none. From 
few prominent men had Philip less danger 
to apprehend than from Philip Montmorency, 
Count Horn. 

But the infamous treachery and cruelty that 
characterised the arrest, trial, and execution 
of these men converted them, and especially 
Egmont, into popular heroes and martyrs ; 
and the hatred of Alva was intensified by it 
to a degree that at last proved fatal to him. 
" Like things of another world seem the cries^ 
lamentations, and just compassion which 
all the inhabitants of Brussels, noble or 
ignoble, feel for such barbarous tyranny," 
wrote Hoogstraten, " while this Nero of an 
Alva is boasting that he will do the same to 
all whom he lays his hands upon." 

The heads of the victims were duly fixed 
upon the poles in front of the scaffold, where 
they remained for a few hours ; they were then 
taken down. One account describes them 
as having been sent to Madrid, that Philip 
might be gratified with ocular assurance 
that his vengeance had been completed. 

How Duke Alva ruled in the Nether- 
lands. 

The chief instrument of Alva in the 
government of the country he came to tran- 
quihze, or rather to terrorise, was a council 
called by himself the Council of the Dis- 
turbances, and more appropriately by the 
outraged nation the Council of Blood. 
This tribunal, consisting of twelve members^ 
was presided over by the Duke himself, his 
chief lieutenant being a certain Vargas, a 
Spaniard of abandoned character, who had 
been expelled from his own country for an 
infamous crime perpetrated on a ward of his 
own, and anxious to ingratiate himself with 
his savage master by utter ruthlessness of 
conduct. With him were associated certain 
" Spanish vagabonds," as Schiller calls them, 
and some men of repute, Flemings, who, 
however, appeared seldom or never at the 
council board ; so that frequently sentences 
involving the lives and property of men of high 



630 



WHAT CAME OF THE BEGGARS' REVOLT. 



rank and unblemished character were signed 
by Vargas and the secretary alone. "As an 
administrator of the civil and judicial affairs 
of the country," says Motley, " Alva at once 
reduced its institutions to a frightful sim- 
plicity. In the place of the ancient laws of 
which the Netherlanders were so proud, he 
substituted the Blood Council. This tribunal 
was even more arbitrary than the Inquisition. 
Never was a simpler apparatus for tyranny 
devised than thisgreat labour-savingmachine; 
never was so great a quantity of murder and 
robbery achieved with such despatch and 
regularity. Sentences, executions, and con- 
fiscations were turned out daily with an 
appalling regularity." Those who were 
summoned before this tribunal, which was 
more dreaded than even the Inquisition 
itself, usually failed to appear; for conviction 
and execution were certain to follow. In- 
deed, it is told that one of the m.embers of 
the Council of Blood, a councillor named 
Hesselts, frequently falling asleep at the 
sittings of the court, on being awakened to 
give his vote for or against a sentence of 
death, used to call out, half in his sleep, '■' Ad 
patibuhnn I ad patibitlum P' so accustomed 
had he become to condemn accused persons 
to the stake. 

And in this tribunal of blood and destruc- 
tion, the Duke's instinct of despotism pre- 
vailed over all other considerations. In 
his gloomy, fanatical mind there was no 
natural wish to divide the sinister responsi- 
bility that attached to the daily judicial 
murders, the headings, hangings, quarter- 
ings, burnings, that had become the ordinary 
incidents of every day. The members of the 
tribunal had only counselling voices ; the 
Duke reserving to himself the determining of 
the sentences. Those who failed to appear 
were banished from the country, and all their 
property was confiscated to the government. 
Thus these summonses became a useful and 
unfailing supply for the royal treasury, forty 
or fifty persons being frequently summoned 
in one day ; and it was noticed that the 
greatest danger was incurred in this matter 
by the richest citizens. Every circumstance 
of terrorism was employed to increase and 
heighten the dread excited by these proceed- 
ings. The oldest and most respected citizens 
were treated like common malefactors, 
paraded through the streets with their hands 
bound behind their backs, or dragged to the 
tribunal at the tail of a trooper's horse. The ] 
Duke had immediately on his arrival ordered 
the building of a number of new prisons, and 
all these were quickly crowded with captives. 
In one day fifty-five men were executed at 
Valenciennes. 

It is difficult to imagine a more utterly 
miserable condition than that of the Nether- 
lands during the six years of Alva's ruthless 

63 



rule. No man's life, no man's property 
was safe for an instant. Against the sen- 
tences of the Council of Blood there was 
no kind of appeal. The wholesale con- 
fiscations of estates undermined all public 
credit and confidence ; the creditors of those 
who were thus rendered unable to pay their 
debts were frequently ruined ; and an attempt 
to enforce a claim against a forfeited estate 
was met by the Council of Blood with such a 
system of chicanery and delay that the un- 
fortunate appellant was generally beggared 
before his case was decided. " Of such a 
thorough reversal of the laws, of such violent 
attacks upon property, and such prodigal 
waste of human life," says the chronicler of 
the Revolt of the Netherlands, " the history 
of civilised states can give hardly more than 
one other example ; but Cinna, Sulla, and 
Marius entered the vanquished city of Rome 
as offended conquerors, and at least they 
practised without concealment what the 
Governor of the Netherlands carried on 
under the respectable veil of the law." It 
was at that time that the Regent, Margaret of 
Parma, horrified at the atrocities everywhere 
committed, and finding herself deserted by 
the sycophantic Court that now cringed and 
bowed around the all-powerful duke and his 
sons, urgently entreated to be relieved of her 
functions, which, indeed, had become but 
nominal. 

Her request was granted indeed, but not 
in the manner she would have wished. Some- 
what fond of pomp and splendour, she had 
hoped to take leave of the Netherlanders at a 
solemn ceremonial, like that observed on the 
day when her father, the Emperor Charles V., 
transferred his power to the hands of the son 
who afterwards made such evil use of it. 
But this was not in Alva's plan. He desired 
that all eyes should be fastened, in a fasci- 
nation of terror, on himself ; and theex- Regent 
was obliged to take leave of the Estates in a 
letter, in which she reviewed the chief points 
of her nine years' administration, and asserted 
that she left behind her a completed work, 
and that her successor had no task to per- 
form but the punishment of criminals. How 
competent he was to undertake that task, 
and to include the whole population of the 
country in the list of the criminals on whom 
vengeance was to be taken, the Duke had 
already sufficiently shown. It was at the 
end of 1567 that Margaret quitted Brussels. 

She had been at best but a vacillating and 
unsatisfactory ruler, giving grudgingly and of 
necessity, when she Ijad not the power to 
refuse, and misrepresenting to her cruel and 
despotic brother the people who were only 
too ready to believe loyally in her good 
intentions. She was learned in the Italian 
policy of the time, that rested upon 
chicanery and cunning, and therefore totally 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY 



incompetent to rule a people -with whom 
honesty was emphatically the best policy, 
and, indeed, the only one which could ensure 
permanent success and tranquillity. But 
her rule, unsatisfactory as it was, appeared 
bright and happy in contrast to the reign of 
terror inaugurated by Alva, and her occa- 
sional harshness appeared mercy itself when 
weighed against his undeviating and syste- 
matic cruelty; and thus it was that she quitted 
Brussels amid the regrets of the inhabitants, 
who felt only too keenly that a far worse 
thing had come upon them than could have 
befallen them under the rule of Margaret of 
Parma. 

A pension, and a large sum in hand as a 
present, were awarded to her ; but the pension 
appears to have been very irregularly paid, if 
at times it was not altogether withheld ; to 
the serious embarrassment of the ex-Regent, 
whose efforts had certainly deserved a better 
recognition. 

Her departure left Alva entirely free to 
pursue his own course ; and by his own letters 
to the King at Madrid, that course was 
sufficiently explained. It was simply to look 
upon the provinces in general as one great 
and collective criminal, to be punished to the 
utmost in life and goods — to make a solitude 
and call it peace. 

In a contemporary document the system is 
summed up in vigorous language of denunci- 
ation, as consisting of " plundering, robbing 
and harrying, drivhig away and devastating, 
terrorising and tormenting, banishing, exiling, 
and confiscation, even in burning and hang- 
ing, heading, gashing, breaking on the wheel, 
torturing with horrible and ghastly pains, 
punishing and murdering the subjects, the 
noble as well as the lowborn, the poor and 
the rich alike, young and old, widows and 
orphans, men, women, and maidens." Such 
was Alva's rule in the Netherlands. Such 
were the deeds committed with the full 
approbation of his monarch by one who 
impiously declared himself the champion of 
a religion whose fundamental doctrine is 
charity, and of a Master whose service is 
perfect freedom. 

How William of Orange fought for 
Civil and Religious Liberty. 
While the Netherlands thus lay under the 
horrors of a ruthless tyranny, and a dumb 
terror seemed to have seized on every class 
of the inhabitants, an eagle eye beyond the 
frontier was watching the course of events, 
and a bold hand was already stretched out 
to bfing succour to the oppressed in their 
utmost need. Wilham the Silent, Prince of 
Orange Nassau, who had estimated the 
character of Alva and of Alva's master with 
a prescience and sagacity very opposite to 
the careless trustfulness which had cost 



Egmont and Horn their lives, had already 
been at work for years in the endeavour to 
unite all lovers of justness and liberty in an 
organised opposition against a brutal and 
stupid despotism. He saw the fatal con- 
sequences of disunion in the reaction which 
even then was undermining the freedom of 
various states in Europe. Already at his 
departure from the Netherlands in 1567 he 
had urgently advised the Reformers to stand 
together, and to sink religious differences in 
the common effort to secure recognition and 
protection for Protestants. During the next 
years he had diligently investigated for 
himself the great truths of the Christian 
faith, with the result that, more and more 
convinced of the truth of the Protestant creed, 
he had quitted the communion of the Church 
of Rome, and enrolled himself among the 
ranks of the Reformers, with whom from 
that day forward he cast in his lot. But 
there was about his Protestantism none of 
the narrowness which became a source of so 
much misfortune and evil to the Reformed 
Church, splitting it up into factions, while its 
enemies stood in compact array against it. 
Protestant principles were recognised by him 
as containing " the root of the m^atter," and 
to the Protestant faith he accordingly con- 
formed ; but he deprecated anything like 
persecution of the Roman Catholics. "Should 
we obtain power over any city or cities," he 
wrote, " let the communities of Papists be as 
much respected and protected as possible. 
Let them be overcome, not by violence, but 
with gentle-mindedness and virtuous treat- 
ment." He fully recognised the mistake 
Luther had made when in his obstinate 
mood he had refused the proffered friendship 
and co-operation of Zwingli, declaring that 
the Zurich reformer and his followers were 
animated by a different spirit from his own. 
William of Orange even believed in the 
possibiUty of joining Lutherans and Calvin- 
ists together, to make efforts in common 
for the great cause ; though the general 
opinion was that these two branches of the 
Protestant Church could no more mingle than 
oil and water. He stood up consistently and 
boldly for freedom of conscience. "In an 
age when toleration was a vice, he had the 
manhood to cultivate it as a virtue." This 
alone would have been enough to stamp him 
as a remarkable man. 

After quitting Flanders, he had zealously 
set himself to the task of raising forces in 
Germany ; devoting his own funds to thi? 
object, and caUing upon the Protestant 
princes of that empire, the Count Palatine, 
the Duke of Wurtemberg, the Elector of 
Saxony, the Landgrave of Hesse, — all, in fact, 
whose names were identified through their 
predecessors with the great struggle made 
against Charles V. and his attempted 



632 



WHAT CAME OF THE BEGGARS' REVOLT. 



religious and political despotism, to join in 
the great task of resisting this new and 
crushing tyranny which threatened to enslave 
one portion of Europe after another. "The 
danger is common," he emphatically declared, 
" and so should the cause be. The Spanish 
forces, once in Flanders, will be always ready 
to enter Germany ; and you will have new 
taxes, new 
customs, se- 
vere laws 
more severe- 
ly executed, 
heavy yokes 
upon your 
persons, and 
more heavy 
upon your 
consciences. 
I am held," 
said he, "to 
be the con- 
triver of con- 
spiracies; but 
what greater 
glo ry can 
there be than 
to maintain 
the liberty of 
a man's coun- 
try, and to 
die rather 
than to be 
enslaved ?" 
and gradu- 
ally he recog- 
nised more 
and more 
the fact that 
" he is a free 
man whom 
the truth sets 
free," and 
that to fight 
for political 
liberty was 
vain, unless 
the boon of 
religious free- 
dom were 
obtainedlike- 
wise. 

It was a 
tremendous, 
and appear- 
ed at first an 

utterly hopeless, struggle. It aged the 
gallant champion before his time. The effi- 
gies of William the Silent, and the accounts 
given of him by those who described him 
from personal intercourse, alike show him as 
a man made prematurely old by care, anxiety, 
and effort, — an old man at little more than 
forty years of age ; but he had the indomi- 




The Murder of William the Silent. 



table energy and perseverance that at a la'^r 
period distinguished his illustrious descen- 
dant, William III. of England, and pushed 
steadily on, through failure, disaster, and dis- 
couragement, to ultimate success. 

At the time when his prospects of success 
seemed most hopeless, he came forward with 
a remaikable document called an Apology, or 

Justification 
against his 
calumnia- 
t o r s. He 
disavowed 
any inten- 
tion of sub- 
jecting the 
rule of Philip 
of Spain, but 
subsequently 
denounced 
the tyranny 
of Alva, re- 
fusing to be- 
li e ve that 
the atrocities 
of the vice- 
roy could 
have the 
sanction or 
approbation 
of the go- 
vernment at 
Madrid. He 
solemnly 
called upon 
the Nether- 
landers to 
unite in re- 
sistance to 
this dark 
tyranny, 
wa r n i n g 
them that 
their lives 
and liber- 
ties, and the 
lives and 
liberties of 
their child- 
ren, were 
upon the 
issue. He 
made every 
possible ex- 
ertion, by 
thesaleof his 
plate, tapestries, and valuables of all kinds, 
to raise the necessary funds for paying troops; 
and gave his brother, Louis of Nassau, a 
skilful and enterprising general, a commis- 
sion to enlist a second army, and to fight in 
the cause of the emancipation of the Nether- 
lands. 

It seemed as if everything were in vain. 



633 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Alva, though no politician, was a most talented 
general, and well versed in all the stratagems 
and points of war, an adept in the mili- 
tary art as it was understood in those days ; 
and both the Prince of Orange and his 
brother met with discomfiture and defeat. 
The Flemings themselves remained singu- 
larly inactive, and seemed content to endure 
the tyranny of Alva, without striking a blow 
on their own behalf ; and after a struggle, in 
which the Prince and his brother exhausted 
every art in the endeavour to maintain them- 
selves against overwhelming odds, the one 
was obliged to disband his army he could 
no longer find means to pay, and the other 
to seek safety in flight. 

How Alva taxed the FLE]\nNGS, and 
HOW Taxation brought Revolt. 

The pride and insolence of Alva were 
raised to the highest pitch by his triumphs 
over his enemies ; and, indeed, his consum- 
mate strategy and military skill in the field 
are worthy of admiration. Four armies had 
been defeated within a short period, and it 
seemed as though the victory of despotism 
could not be more complete and conclusive. 
The Governor returned to Brussels in triumph, 
and compelled the city whose houses he had 
made desolate to put on the garb of rejoicing. 
Hethat wasted them required of them a song ; 
and joy-bells pealed from the steeples of the 
capital in honour of the tyrant whom every 
man looked on with secret aversion and 
horror. As a lasting record of his triumphs, 
Alva caused a colossal statue of himself to 
be erected, as Dupleix afterwards had a 
pillar with a vaunting inscription raised to 
commemorate his triumphs in the Carnatic. 
On the pedestal of Alva's statue appeared 
the words : " To Ferdinand Alvaro de Toledo, 
Duke of Alva, Governor of the Netherlands 
under Philip the Second, for having extin- 
guished sedition, chastised rebelhon, restored 
religion, secured justice, established peace : 
to the King's most faithful minister this 
monument is erected." Motley relates how De 
Thou, who saw this statue after it was over- 
thrown, described himself as equally struck 
by the beauty of the work and by the insane 
pride of him who ordered it to be made. 
The fact of the erection of this statue is 
important as showing the state of mind of 
Alva ; and the circumstance had at a later time 
an important bearing upon the fortunes of 
the Duke. For Philip,jealous and mistrustful 
at all times, did not view with complacency 
this self-glorification of his lieutenant ; and 
the statue, with its inscription, was an impor- 
tant factor among the reasons which brought 
about the recall of Alva at a later time. 

Alva now entered upon a course that, if per- 
sisted in, would not fail to bring speedy ruin 
on the provinces he was misgoverning. He 



interfered, and that ihost clumsily and igno- 
rantly, with the system of taxation. It had 
been for centuries the privilege of the Nether- 
landers that they had the control of the 
levying of imposts throughout their country, 
and this privilege had been expressly 
confirmed to them by Xh.^''^ Joyeicsc entree^^'' 
and by the various enactments at different 
times. The king could not by his own power 
raise any tax in the Low Countries. When 
money was wanted, the course of proceed- 
ing was, that he should, in person or by 
his representatives, present a request to the 
Estates, stating the sum he required, and that 
it should lie with the Estates to grant or 
refuse the request, or to defer the supply to 
a future time. On the 20th of March, 1569, 
Alva, having summoned a General Assembly 
of the provincial Estates in Brussels, made 
three arbitrary demands : — Firstly, a tax of 
the hundredth penny, or one per cent., to be 
paid immediately upon all movable or im- 
movable property, that is upon real estate and 
personality. Secondly, a tax of the twentieth 
penny, or five per cent., on all immovable 
goods or heritage each time such estate was 
sold or transferred. Thirdly, a tax of ten 
per cent, on all merchandise, goods, and 
movable property, to be paid each time such 
property was sold. 

The first of these three taxes was to be 
levied only once, though there wds not the 
slightest guarantee that it would not be re- 
demanded ; the second and third were to be 
perpetual. 

The imperious Duke could not have made 
a greater administrative and financial blunder 
— could not have shown himself more utterly 
ignorant of the first principles of political 
economy. In a commercial and manufac- 
turing community, where rapidity and fre- 
quency of sale were the very conditions of 
prosperity and success, such a tax as ten per 
cent., repeated at every sale, would soon 
amount to an utterly prohibitive impost, and, 
if enforced, would at once stop production 
and commerce. Moreover, it weighed upon 
every individual in the community, threaten- 
ing all alike. Catholics and Protestants, rich 
merchants and small traders, with an equal 
ruin ; and thus was exactly calculated to pro- 
duce something like union in resistance. 

The strongest remonstrances were ad- 
dressed to the Duke, to whom it was repre- 
sented in vain that " if this ten per cent, was 
paid on every sale of an article, — first, on the 
wool, for instance, then on the yarn, then on 
the cloth before it was dyed ; then when sold 
first to the merchant, secondly to the retailer, 
and lastly to the consumer,— no foreigner 
would be willing, and no home customer would 
be able to buy it ; and that, on the whole, 
such a tax could only produce the ruin of the 
manufacture itself and all concerned, or, in 



634 



WHAT CAME OF THE BEGGARS' REVOLT 



other words, of all the sources of revenue 
together." On this occasion the members 
of the Council were in entire opposition to 
the Duke. Even Viglius, generally the most 
time-serving and pliable of men, entered his 
strong protest against Alva's proceedings, 
and endeavoured to persuade the viceroy 
that such a measure as this must inevitably 
defeat itself, and that the King would probably 
disapprove of it. The Governor replied that 
it was only a reproduction of the Spanish tax 
called alcabala, which had been levied with 
success in Spain, and in his own town of 
Alva had produced fifty thousand crowns. 
Vighus in vain argued that a sparsely popu- 
lated, agricultural country like Spain was 
very different from Flanders. The Duke was 
inexorable, and declared himself determined 
to carry out his decrees to the letter. 

Then first did the position begin to be un- 
tenable for him. His name was pronounced 
with such execrations throughout the pro- 
vinces that.he himself began to wish himself 
away from a country whose air seemed laden 
with curses. In Holland especially, where 
the community was more commercial than 
in the southern provinces, the indignation 
swelled at last into overt resistance, the town 
of Utrecht flatly refusing to pay the impost. 
And even in Brussels a practical protest was 
made, people shutting up their shops and 
declining trade altogether, rather than carry 
it on under conditions involving certain ruin. 
The emigration also recommienced with re- 
doubled force ; towns sank into the condition 
of villages, and villages were deserted. A 
deputation also set off for Spain, personally 
to lay this grave matter before the King, who, 
it might be hoped, would give his subjects 
some relief in this case, as it was not one 
connected with heresy or the supremacy of 
the Church of Rome. 

How THE GUEUX CAME INTO THE FlELD 
ONCE MORE. 

For a time the question as to the obnoxious 
tax was provisionally adjusted ; but Alva was 
bent on making the impost perpetual, and the 
strife broke out with more acrimony than 
ever. Philip had by this time also begun to 
contemplate the judiciousness of recalling the 
governor, whose measures had not succeeded, 
as it seemed, in entirely crushing out the 
spirit of disaffection in the provinces. Alva, 
on his part, made ardent application to be 
recalled, assuring His JVIajesty in his letters 
of the safe and prosperous condition of 
affairs, and declaring that his successor would 
have nothing to do out to maintain affairs in 
the pacified state which he boasted of having 
brought about "without violence." Towards 
the end of 157 1, Philip, after much hesitation, 
determined to give Alva a successor in the 
Netherlands, and a commission as governor- 



general was made out in the name of the 
Duke of Medina Coeli. 

Early in 1572, Don Francis de Alava, the 
Spanish ambassador to the Court of France, 
paid a visit to Brussels, and had an oppor- 
tunity, during his progress through Flanders, 
of seeing with his own eyes the disastrous 
state of affairs ; and Noircarmes, once a hot 
partisan of Alva, bluntly declared to him that 
"the Duke would never disabuse his mind of 
the filthy penny," and that, in addition to all 
the merchants and artisans who had already 
fled the country, there were ten thousand 
more who vrould go if the Governor persisted 
in his demand, and that a disaster might 
arise beyond human power to remedy. The 
other chief men in the city held the same 
language ; and Alava, thoroughly alarmed, 
reported to Philip, on his return to Spain, 
how dangerous a crisis might be expected at 
any moment in the Netherlands, and how, 
with regard to Alva, the whole nation was 
uniting in one cry, " Let him begone ! Let 
him begone ! " Even Philip could not hear 
such a report, from such a quarter, without 
serious disquietude. 

Meanwhile the Prince of Orange, undis- 
mayed by frequent failures and defeats, was 
hard at work to find the means of resuming 
the struggle. He understood the extent of 
the hatred borne to Alva, and how the pros- 
pect of commercial ruin had stimulated many 
to the thought of resistance who could have 
been influenced by no other means. " Had 
we money now," he wrote, " we should, with 
the help of God, hope to effect something. 
This is a time when, even with small sums, 
more can be achieved than at other seasons 
with ampler funds." In fact, a new organiza- 
tion was being brought together. A number 
of the merchants, and of those employed by 
them in sea-faring pursuits, were uniting for 
active contest against the power that had 
ruined them, by taking " the means whereby 
they hved." They called themselves Water 
Gueux, or Beggars of the Sea, and became 
formidable by attacking coast towns and 
capturing Spanish ships. These "sturdy 
beggars " levied contributions at the sword's 
point. Their warfare was of the most 
irregular kind, and, indeed, in many in- 
stances, bore a curiously close resemblance 
to piracy. But they contrived to make them- 
selves as much dreaded as the Normans of 
old by their unfailing energy and prowess ; 
and they exerted a vast influence on the issue 
of the great struggle. Their one dominant 
idea was hatred to Alva and determination 
to overthrow his power. 

How THE Tide began to turn, and 
HOW Brill was taken and held. 
The more it appeared that the scheme of 
the "tenth penny" was impracticable the 



635 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



more determined was Alva to enforce it. At 
length the citizens of Brussels adopted the 
violent remedy of avoiding carrying on trade 
at a loss by ceasing to trade at all. They 
shut up their warehouses ; and even the 
dealers in the necessaries of life, the butchers 
and the bakers, closed their shops. The 
despotic Governor had no idea of being 
foiled in this way, and prepared to teach the 
burghers of Brussels a lesson in his own 
•characteristic fashion. He sent for Master 
Carl, the executioner of Brussels ; and that 
functionary was ordered at once to prepare 
eighteen ropes, and the same number of 
ladders, twelve feet long. The spectacle of 
a dozen and a half refractory butchers, 
bakers, and grocers suspended at their own 
doorposts would, the Governor thought, teach 
a salutary lesson to recalcitrant traders in 
general, and bring them to a better frame of 
mind with respect to taxation. Viglius was 
aroused from his bed at midnight to prepare 
the warrants for the executions (the men 
were to have no form of trial), and Mastei 
Carl was busily making his preparations for 
what was to happen at the next morning's 
dawn, when startling intelligence arrived, 
that caused the Duke to pause, and saved 
the lives of the doomed citizens. 

A fleet of ships, manned by the Beggars of 
the Sea, had been lying in the Channel near 
the south coast of England. Elizabeth, who 
was anxious at that juncture to avoid a war 
with Spain, had hstened to the remonstrances 
of Alva's commissioners, who protested 
against the victualling of the ships of 
enemies from England ; and accordingly 
provisions were refused, and the ships were 
compelled to sail away. The little fleet was 
commanded by a certain William de la 
Mark, who seems to have had much in 
common with the ancestor described by 
Scott in " Quentin Durward" as the Wild 
Boar of the Ardennes, — a black-bearded, 
fierce rover of the sea, with more than a 
suspicion of the pirate about him, and 
seconded by captains, most of whom had 
personal injuries inflicted by Alva to avenge. 

Compelled to sail away from Dover, 
De la Mark and his ships crossed the 
North Sea, entered the Meuse, and sud- 
denly appeared opposite the town of Brill, 
which they had once summoned to surrender, 
declaring they would hold the place for 
William of Orange, as the lawful stadtholder 
for Philip, King of Spain. The burgomaster 
and officials of the town were taken by sur- 
prise, and in their bewilderment knew not 
what to do. Many saved themselves by 
flight, carrying off so much of their goods 
as they could remove. But a feeble resist- 
ance was made. William de la Mark's 
followers lighted a bonfire at one of the 
city gates, and battered in the charred por- 



tals with the stump of an old mast. They 
were quickly lords of the town. They 
spared the inhabitants, offering them no 
violence or indignity. But the churches 
were plundered, the vestments, chalices, and 
valuables of all kinds being carried off to 
the ships. Thirteen priests were also taken 
prisoners, and soon afterwards cruelly put 
to death. A footing had at last been estab- 
lished on Flemish ground for the revolution, 
which design had been so long cherished ; 
and it has rightly been said that with the 
capture of Brill the foundation was laid for 
the Dutch Republic. 

Such was the news that startled Alva, and 
caused him to postpone for the time the exe- 
cution of the burghers of Brussels. He tried 
to make light of it, and dismiss it with the 
remark, '' It is nothing;" but even his dull 
apprehension could not fail to see and note 
the impulse this first success gave to further 
resistance. The capture of Brill had occurred 
on All Fools' Day, the ist of April, a cir- 
cumstance which satire and sarcasm did not 
fail to note. The name of the town Brill 
happens also to be the Flemish and German 
term for spectacles. Accordingly a punning 
rhyme was repeated throughout Brussels, 
setting forth how " Den ersten dag van 
April., Verloos Due cCAlva signen BriW' — 
On the ist day of April Duke Alva lost his 
Brill (spectacles). Though he affected to 
make light of the loss, Alva at once gave 
orders to one of his lieutenants, Count Bossu, 
to recover the place. But De la Mark and 
his courageous and skilful second. Com- 
mander Treslong, succeeded in holding the 
place. And the spark once kindled quickly 
spread from town to town along the coast 
of Holland, until that which had at first ap- 
peared a foolhardy and desperate venture 
gradually shaped itself into a great enterprise, 
fraught with hopes and probabilities of good 
and enduring success. 

How Alva's Rule in Flanders came 

TO AN END. 

The year 1572 was a memorable one in the 
annals of the Netherlands. It was a time of 
great and rapid gains to the movement which 
had commenced at Brill. Flushing presently 
declared for the Prince of Orange, and 
then Enkhuizen, the great arsenal city of 
the Zuyder Zee, followed the example ; 
and presently a number of cities, includ- 
ing Alkmaar, Dort, Oudewater, Haarlem, 
Gorcum, Leyden, Gouda, Horn, etc., ac- 
knowledged the authority of William the 
Silent as their stadtholder. The movement 
spread from the provinces of Holland and 
Zeeland throughout Gelderland, Overyssel, 
and the See of Utrecht.. In some parts the 
revolution was quietly and peacefully ef- 
fected ; in others, as in the island of 



636 



WHAT CAME OF THE BEGGARS' REVOLT. 



Walcheren, where one half declared for the 
Prince of Orange while the other held out for 
Alva, there was a fierce struggle, character- 
ised by the horrors of civil war. The hatred 
towards the Spaniards showed itself in acts 
of savage cruelty. The republic of North 
Holland was formed, and placed by the 
Prince of Orange under the lieutenant- 
governorship of Diedrich Sonoy. As yet, 
however, all that was done was done in the 
name of the King's authority. Alva was 
the man against whose ruthless rule the 
rising professed to be directed. 

To do the Duke justice, he was never 
wanting in courage, energy, or skill, when 
enemies were to be encountered in the field ; 
but he was bitterly conscious of the detes- 
tation he had excited in the provinces, and 
felt that his name was a signal for still more 
desperate resistance. " The hatred Avhich the 
people bear me, because of the chastisement 
which it has been necessary for me to inflict, 
although with all the moderation in the 
world, makes all my efforts vain. A suc- 
cessor will meet with more sympathy, and 
prove more successful." Now at last he v/as 
obliged to humble his pride so far as de- 
finitely to give up his cherished scheme of 
the "Tenth penny," in return for a supply of 
money for the war, of which he stood urgently 
in need. 

Like many concessions made by tyrants, 
this came too late. The Estates, when they 
met at Dort, repudiated the authority of 
Alva, and while they still professed to look 
on the Spanish Crown as their suzerain, 
determined that William the Silent should 
be their ruler. It was at the summons of 
the Prince of Orange, who assembled them 
by right of the stadtholdership conferred 
upon him in 1559, that the Estates met at 
Dort on the 15th of July, 1572. "The 
Prince represented the royal authority, the 
nobles represented both themselves and the 
people of the open country, while the twelve 
towns represented the whole body of burghers. 
Together they were supposed to embody all 
authority, both divine and human, which a 
congress could exercise. 

The fairest hopes of a speedy and com- 
plete success now brightened the path of the 
Prince of Orange. France was supposed to 
be favourably disposed towards the cause of 
freedom in the Netherlands ; and Admiral 
Coligny, the chief of the Protestant party in 
that kingdom, had even written to William, 
assuring the stadtholder of the good inten- 
tions of his master, Charles IX., towards 
him, and announcing a hope of soon joining 
him with a large body of French arque- 
busiers and cavalry, when the terrible mas- 
sacre of St. Bartholomew dashed all these 
fair prospects to the ground, striking the 
Prince, as he expressed it, "as with the 



blow of a sledge-hammer." More than 5,000 
Huguenots massacred in Paris alone, and 
a slaughter throughout the kingdom, com- 
puted according to the lowest calculation at 
25,000, according to the highest estimate at 
100,000, struck all Protestant Europe with 
horror, while it rendered Philip and the 
Vatican jubilant with triumph. For a time 
the plans of the Prince of Orange in the 
south were frustrated. Mons, the capital of 
Hainault, fell into the hands of Alva, who, 
after deceiving the citizens by promises of 
fair treatment, adopted his usual measures 
of heading, hanging, burning, and confis- 
cation, so soon as the place, trusting to his 
word, had capitulated on the distinct under- 
standing that all the soldiers, as well as such 
of the inhabitants as had borne arms, should 
be allowed to leave the city with all their 
property, while the rest of the people might 
remain without molestation to their persons 
or estates. Noircarmes, the captain of 
Alva, distinguished himself on this occasion 
alike by his ferocity and cupidity, selecting 
the richest citizens as his victims, often 
putting twenty to death on the same day, 
and enriching himself by the plunder of 
their estates and goods. The archiepiscopal 
city of Mechlin was the next victim, being 
delivered over to the rapacity of the Spanish 
soldiers, who had become mutinous through 
the withholding of their pay, and were thus 
allowed to indemnify themselves. Not only 
the houses of the citizens, but the churches 
themselves were plundered by these profes- 
sors of the Roman Cathohc faith with a fury 
equal to anything the iconoclasts had ever 
shown in their most extravagant fanaticism ; 
while the scene of plunder was now sup- 
plemented by a massacre which spared 
neither man, woman, nor child in the un- 
happy city, its horrors being recorded by 
the testimony of the most credible witnesses 
among the Catholic party itself Thus 
Richardot, the nephew of the Bishop of 
Arras, after describing the horrors he had 
witnessed, declared "he could say more if 
his hair did not stand on end, not only at 
recounting, but even at remembering, the 
scene." The Duke congratulated Philip upon 
a pious and signal success. 

The horrors were even exceeded by the 
enormities practised at the sack of Zutphen 
and the taking of Haarlem. For a time the 
ascendency of Alva and Philip seemed in 
a fair way to be restored ; but the courage 
of the Protestants mounted with the occa- 
sion. Each new enormity only strengthened 
the determination never to submit to a go- 
vernment whose tender mercies were thus 
cruel, and deeds of heroic valour marked 
every stage of the strife. " Never was a 
place defended with such skill and bravery 
as Haarlem," Alva wrote to Philip, "either 



637 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



by rebels or by men fighting for their lawful 
prince." 

At last, on the 17th of November, 1573, 
Don Louis de Requescens, whom Philip had 
appointed to relieve Alva of his governorship, 
arrived in Brussels; to the great joy of the 
inhabitants, who entertained good hopes 
from this change of rulers, and felt that they 
could not possibly be in worse hands than 
those of the ruthless satrap who for six years 



was among the offences Philip never par- 
doned. During the rest of his life he was 
looked upon with much decreased confidence 
and favour. The King, indeed, employed 
him occasionally in State affairs, but rather 
as a tool than an adviser ; and Alva died 
at length, after lingering for a time in a 
state of pitiable physical weakness, leaving 
a name as typical as that of Nero of cruelty 
and wrons:. 




Fighting in the Streets of Antwerp. 



had turned their fair city into a shambles. 
On the 1 8th of December Alva departed, 
pursued by the curses of the whole country. 
He boasted that during his rule he had put 
more than eighteen thousand persons to death 
by the axe and the brand, in honour of the 
holy Church, and for the maintenance of his 
master's authority. He had not even the 
consolation of having completely satisfied 
his cruel master ; for he had failed in the 
task of subjugating the provinces ; and failure 



How Alva's Successors ruled for 
Philip in the Netherlands. 

Requescens, the "Grand Commander," was 
virtually compelled by the circumstances 
under which he assumed the government of 
the Netherlands in some measure to reverse 
the poUcy of his predecessor, and to rule with 
at least an appearance of conciliation and 
benevolence. But it was not in the inten- 
tion of his master to grant the concessions 



638 



WHAT CAME OF THE BEGGARS' REVOLT. 



without which permanent peace in the 
Netherlands was impossible, namely, freedom 
of conscience and self-government in the 
matter of taxation. He was moreover ham- 
pered by his inability to control the brutal 
violence, rapacity, and cruelty of the troops, 
which during his time broke out in that 
"Spanish fury" whose enormities and crimes 
have further stained a page of history 
already sufficiently dark. The limited am- 
nesty with which he sought to conciliate 
the provinces failed to induce submission ; 
nor had the well-meant and repeated efforts 
of the Germ.an Emperor, Maximilian IL, 
who repeatedly interfered with the hope of 
bringing about peace by his mediation, a 
better result. Prince William the Silent 
continued his attacks, and 'though success 
appeared almost as far off as ever, the heroic 
upholders of the Protestant cause, and the 
defenders of civil and religious liberty, every 
year they were able to maintain them- 
selves, they strengthened their position, and 
increased the sympathy aroused in Europe 
for their cause. 

At the battle of Mookerheyde, or Mook 
Heath, near Nimeguen, March 14th, 1574, 
Requescens gained a great victory over 
his enemies ; and here the heroic career of 
Louis of Nassau, the brother of William tlie 
Silent, closed in death. When all was lost, 
Louis, with his younger brother. Count 
Henry of Orange, and a trusted friend, 
collected some troopers and made a last gal- 
lant charge upon the foe. They were never 
seen or heard of more, and it is supposed, 
therefore, that, slain with their comrades, 
and trampled out of all recognition by the 
hoofs of the horses, their plundered corpses 
were buried, unknown, among the thousands 
who fell on that disastrous day. Among 
all the warlike figures that stood forward in 
those years of strife and bloodshed, none 
shines with so pure a lustre of single-minded- 
ness and fidelity as Louis of Nassau. 

But a different result attended the siege 
of Leyden ; the heroic resistance of the citizens 
was proof against all the efforts and all the 
taunts of their enemies, who, having closely 
invested the city, would cry to the half-starved 
defenders : "Go up to the tower, ye Beggars, 
go up to the tower, and tell us if ye can see 
the ocean coming over the dry land to your 
relief ! " But the words spoken in scorn were 
destined to become truth. The dykes were 
cut, and the ocean poured over the flat land 
around Leyden, bearing on its bosom the 
ships of the fierce Beggars of the Sea. The 
Spaniards fled in terror, as the very elements 
seemed to fight against them ; and Leyden, 
after undergoing frightful hardships from 
famine and pestilence, was saved to the 
cause of liberty. Great numbers of the foe 
perished in the waters that came rolling in. 



Requescens died almost suddenly of a fever, 
brought on by mortification at the failure of 
his plans. 

His successor was Don Juan of Austria, a 
natural son of Charles V. ; but an interval 
elapsed before his arrival, during which time 
the military and civil affairs of the provinces 
were conducted by a Council of State. But 
the authority of this council was totally inade- 
quate to control the insubordination of the 
Spanish troops, who had become savagely 
angry by the withholdhig of their pay, and 
wreaked vengeance on the foe by indiscri- 
minate slaughter and rapine. This was es- 
pecially seen in the sack of the cities of 
Maestricht and Antwerp. With regard to the 
former place a contemporary historian says : 
" The burghers who had escaped the fight had 
reason to think themselves less fortunate than 
those who died with arms in their hands, for 
the indiscriminate slaughter was accompanied 
with horrible details of torture and cruelty." 
At Antwerp the Spanish soldiers rushed 
through the streets with the hid'ious cry : "A 
sans;re, a came, a fiieso, a sacco .'" (^lood, 
flesh, fire, sack ! ") ivlotley, in d(?scribing the 
scene, says : "Of all the deeds of darkness 
yet compassed in the Netherlands, this was 
the worst. It was called the Spanish Fury, 
by which dread name it has been known for 
ages. The city, which had been a world of 
wealth and splendour, was changed to a 
charnel-house, and from that hour its com- 
mercial prosperity was blasted. . . . Three 
thousand dead bodies were discovered in the 
streets; as many more were estimated to have 
perished in the Scheld ; and nearly an equal 
number were burned or destroyed in other 
ways. Eight 'thousand persons undoubtedly 
were put to death. Six millions of property 
were destroyed by the fire, and at least as 
much more was obtained by the Spaniards. 
... In this Spanish Fury many more were 
massacred in Antwerp than in the Saint 
Bartholomew at Paris." The effect of this 
horrible crime in rousing the confederate pro- 
vinces to still more vigorous and determined 
resistance was like that exercised at a later 
period in Germany by the sack of Magde- 
burg under Tilly. 

How THE Prince of Orange triumphed, 

RULED, AND WAS MURDERED. 

William the Stadtholder now succeeded 
in inducing his adherents to join in the 
Treaty or Pacification of Ghent, in which the 
various districts bound themselves to unite 
in a league, offensive and defensive, for the 
expulsion of the Spanish armies. Don Juan, 
on his arrival, also attempted concihation ; 
but th^ article respecting religious toleration, 
and a threatening bull of the Pope, made 
Holland and Zeeland suspicious of the 
sincerity of the new governor ; and accord- 



639 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



ingly they continued the struggle. The other 
States soon became impressed with the same 
conviction that they were being deceived ; 
for they saw now all offices were engrossed 
by Spaniards, and there were ominous signs 
of fresh religious persecutions. The States of 
Brabant accordingly refused obedience to 
Don Juan, and transferred their allegiance 
to William of Orange, in conjunction with 
whom, as he was somewhat distasteful to 
them as a Calvinist, they associated the 
Archduke Matthias of Austria. Hainault, 
and Artois, the Walloon provinces, on the 
other hand, made an alliance with the French 
Duke Charles of Anjou. In 1578, death 
carried off Don Juan. He died, hke his pre- 
decessor, deeply chagrined at the failure of 
his plans. 

A man of far greater talent and of stronger 
mind now became governor of the distracted 
provinces in the person of Alexander Farnese 
of Parma, the son of the former Regent 
Margaret. " Cool, incisive, fearless, artful, 
he united the unscrupulous audacity of a 
condottiere with the wily patience of a Jesuit. 
He could coil unperceived through unsus- 
pected paths, could strike suddenly, sting 
mortally. He came prepared not only to 
smite the Netherlanders in the open field, but 
to cope with them in tortuous policy; to out- 
watch and outweary them in the game to 
which his impatient predecessor had fallen a 
baffled victim." A partial triumph was won 
by Alexander Farnese, for he succeeded in 
preserving the tottering empire of his master 
in the southern provinces. With consummate 
cunning he managed to awaken the jealousy 
of the nobles of Brabant against the Prince 
of Orange, and to set the Romanist south 
against the Protestant north, using difference 
of religion as his lever. WiUiam the Silent 
found it his best policy to unite the northern 
provinces, Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, etc., 
into the Union of Utrecht ; and this after- 
wards widened into the States-General of the 
United Provinces, or the Dutch Republic. 

In the south, things were still unsettled. 
Matthias of Austria had exerted little in- 
fluence on the affairs of South Brabant, and 
left the country. The Duke of Anjou was 
found to be intriguing to gain the chief power 
for himself, with French assistance ; accord- 
ingly all confidence was withdrawn from him, 
and he retired to France. Thus the Estates 
of the southern Netherlands had no head to 
whom they could look up with the trust that 
in the sixteenth century could hardly exist 
where there was diversity of creed ; and 
Farnese took advantage of theirbewilderment, 
and regained many cities. 

The King of Spain looked upon William 
the Silent as the great obstacle to the com- 



plete re-establishment of his power, and 
resolved to put him out of the way by assas- 
sination. This method had already been 
tried at various times, and once, indeed, the 
Prince had barely escaped with his life. 
This time it was destined to be successful. 
A wretched fanatic, Balthasar Gerard, one of 
those strong instances of frenzied intellect, in 
which notions of right and wrong seem utterly 
confused, impelled by the idea that he who 
slew William the Silent, the arch-heretic, 
would do a service to religion and the Church, 
journeyed to Delft, where the Prince was then 
residing, with the intention of earning the 
great reward offered for the Prince's death 
or the martyr's crown by murdering him. 
It appears he had meditated his design for 
six years. At Delft he assumed the cha- 
racter of a zealous Calvinist whose father had 
given his life for the cause, and thus dis- 
armed suspicion, which his insignificant and 
meagre form and undistinguished appear- 
ance was moreover little calculated to excite. 
He zealously attended divine service, and 
thus his person became familiar to the guards. 
At length he purchased two pistols of a 
soldier; and, under pretence of an application 
for a passport, waylaid the Prince as the 
latter was coming down the staircase from 
his dining-hall, and discharged three bullets 
into his body. With an exclamation, " Lord 
have mercy upon me ! Lord have mercy 
upon this community ! " the stadtholder sank 
to the ground, and a few moments later he 
had breathed his last. It was on the loth of 
July, 1584. 

The murderer turned and fled, and had 
almost succeeded in effecting his escape 
when he was seized by two of the Prince's 
servants. From that instant till the moment 
of his death he exhibited the most astonish- 
ing firmness, glorying in his deed, declaring 
that he had won paradise by the meritorious 
action he had performed, and looking upon 
himself evidently as a martyr in the holiest 
of causes. " Ecce homo ! " he cried with 
blasphemous triumph, raisicg his bleeding 
head from the bench on which he had been 
made to undergo the utmost extremity of 
torture. The very executioners were 
astonished at his constancy, which many 
ascribed to witchcraft. The extremity of 
agony was insufficient to wring a cry from 
him ; and he died at last not only cheerful 
but triumphant. Philip caused a large sum 
to be paid to his surviving relatives, and his 
family was ennobled for the merit of the man 
who had murdered William the Silent, the 
great stadtholder, the founder and consolida- 
tor of Protestant liberty in the Low Countries. 

H. W. D. 



^o 




THE REIGN OF TERROR: 

THE STORY OF THE GREAT FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1792. 




A History Crowded into Two Years. 

HE period known as the Reign of 
Terror in France, comprises the 
time during which the Revolution 
passed through its great agony ; when the 




desperate men at the head of the Government, 
whose position was so precarious that no one 
could tell what great and startling change the 
day that was passing over France would 
bring forth, were ready to adopt any and 



T T 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



every means to keep the ship of the state 
afloat, to cut away the masts if need were, 
to scuttle the ship, in the chance of extin- 
guishing the fire that was consuming it from 
within, and to fire the magazine and reduce 
all to heaps of ruin, rather than yield to the 
foe that assailed them from without. 

It was a time (and thence, indeed, it 
derived its name) when the great and al- 
most the sole means employed to maintain 
authority over cities, provinces, and indi- 
viduals throughput the length and breadth 
of France was fear. The one great engine 
of the Government was the guillotine, the 
instrument of death introduced by a French 
physician with the humane intention of 
rendering execution painless, and employed 
as the great final argument that was to put 
down all opposition and remonstrance, 
causing high and low, the patriot and the 
intriguer, the warrior and the citizen, to 
crouch for a time in common submission. 
So many heads struck off daily, in the 
presence of a shouting, applauding, ferocious 
mob ; so many denunciations before the 
revolutionary tribunals, the accusation being 
in itself synonymous with condemnation to 
death, for few and far between were the 
acquittals ; so many decrees, each surpassing 
its predecessor in stringent severity, and all 
having for their object the suppression of 
resistance by word or deed to the will of the 
dominant faction, — such were the features 
by which the Reign of Terror was distin- 
guished. In that evil period, between the day 
of the loth of August, 1792, which witnessed 
the storming of the Tuileries by an infuriated 
populace, and the downfall of the last 
remnants of royal authority, to the 9th of 
Thermidor, the 28th of July, 1794, when the 
Reign of Terror came to an end with the de- 
struction of those who had been mainly 
instrumental in producing it, barely two 
years intervened ; but into that time was 
crowded an amount of crime, bloodshed, 
and sorrow which roused against the great 
movement in France a bitter outcry from 
those even who at the outset had been in- 
clined to look with complacency on the 
spectacle of a nation bursting the bonds of 
feudal tyranny that had confined it for years, 
and awakenmg to self dependence and 
national life. It was the misfortune of 
France that she had to achieve in the course 
of a few months what in England had been 
spread over many years, even over centuries. 
In the great events of the struggle, called by 
Clarendon " the great rebellion," in England, 
and in the subsequent contest against James 
IL, a certain deliberation, a sober weighing 
of alternatives and of consequences by strong, 
calm men, is everywhere seen. But in 
France all was wild hurry and excitement; 
a kind of madness seemed to seize upon men. 



642 



in the face of threatenings from abroad and 
factions at home. " On joue sa vie a 
Pepoque ou nous sommes " (" Men gamble 
for their lives in these days of ours ") said a 
popular writer of that time. Men and 
women alike were possessed by a strange 
morbid restlessness, mainly owing to the 
insecurity in which they lived, and the 
feverish excitement of the tremendous changes 
going on around them. Great deeds of heroism 
and deeds of detestable cruelty, intense self- 
devotion and cynical indifference, seemed 
all chaotically jumbled together in that time 
when the old form of society, long utterly 
rotten and honeycombed with wrong, 
suddenly collapsed, and fell with a crash 
under the tremendous pressure of the burden 
of its own injustice and wrong. 

What Followed the Taking of the 
Bastille in 1789. 

The great outbreak of the 14th of July, 
showed in an unequivocal manner the strength 
of the people, and their audacity. The Court 
and its adherents had proved " in that wild 
hour how much the wretched dare." The 
days were evidently gone and past in which 
popular discontent could be met by a charge 
of cavalry, and when a volley of musketry 
was considered a sufficient answer to a 
despairing people's cry for bread. The fight 
between the old system and the new had 
begun, and to the King two courses remained 
open, with the prospect of at least temporary 
success. The first was, to place himself 
frankly at the head of the onward move- 
ment, and as a constitutional monarch to 
guide the ship of the state safely into the 
new course. The other was, to meet the 
movement with uncompromising opposition, 
checking its progress by means of the large 
party who were opposed to innovation and 
change of any kind, and fighting as best he 
might to maintain the old order of things so 
dangerously menaced on all sides. Unhappily 
for himself, Louis, a good-natured and 
benevolent, but heavy and apathetic man, 
did neither. He wavered between the two 
courses, and failed to conciliate the popular 
party by the half-hearted concessions he made, 
while he forfeited the confidence of those 
high-born and aristocratic followers and as- 
sociates, who were angry at the compromise he 
had made with the constitutionalists, deeming 
every concession made to the spirit of freedom 
as something robbed from themselves. Louis 
was not intended by nature to be, as Max 
Piccolomini in Schiller's play, describes the 
stern and energetic Wallenstein, the man 
who, " the pause, the central point to 
thousand thousands. Stands fixed and stately, 
like a firm-built column. Where all may press 
with joy and confidence." He was simply a 
weak, undecided, well-meaning man, whose 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. 



lot had been cast, to his misfortune, in times 
where nothing but decision could avail. 

Thus in the first instance, the King made 
efforts to concihate the national good-will. 
He listened to the prayer of the National 
Assembly ; removed the foreign troops whose 
presence had created deep indignation and 
mistrust among the people ; dismissed his 
unpopular ministers ; and recalled Necker, 
the Minister of Finance, in whom the nation 
fondly expected to see the re-establisher of 
French national credit, and the rescuer of 
the nation from the state of bankruptcy. 
But scarcely had the general satisfaction 
made itself manifest on the 4th of August at 
the concessions then made, especially the 
abolition of those old feudal privileges that 
had kept the people in serfdom, and the 
favourable attitude of the King, when the 
fair prospect was clouded, and suspicion and 
turbulence were again in the ascendent. 

The chief enemies of the King were found, 
in the first instance, in the extreme demo- 
cratic party, who declared that the favour- 
able conduct of Louis was merely a specious 
appearance, to gain time, and allow space 
for the plots and intrigues to develop, that 
were being carried on beyond the frontiers. 
Hardly less prejudicial to his true interests 
were the efforts of those aristocratic and 
high-born advisers, who continually poisoned 
the mind of the King against those true and 
loyal men, such as La Fayette, Bailly, Bar- 
nave, and their colleagues, who wished to 
unite justice for an oppressed people with re- 
spect and homage to the crown. In the first 
instance, when the Estates General assembled, 
they had endeavoured by various arts to 
neutralise the voting power of the Commons. 
Failing in this, and astonished at the firm 
attitude displayed by the deputies, under the 
guidance of Mirabeau and other popular 
leaders, great numbers of them ungrate- 
fully abandoned the King, deserting him in 
the difficulties they had so greatly contributed 
to bring about, A wholesale emigration of 
the nobles and higher classes commenced, 
the example being set by the Count of Artois, 
the brother of the King himself. Carrying 
with them what they could secure in the 
way of jewels and portable valuables, the 
emigres betook themselves respectively to 
Brussels, to Coblentz, to London, and many 
other points ; everywhere denouncing the 
course things were taking in France, mis- 
representing the national feeling there as the 
restless machinations of a single faction, and 
calling upon the despotic governments to 
interfere actively to restore the King to his 
former position of autocratic power. It is 
not to be wondered at, therefore, that the 
democratic faction in France should repre- 
sent the King as sharing the aspirations of 
the emigrants, who were thus stirring up 



foreign foes against the liberties of their 
country, and as looking forward to liberation 
by means of foreign bayonets. 

Hunger, also, that powerful factor in all 
revolutionary outbreaks, contributed to rouse 
a spirit of tigerish rage among the people. 
Thus it was that they seized upon the 
State-Councillor Foulon, and his son-in-law 
Berthier, who had long been objects of popu- 
lar hatred, and massacred them in the streets, 
carrying their heads on pikes as trophies 
of victory ; Foulon's head with a wisp of 
grass stuck in the dead mouth, in angry 
memory of a sneer he had once uttered, that 
the people, if they could get no corn, might 
feed on grass like cattle. In the provinces 
also, the people began to revive the old 
doings of the Jacquerie of a past century. 
During the autumn and winter of 1790, the 
skies were reddened, night after night, in 
various parts of France, by the glare of burn- 
ing chateaux and country houses of the 
nobility, set on fire by incendiaries who 
travelled through the country, in pursuance 
of a fixed plan, and acting under orders from 
the heads of the organisations to which they 
belonged. Jacques Bonhom77ie, the peasant, 
had been a serf and a helot for century 
after century. His turn was coming now, 
and with hideous wrongs in his memory, and 
in many instances degraded to the semblance 
of a mere beast, Jacques prepared to take 
his revenge in tigerish fashion, with no more 
compunction in tearing and slaying than if 
he had been indeed a beast of prey. 

The Triumphs of the Populace ; The 
Mob at Versailles. 

Feudal privileges having been abolished, 
the great question that occupied the National 
Assembly was the settling of the constitution ; 
and here the reformers and the Court party 
were continually at issue. On the question 
whether the nobles and clergy were to 
deliberate separately, or in the same chamber 
with the Commons, and on various other 
points, popular triumphs had been gained. 
Meanwhile, to the future sorrow and dis- 
comfiture of all true friends of progress and 
liberty, the mob of Paris, the lowest and 
most violent denizens of the slums and alleys, 
the " roughs " of the period, became power- 
ful and turbulent elements in the political 
forces of the day. The intelligence and 
moderation which might have guided the 
national councils to a safe and prosperous 
issue, were overborne by the fierce ravings 
of a mob, at first the tools, and afterwards 
the tyrants of violent demagogues. Noisy, 
blatant troops of hewers of wood and drawers 
of water, \\\& forts de la Balle,porters and day- 
labourers from the public markets, appeared 
in the streets armed with pikes, sabres, and 
pistols, forced themselves into the halls of 

643 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



justice, where they noisily interrupted the 
proceedings with threats and objurgations, 
and attached themselves to the most violent 
of the factions, whose ends they unconsciously 
served while indulging in a carnival of un- 
accustomed license. On the question whether 
the King should have " the power of the 
veto," or be able to forbid the passing of a 
measure voted by the Assembly, a furious 
contest arose. The matter was at length 
compromised by the according of a modified 
and limited veto to the King ; but the nick- 
name of Monsieur and Madame Veto, be- 
stowed by the mob on Louis and the Queen 
Marie Antoinette, kept the remembrance of 
the struggle alive, and found expression in 
the most truculent of the gutter songs of 
the time, the horrible Carmagnole, which 
triumphantly declares how Madame Veto 
had promised to have all Paris murdered ; 
and how, thanks to the brave cannoneers of 
the people, the '''' son coup a manque^'' her 
scheme had failed. 

The poor King, in this time of danger, was 
half inclined to place himself frankly in the 
bands of the moderate party, but was again 
influenced in the opposite direction by the 
faction who surrounded the Queen, and who 
declared that nothing but the complete re- 
establishment of the King's authority would 
be effectual ; and that this re-establishment 
must be brought about by the means used 
of old' against every outbreak of popular dis- 
content, namely the display of military force. 

A new corps, the Flanders regiment, and 
some cavalry were called to Versailles ; and 
the Gardes du Corps, the King's body-guard, 
gave a banquet to these troops on their 
arrival. Immediately afterwards it was told 
in Paris, amid intense and general indigna- 
tion, that this banquet had been given, con- 
trary to all precedent, in the great hall 
reserved for solemn and grand occasions ; 
that the guests had indulged in seditious 
outcries against the people, had flung under 
the tables the tricoloured cockades adopted 
as the national colours, and that the King 
and Queen, accompanied by the Dauphin 
and the Princess Royal, had graced the orgie 
with their presence, manifestly with the in- 
tention of inflaming the passions of the 
drunken soldiery against the nation, for the 
re-establishment of despotism and tyranny. 

Accordingly the morning of the 5th of 
October was signalised by an outbreak 
secretly prepared by leaders who put forward 
the ignorant, hungry mob to draw the ches- 
nuts of power from the fire for their use. 
The cousin of the King, Philip, Duke of 
Orleans, who boastfully styled himself 
Philippe Egalite, and effected the very 
exaggeration of democracy, and Mirabeau, 
the popular representative whose tremen- 
dous energy and eloquence had placed him 

644 



at the head of the opponents of the Court, 
by which he was. afterwards bribed and 
bought, succeeded in fanning the smoulder- 
ing fire of distrust and jealousy of the people 
against the Court into a flame. A mob of 
the lowest of the women who haunted the 
markets and the streets of the capital, re- 
inforced by a multitude of men of the same 
class, met suddenly, and marched, to the cry 
of " Bread ! Bread ! " to the town arsenal, 
which they plundered. Then the crowd, 
gathering like a snowball as it rolled its 
course onward, set out for Versailles. Other 
and more formidable, because disciplined, 
malcontents presently took part in the 
enterprise. The Gardes Frangaises, and the 
National Guards, a popular force that had 
been levied, greatly against the will of the 
Court party, from among the citizens of 
Paris, followed the first tumultuous proces- 
sion a few hours afterwards, bent on the 
same errand. The King and the royal 
family were to be brought to Paris, so that 
there might be no further tampering with 
soldiers against the people, and that the 
actions of the Court might be under the eye 
of the patriots. The National Assembly, too, 
was to be removed to Paris : " What had the 
King to do with these Gardes du Corps, 
who, under the guise of loyalty to their 
master, carried on treason against the 
nation, and opposed the will of the sovereign 
people .'' " 

The King brought to Paris. 

La Fayette, on hearing of this general and 
threatening movement, after vainly seeking 
to dissuade the National Guards from its 
execution, placed himself at their head, and 
arrived with them in time to clear out from 
the palace the howling insurgents who had 
taken possession of it, and were insulting the 
royal family and the National Assembly alike. 
They bivouacked that night in the court- 
yard of the palace, the exertions of La Fayette 
having averted worse consequences for the 
moment ; but the next morning a conflict 
was provoked by the rashness of one of the 
Gardes du Corps, which almost brought on 
a general massacre, and really cost some 
lives. The King, yielding to hard necessity, 
consented to accompany the malcontents, 
whose anger was thereby changed to loud 
rejoicing, back to Paris. It was a dreary 
procession of humiliated royalty. " We 
shall not lack bread any more,'' shouted the 
triumphant mob, as they danced round the 
windows of the carriage in which.the King 
and his family were seated, " for we've got 
the baker, and the baker's wife, and the 
little apprentice boy ! " 

The natui-al consequence of this proceed- 
ing was a reaction in favour of the insulted 
King in the minds of many moderate and 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. 



honest men. The Duke of Orleans was got 
rid of for a time by a mission to England, 
and Mirabeau was so much blamed for the 
part he had taken in the affair, that all his 
great popularity barely saved him from im- 
peachment. The National Assembly was 
removed from Versailles to Paris, and when 
tranquillity had to some degree been restored, 
the work of building up a constitution was 
carried on with such zeal as to produce a 
still further feeling in favour of the King. 
Louis, indeed, had the good of the nation 
at heart. He loved his people, and would 
have been the best of kings, as he was the 
most placable of men, had he only known 
how to set about his task, and had he not 
always been under the influence of any will 
and a mind much more resolute than his 
own. When, for instance, the King appeared 
before the National Assembly on the 4th of 

February, 1790, and sol- 

emnly declared his adhe- 
sion to the constitution, 
towards the completion of 
which he called upon the 
deputies to work with their 
best zeal and energy ; and 
when he emphatically re- 
nounced the rights of a 
despotic king, and de- 
clared he would hence- 
forth rule as the constitu- 
tional monarch of a free 
people, the enthusiasm 
raised was great and gen- 
uine. Even the Queen, 
whose well-known attach- 
ment to despotic principles 
of rule had rendered her 
intensely unpopular with 
the nation, for a time 
received a share of the 
affection bestowed upon l^iif, 

her husband by the bulk of 
the nation, among whom his speech diffused 
general joy. And the satisfaction was in- 
creased when the chief conditions of this 
new constitution were made known. But 
the faction of the aristocrats and the friends 
of the Queen stood aghast at the magnitude 
of the innovations involved, and became the 
deadly enemies of the measure. For it 
abolished all the privileges of the nobles, 
and even put an end to titles of nobility, the 
use of coats of arms, and all honorary dis- 
tinctions of the governing class, who were 
afterwards designated as " ci-devants," or 
" have-beens." It converted the enormous 
estates of the Church into national property, 
the clergy to be provided for by law, out of 
the national exchequer. It divided France 
into eighty-three departments, each of which 
was to be represented in the great legislative 
assembly which, under the presidency of the 




King, was henceforth to govern France. The 
terrible financial difficulties that oppressed 
the country were to be overcome by the 
issue of paper money, assignates or bonds 
on the security of the Church property and 
certain of the royal domains that were made 
over to the nation. 

On the 14th of July, 1780, the anniversary 
of the taking of the Bastille was held, in the 
Champ de Mars, near Paris, the great fete 
of the Federation, at which the King, the 
Queen, the members of the Assembly, and 
deputations from the army, the National 
Guards, and every branch of the naval, 
mihtary, and civil service, took the oath of 
fidelity to the new constitution. It was the 
last occasion on which the nation and its 
King and Queen met on terms of real amity 
and confidence. 

Enemies of the Revo- 
lution ; Death of 
Mirabeau. 

The shouts of the im- 
mense multitude who 
"rent the sky with loud ac- 
claims" at the festival of 
the Federation had scarce- 
ly died away before the 
fair prospects of union 
and peace began to be 
clouded. The priests were 
mortified and angry at 
being made dependent on 
the civil power. Numbers 
of them refused to take 
the oath to the constitu- 
tion, and being deprived 
of their offices and emo- 
luments in consequence, 
were in many cases looked 
upon as martyrs for con- 
science' sake by the more 
devout among their follow- 
ers, especially in Bretagne and La Vendue. 
The nobles also, indignant at being reduced 
to the level of the ordinary citizen, and at the 
admission of untitled men as officers into the 
army, bitterly opposed the new order of things. 
Great numbers of titled officers emigrated, 
and a still larger proportion of the unattached 
scions of noble houses. The King's brothers 
themselves set the example. They were not 
content to go into a quiet exile, but made the 
frontier towns, such as Coblenz, and the 
great capitals, such as London, the centres 
of continual efforts at counter revolution. 
The nonjuring priests represented the 
National Assembly and the new order of 
things generally to their flocks as the 
impersonation of evil, to be strenuously 
combated and promptly overthrown. The 
emigrant officers and nobles represented to 



the foreign despotic states that if the French 



645 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



succeeded in permanently shaking off the 
autocratic pow$r of their rulers, their ex- 
ample would inevitably be followed by the 
nations of Europe generally, and the fate of 
the kings would be sealed. Already pre- 
parations were made for that great strife 
between citizenship and despotism that was 
to fill the world with combats for a series of 
years. 

The rapid course of events, and the facility 
with which men turned their eyes to new 
aspirations, is illustrated by the fact that 
Necker, the Minister of Finance, at one time 
the most popular of men among the French 
community, and whose dismissal from office 
a year or two before had caused an enormous 
excitement, and had been one of the chief 
causes of the attack on the Bastille, while 
his reinstatement had been welcomed with 
transports of joy, had now resigned his office 
in discouragement and disgust, and quitted 
France almost unnoticed, to be speedily and 
completely forgotten. 

Various political clubs had been established 
in Paris, and to these others were affiliated 
throughout the country : that of the friends 
of the constitution, afterwards called, from a 
disestablished convent, in which they held 
their sittings, the Jacobins ; and another, 
whose members were noted for their furious 
demagogism, that of the Cordeliers. La 
Fayette, as the representative of moderate 
counsels, founded the club of the "Feuillans," 
which was thus designated after a church of 
that name near the Tuileries. . 

The Court, naturally alarmed at the in- 
creasing ambition of its foes, made efforts to 
win to its side those whose allegiance was still 
doubtful. One great victory it achieved by 
winning over the great orator Mirabeau, the 
most formidable of the opponents of despotic 
monarchy. 

Mirabeau died just in time to preserve the 
enormous popularity that had begun to be 
endangered by his defection from the people's 
cause. The King and Queen are said to have 
regretted him, as a partisan won with infinite 
pams, and who might have done them infinite 
service. The people regretted him, for they 
had no suspicion that he had abandoned their 
cause. The Jacobins, on the contrary, re- 
joiced at his death ; for he was the only man 
strong enough to stand against them. A 
magnificent funeral was accorded to him. 

" These villainous clubs have ruined 
France !" was the mournful observation 
uttered by Louis XVI. a short time after- 
wards. The factions of which these assem- 
blies were the representatives were, indeed, 
rapidly substituting the impulse of the fever- 
ish moment and the passionate outbursts of 
petulant zeal, and occasionally of fury, for 
the sober and deliberate counsels of states- 
manship. The discussions were carried on 



in the evening, that the working classes, who 
were present in large numbers at them, might 
not be hindered m their daily toil. All 
political events and political characters 
formed the subjects of debate ; and the 
hatred and passions of the people were 
studiously aroused against the higher classes. 
Lamartine, in his eloquent " History of the 
Girondists,'' has left us a vivid picture of one 
of these hotbeds of revolution. He asks the 
reader to fancy " one of those sittings, in 
which the citizens, already agitated by the 
stormy air of the period, took up their abode 
at nightfall in one of those churches lately 
devoted to far other purposes. A few candles, 
brought by the affiliated members, shed an 
imperfect light on the gloomy space around, 
showing the naked walls, wooden benches, 
and a tribune where the altar had stood. 
Around this tribune some orators, beloved of 
the people, crowded to get an opportunity of 
speaking. A crowd of citizens of all classes 
and of all costumes, rich, poor, soldiers, 
workmen ; women, who brought passion, 
enthusiasm, tenderness and tears wherever 
they came ; children, whom they held aloft 
in their arms, that they might early breathe 
the soul of an irritated people. A gloomy 
silence, broken at times by sharp ejaculations, 
by applause or by hisses ; the incendiary 
discourses, stirring with magic words to the 
very depths the passions of this crowd, new 
to the impression made by words ; enthu- 
siasm, real in some, simulated in others ; 
ardent motions and patriotic gifts, with 
awards of civic crowns, and parading of 
the busts of great republicans ; then, burning 
of the symbols of superstition and of the 
aristocracy, vociferation of demagogue songs 
in chorus at the beginning and at the close 
of each sitting ; — what people, even in a 
period of calm, would have resisted the 
pulsations of this fever, the fits of which 
were renewed daily, from the end of 1790, in 
all the towns of the kingdom r It was the 
regime of fanaticism, preceding the regitne 
of terror. Such was the organization o the 
club of the Jacobins." 

Flight of the Royal Family. 

Surrounded by dangers and by enemies 
on all sides, insulted by the mob when he, 
or a niember of his family, approached the 
windows of their dwelling, and with no hope 
of help or rescue from within, the King at 
length resolved to fly from the capital. In- 
deed, this expedient had been discussed 
between the Queen and Mirabeau, in some 
mysterious interviews with the Queen shortly 
before the death of the great traitor, who 
seems to have entertained the hope that he 
himself would be called in by the people as 
the arbitrator between themselves and the 
King for the restoration of the royal authority. 



646 



THE REIGN OF TERROR 



What the King's ultimate design was must 
ever remain matter of conjecture. Whether 
he intended to fly beyond the frontiers of 
the kingdom, and to return, as his accusers 
afterwards averred, at the head of a foreign 
army, to put down, by force, the government 
he had sworn to maintain ; or whether his 
design was simply to repair to some place on 
the frontier, there to surround himself with a 
portion of his army, and to treat with the 
Assembly from that point of vantage. Be 
this as it may, flight was resolved on ; and 
a faithful friend of the King, and gallant 
soldier, the Marquis de Bouille, was en- 
trusted with the principal arrangements. A 
Swedish nobleman, M. de Fersen, attached 
to the Queen by a chivalrous devotion, felt 
called upon to risk everything in her ser- 
vice ; and with him were associated three 
provincial noblemen, who had formerly been 
members of the King's bodyguard. The 
design of flight was that the King and the 
royal family should escape to the frontier of 
Luxembourg, a place where Bouilid had 
assembled a considerable military force. The 
date of departure was fixed for the i8th of 
June ; and a passport from the Minister of 
Foreign Affairs was procured for a Baroness 
Korf and her children, governess, and ser- 
vants. The King was to play the part of a 
valet of Madame Korf; and precautions 
had been taken to have parties of cavalry 
on the road to protect the King if necessary, 
under the pretext that they were waiting to 
escort a military chest coming from Paris 
for the pay of the troops. 

Detection and Ruin. 

The preparations were too elaborate to 
escape notice, and a delay of a day threw all 
the arrangem.ents out of gear. Count Fersen, 
in the disguise of a coachman, played his 
part admirably. He drove the King and 
Queen (who, with their children and Madame 
Elisabeth, the sister of Louis, had managed 
to pass secretly at night out of the palace) 
safely to the Bois de Bondy, where a large 
travelling carriage was waiting for them. The 
King, imprudently putting his head out of 
the carriage window at Chalons, was recog- 
nised by the postmaster, who, however, kept 
the secret loyally, and hastened the travellers 
on their way. He was not so fortunate 
further on the road, at St. Mdndhould, where 
Drouet, the son of the postmaster, recognised 
his features, and at once rode on in advance 
of the carriage to the next station, Varennes, 
the last the fugitives had to pass before 
reaching the frontier. He at once spread 
the alarm that the party who would shortly 
arrive were the King and the royal family, 
escaping from Paris. It was in the middle 
of the night ; but the whole town was speedily 
awake, and the King and his party were at 



647 



once arrested. In vain they appealed to 
the loyalty of M. Sausse, the postmaster, and 
his colleagues, and begged to be allowed to 
depart. Marie Antoinette even condescended 
to appeal to the wife of Sausse the grocer, 
begging her to intercede for her, the King, 
and their children. "Yes, madame," said 
the embarrassed woman, " I should be glad 
to be useful to you, but you think of the 
King, and I'm thinking of M. Sausse. A 
wife must think of her husband." National 
Guards began to assemble, and the small 
posting house was soon filled with eager and 
excited men, declaring that the King and 
his family must be detained until the Legis- 
lative Assembly in Paris should decide as to 
his fate. He bore his misfortune with a 
calmness bordering on apathy ; but the con- 
flict of hope, apprehension, grief, and ma- 
ternal anxiety in the mind of the Queen was 
so great that, within that one night of horror, 
her hair turned grey. She was only thirty- 
five years old. 

In Paris, meanwhile, the excitement and 
indignation of the populace, when the news 
of the escape of the royal family was spread 
abroad, nearly culminated in a general out- 
break. The chief anger of the people was 
at first directed against La Fayette, who, as 
commander of the National Guard, had under- 
taken the responsibility of the safe keeping 
of the fugitives. He defended himself with 
admirable self-possession and judgment ; 
and for the time succeeded in convincing all 
honest-minded persons of his sincerity. The 
King had left behind him a manifesto, which 
was read in the Assembly amid interruption 
and ironical laughter. In this document he 
set forth the insults and injuries he had 
received at the hands of the factions by 
whom the country was distracted, and peace 
and concord rendered impossible. " I am 
but the responsible chief of anarchy," he 
wrote, addressing the Assembly, "and the 
seditious influence of the clubs tears from 
you that power of which you have deprived 
me. Frenchmen, is that what you expected 
from your regeneration 1 Your love for your 
King used to be reckoned among the number 
of your virtues. That love has been turned 
into hatred, and your homage into insults. 
From M. Necker down to the last of the 
factious persons, every one has been king, 
except the King himself There have been 
threats to take from the King even that vain 
title, and to shut up the Queen in a convent. 
. . . M. de la Fayette himself has been unable 
to enforce respect for the law, or to restore 
the liberty of the King." After enumerating 
the humiliations and violence to which he 
had been subjected, the protest concluded 
with these words : " In such a situation 
nothing remained for me to do but to appeal 
to the justice and the affection of my people, 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and to take refuge beyond the reach of the 
factions, and of the oppression of the Assembly 
and the clubs, in a town of my kingdom ; 
and there, in full liberty, to direct the modi- 
fications that the constitution demands, — the 
restoration of our holy religion, the strength- 
ening of the royal power, and the consolida- 
tion of a true liberty." 

The clubs of the Cordeliers and the Jaco- 
bins, on the other hand, declared that the 
King was a traitor, who had deceived his 
people as Henry III. in the old times had 
deceived the Duke of Guise, to murder him. 
" On the morning of the 19th," wrote Marat, 
the most implacable member of the Cor- 
deliers, "Louis XVI. laughed at the oaths 
he had taken, and rejoiced, in advance, ovei 
the terror his flight would inspire in you. 
The Austrian woman seduced La Fayette 
last night ; Louis XVI., in a priest's gown, 
has absconded with the Dauphin, his wife 
his brother, and all his family. He is laugh- 
ing now at the folly of the Parisians, and 
soon he will be wading in their blood. Citi- 
zens, this flight has been prepared covertly 
by the traitors of the National Assembly. 
You are brought face to face with ruin." 
The whole article was written in the same 
truculent spirit, and admirably calculated to 
stir up the passions of hatred and revenge 
in the lowest classes in Paris, and, indeed, 
throughout the whole kingdom. 

The King's Return ; Foreign Powers ; 
The Beginning of a Long War. 
When the news reached Paris that the 
royal family had been stopped at Varennes, 
the Assembly at once sent orders that they 
should be brought back to the capital ; and 
Pdthion, the Mayor of Paris, and Barnave, 
both members of the Assembly, were de- 
spatched to receive them, and protect them 
on the way. It was a miserable journey. 
Sometimes the carriage was surrounded by 
a howling mob, breatning out cursings and 
threatenings against the King and Queen. 
A gentleman who approached with a gesture 
of respect was absolutely seized and mur- 
dered by the infuriated mob ; and a priest 
narrowly escaped the same fate through the 
heroism of Barnave, who leant out of the 
coach window and harangued the people, 
asking boldly whether from a nation of brave 
men the French had been transformed into a 
horde of assassins ? In the capital itself the 
crush was so great, and the heat and dust 
caused by the crowding of multitudes round 
the carriage so overpowering, that the Queen 
appealed to the people on behalf of the little 
Dauphin and his sister, who were almost faint- 
ing. " You see the state of my poor children, 
gentlemen," cried the poor mother, " we are 
stifling " [iioiis etouffons). " We'll stifle you 
in a different fashion," was the brutal reply. 



The Assembly meanwhile had taken 
measures to prevent disturbance on the 
occasion of the King's return. Placards 
had been everywhere posted with the laconic 
announcement : " Whoever applauds the 
King shall be cudgelled {bdiotme), whoever 
insults him shall be hanged !" During the 
journey Barnave won the hearts of the unfor- 
tunate monarchs by his delicacy and kind- 
ness ; and from that time showed a zeal in 
serving them which ultimately cost him his 
head. Pethion, on the other hand, osten- 
tatiously displayed the rudeness of his nature 
in the presence of fallen royalty — eating 
oranges and throwing the peel out of window 
past the faces of the King and Queen, and 
resppnding to the mild questions of the King 
with a coarse bluntness that quickly reduced 
the offended monarch to silence. 

Once more he was installed in the Tuile- 
ries ; but this time little better than a 
prisoner. La Fayette being made responsible 
for his safety. Of all who in those difficult 
days endeavoured to bring about a healthy 
and lasting reform, and to secure the liberties 
of the people without destroying the position 
of the King, the Marquis was the most honest 
and well-meaning, — a true gentleman, who 
combined loyalty and patriotism in his lan- 
guage and conduct, and who might have 
guided his master safely through the dangers 
of the time, but for the unconquerable preju- 
dice of the Queen, who hated him, and 
influenced the poor undecided King against 
him. " Let us have the love of liberty for 
our guide," he nobly said in the Assembly ; 
" but let us never forget that liberty, severe in 
all its principles, fears license as much as 
tyranny, and that to conquer and retain it 
is less the reward of courage than the triumph 
of virtue." He maintained the utmost respect 
towaras the King at this crisis of the unfor- 
tunate monarch's life. " Has Your Majesty 
any orders to give me ?" he asked deferen- 
tially when Louis had at length taken refuge in 
his apartments in the Tuileries, and the miser- 
able journey was over. " It seems to me," re- 
plied the poor King with a quiet smile, " that 
I am more at your orders than you at mine." 
Still, the game of royalty was not over. 
The Assembly, "like the Long Parhament in 
England during its second session, when the 
reaction in favour of Charles had set in, con- 
tained a large party, and ardent indeed for re- 
form, but still anxious for moderate measures, 
and not indisposed to maintain Louis on the 
throne as a constitutional monarch. Thus 
gradually the King was allowed to resume 
the functions of royalty ; and when the con- 
stituent Assembly had finished its work of 
arranging the details of the constitution, 
Louis publicly took an oath to maintain that 
constitution ; and the Queen, after expressing 
similar sentiments, held up the Dauphin in 



648 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. 



her arms to the crowd, and for the last time 
in her Hfe was for a few moments popular. 
The question now was, whether this consti- 
tution which the King had accepted, and 
which included personal responsibihty on his 
part to the nation, would be satisfactorily- 
put in force. Subsequent events showed it 
to be a miserable failure. This failure some 



of French government. If France was to 
be a constitutional monarchy, would the 
other thrones of Europe long remain despotic ? 
It was determined to combine and actively 
combat the movement in France; to reinstate 
the King in all the privileges he had enjoyed 
before 1789, and to bring back the old 
regime, Tne emigrants at Coblenz, Brussels, 




'The Country in Dakgkr " — Volunteers Marching to the Frontier. 



attributed to the weakness and vacillation of 
the King, others to the preponderance of 
furious and uncompromising demagogues in 
the Assembly. Probably it was the result of 
both these causes combined. 

The despotic powers of Europe, especially 
Austria and Prussia, looked with mingled 
anger and alarm upon the new programme 



and elsewhere, represented the task of restor- 
ing despotism in France as easy of accom- 
plishment. Louis himself had had his eyes 
rudely opened, as he himself confessed after- 
wards to La Fayette on his journey to, or 
rather from, Varennes; but abroad, the notion 
that the changes in France were desired merely 
by a faction, and not by the great bulk of the 



649 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



nation, was industriously spread abroad ; and 
the project of invading France began to 
assume definite proportions. 

The unhappy King, vacillating between 
his wish to keep his oath to the constitution, 
and his alarm at the dangers he saw multi- 
plying around him, committed a grevious 
error. At the very time when he was officially 
sending letters desiring his emigrant brothers 
and the Prince de Conde to return to France, 
declaring that the duty of every good citizen 
bound him to resist invasion, he was secretly 
appealing to the other powers of Europe to put 
down by force of arms the government he had 
sworn to uphold. A letter of Louis, dated 
December 3rd, 1791, addressed to the King 
of Prussia, and preserved in the archives at 
Berlin, furnishes positive proof of the dupli- 
city of Louis. It is nothing but an urgent 
appeal for the invasion of France by the 
united powers of Europe. In it the King 
writes : " I have addressed myself to the 
Emperor (of Germany), to the Empress of 
Russia, to the Kings of Spain and Sweden, 
and I present to them the idea of a congress 
of the principal powers of Europe, seconded 
by an m nied force, as the best method of 
stopping the factions here, giving a means to 
establish a more desirable order of things 
and preventing the evil which is harassing 
us from spreading to the other states of 
Europe. I hope Your Majesty will approve 
of my ideas, and will maintain the most 
profound secresy on the overture I have 
made to you." The letter concludes by 
pointing out the means for sending a reply 
secretly, and means, in fact, " Put down 
constitutional government in France by 
sending invading armies, or you will have it 
in your own countries presently." And this 
was while the King was ordering his brothers 
and Cond6 to disperse and disarm the 
emigrants who had rallied round them. 

On the 1st of October the Legislative 
Assembly met — the successor of the Consti- 
tuent Assembly, whose office had been the 
preparation of the constitution for France. 
It immediately appeared that the Jacobins, 
the party who were clamorous for the most 
complete and violent change, even to the over- 
throw of the monarchy, were very strongly 
represented in the Assembly. And they had 
formidable means of stirring up the national 
wrath against the King and his friends. At 
Pilnitz in Saxony, the King of Prussia and 
the Emperor of Germany had met, and issued 
a declaration utterly hostile to the constitu- 
tion in France ; the popular indignation was 
aroused in France by the opposition of Louis 
to the decrees against those priests who had 
refused the oath to the constitution, and 
were endeavouring to undermine the govern- 
ment in every direction ; and gradually the 
Jacobins obtained the chief power in the 



Assembly. On the 20th of April, 1792, war 
was declared against Austria. 

The Events to the Tenth of August ; 
The Fall of the Monarchy. 

It was evident that the King of France 
had very unwillingly declared war against 
Austria, a state governed by a near relative 
of Marie Antoinette, and one to which 
Louis had looked for protection for himself. 
When, therefore, at t'ne outset, the war was 
pursued in a languid, half-hearted way, and 
a disgraceful panic and defeat of the troops 
led by Rochambeau was announced, it was 
declared in Paris that treason was at work 
among the leaders of the French army, who 
were alleged to have been secretly bought 
over by the Court. Presently a second enemy 
appeared in the field, in the person of the 
King of Prussia, who despatched an army 
towards the French frontiers. Both Austria 
and Prussia declared their conviction that 
the constitution had not been voluntarily 
accepted by the King of France, and was 
therefore no valid act. Twenty thousand 
emigrants joined these armies, and the com- 
bined force was commanded by the Duke 
Ferdinand of Brunswick. That general pre- 
sently committed an unpardonable blunder, 
by issuing a manifesto, in which he treated 
the French nation as a horde of rebels, com- 
manding them to submit instantly \ threaten- 
ing with all the rigour of war any district 
that should dare to resist, and Paris itself 
with utter destruction. The nation might 
have said with Decius in Addison's Cato : 
" A style like this becomes a conqueror ! " 
The manifesto was received with mingled 
scorn and indignation. Great exertions 
were made to drive back the foe, and 
the combined powers soon found that the 
"promenade militaire" they had promised 
themselves was likely to turn out some- 
thing very different. 

A few successes gained at first served only 
to confirm the invading generals in their 
error concerning the real power of the 
enemy, and the magnitude of the task they 
had undertaken. Dumouriez, a veteran 
general of considerable ability, was sent 
against them ; and the Duke of Brunswick 
was obliged, after losing a great number of 
his men by disease, famine, and the attacks 
of the enemy, to retreat into Germany, 
strewing the way with the corpses of the 
unhappy victims of overweening confidence 
and pride. On the 20th of September, brave 
Kellermann successfully maintained his 
position against the Prussian cannonade at 
Valmy, and by the 23rd of October the 
French soil had been cleared of the invaders. 

The unfortunate King had by this time 
lost the last remains of his popularity ; and 
his fall was only a question of months or 



650 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. 



weeks. He would have been strong enough 
to defy the violent demagogues, by the aid 
of the real and moderate friends of liberty, 
if he had frankly acted with them. But he 
remained always secretly attached to three 
classes who were powerless to save him, 
while they alienated from him the friends 
with whom he might have found safety, — 
the emigrants, the foreign monarchs, and the 
nonjuring priests. By exercising his veto 
against a decree for the banishment of the 
priests, and by opposing a motion for establish- 
ing a camp of twenty thousand men around 
Paris, he aroused the hatred of the popu- 
lace in Paris. On the 20th of June an enor- 
mous crowd assembled on the Place de la 
Bastille, and from thence marched towards 
the hall of the Legislative Assembly. The 
deputies permitted the mob to defile before 
them, suspending the sitting for that purpose. 
Thereupon the whole concourse, increased by 
many recruits during its march, bent its way 
towards the Tuileries. Here they burst into 
the palace, and for a time the lives of the 
royal family were in imminent danger. The 
pikemen of the Faubourg St. Antoine, and a 
mingled crowd of the lowest of the inhabi- 
tants of Paris — men and women, lads and 
girls, defiled hour after hour through the 
apartments of the palace before the King. 
Louis was obliged to put the red cap, the 
sign of the demagogue, on his head, as a 
token of fraternity with the people ; and 
contrived by his calmness and courage 
partly to appease the mob. The Queen 
and the royal children, in another apartment, 
were subjected to similar indignities ; for the 
hatred of the people was especially concen- 
trated on the Queen, who was considered as 
the cause of the King's opposition to the 
popular will. " Down with the veto ! The 
camp by Paris !" "Give us back the pa- 
triot ministers ! " " Where is the Austrian 
woman ? " — such were the cries, mingled with 
cursings and revilings, that filled the halls 
where the flatteries of courtiers had for 
centuries fallen on the ears of despotic 
monarchs. The King calmly refused to 
alter his decrees or take back his veto at 
the demand of the furious people, who were 
at last even in some degree impressed by 
the sight of his calm and deliberate courage. 
The Queen also was obliged to put the red 
cap on the head of her little son, the Dauphin. 
Santerre, the commandant of the National 
Guards, at last cleared the Queen's room of 
the crowd ; and Pethion, the Mayor of Paris, 
persuaded the throng to disperse from the 
hall, where the King was a prisoner, and 
enabled him to join the Queen, and con- 
gratulate her on her escape. 

For the moment the storm had passed 
over ; but it burst forth presently with re- 
newed violence, and, blinded by prejudice 

65 



and influenced by evil counsels, the King 
failed to make use of the services of La 
Fayette, the brave and honest counsellor, 
who was consistently and sincerely devoted 
to constitutional '"lonarchy, and hastened to 
Paris from his camp at Maubeuge, and 
solemnly adjured the Assembly to uphold 
the royal authority, greatly to his own peril; 
for the Jacobins, who now held the chief 
influence, threatened his life, while the King 
and Queen treated him with distrust and 
ingratitude. The fortune of this honest and 
true friend of moderation and of limited 
monarchy was a hard one. Endeavouring 
shortly afterwards to induce his troops to 
renew their oath to the constitution, and 
strive for the restoration of limited monarchy, 
he was deserted by his army, and compelled 
to fly across the frontier. Captured with 
some of his staff, by a party of Austrians, he 
was most unjustly, with some of his com- 
panions, kept in imprisonment in various 
fortresses, especially at Olmiitz, for five years, 
till 1797, when Bonaparte at length insisted 
on and procured his liberation. 

The Tenth of August. 

The hands of the Jacobins meanwhile had 
been greatly strengthened through the foolish 
manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick. The 
most violent accusations were brought against 
the King in the Legislative Assembly. The 
country was declared to be in danger, and 
the deposition of the King was openly dis- 
cussed, and vehemently demanded by the 
more violent of the factions. 

The loth of August is the fatal day on 
which the monarchy fell. During the pre- 
vious night masses of men had been assem- 
bling ; and prominent among them were the 
fifteen hundred " Marseillais," fierce, deter- 
mined men who had marched from the 
South, chanting the famous song which has 
been identified with their name, and has 
been for almost a century the revolutionary 
hymn of France. " To arms ! " cried the 
fierce Danton, haranguing the Marseillais in 
the club of the Cordeliers, that had been 
opened to them. " You hear the tocsin, that 
voice of the people. It tails you to the help 
of your brethren in Paris. You have hastened 
from the extremity of the empire to defend 
the head of the nation, menaced in the capi- 
tal by the conspirators of despotism ! Let 
the tocsin sound the last hour of kings, and 
the first hour of the vengeance and the 
liberty of the people ! To arms and qa 
ira ! " 

The King was not without brave defen- 
ders, ready to die for him and for his 
Queen, and their children. The Swiss 
Guard fought with admirable courage and 
devotion, disputing the staircases of the 
Tuileries step by step against the furious 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



hordes of the Marseillais, the denizens of the 
Faubourg St. Antoine, and the other furious 
assailants who pressed round them, raging 
for blood, and massacring even those who 
threw down their arms in token of surrender. 
A number of nobles had also rallied round 
the throne and fought to the last in defence 
of their master. The popular victory was 
not gained without the sacrifice of nearly 
three thousand men. The Queen, against 
whom the most violent outbursts of popular 
fury were directed, showed the dauntless 
spirit of her house, and was ready to die 
with honour, by her husband's side. But 
the King suffered grievously in character as 
well as in fortune on the loth of August. 
While the friends who rallied round him and 
the faithful Swiss Guards, true to the last, 
were fighting, he took refuge with his family 
in the hall of the Legislative Assembly ; and 
sat during that fatal day with the Oueen 
and the royal children in the reporters' box, 
listening apathetically to the debate that was 
to decide the fate of the monarcny. For 
deputation after deputation from the muni- 
cipahty of Paris, and from the victorious 
sections arrived, all clamouring that the 
King should be deposed. And thus, in the 
very presence of the unhappy monarch, the 
decree was passed that suspended him from 
his functions, and deprived him of his civil 
list. It was also resolved that the Legisla- 
tive Assembly should be brought to a close, 
and succeeded by a National Convention. 
This new assembly was to act in the name 
of the " sovereign people." Every citizen 
who supported himself, even if it were by 
daily labour, was to have a voice in its 
election. Its powers were to be unlimited, 
and it was to meet on the 20th of Septem- 
ber. 

France a Republic ; The National 
Convention; Transition to the 
Reign of Terror. 

The horrors of the loth of August, the 
horrible orgie of blood that stirred up all 
the worst elements in the great city, was the 
commencement of that worst of tyrannies, 
the rule of a raging and bloodthirsty mob. 
Three men, whose names will remain to all 
time branded with detestation, as the chief 
actors in the darkest period of the Revolu- 
tion, — men who had already for some time 
been becoming terribly famous in the annals 
of that fierce time, — now became the repre- 
sentatives of the chief power in the State. 
These men are Danton, Robespierre, and 
Marat, the idols of the Jacobin and Corde- 
lier clubs, and the almost omnipotent leaders 
of the extreme revolutionists. Among these 
Danton is the one to whose name perhaps 
the least. turpitude is attached. He was an 
enthusiast for popular liberty, the fiercest of 

652 



democrats, and an uncompromising hater of 
royalty. Fits of dark rage seemed some- 
times to obscure his reason. " Audacity, 
again audacity, and always audacity," was 
the doctrine he preached. If thousands 
conspired against the State, let every one 
of them expiate his crime on the scaffold. 
The cruellest and most comprehensive 
massacre was justified in his eyes, if he 
deemed it necessary to uphold the power 
of the people against that of the King's. 
Sincere he was in his endeavours to esta- 
blish the supremacy of the sovereign people, 
and the thorough belief he had in himself 
and in his system rendered him doubly 
dangerous. In some respects he resembled 
Mirabeau — in his fiery eloquence, his tre- 
mendous strength of voice, and of deter- 
mination in his power of swaying the 
multitude by the force of his energy. 
Robespierre, on the other hand, with his 
cadaverous face, his mean form, his shrill 
tones, and his cracked-brained theories, was 
a caricature of the republicans of the ancient 
world whom he professed to emulate. He 
prided himself on being " the incorruptible," 
living almost in penury at the time when the 
factions were prostrate at his feet, and 
while he wielded the tremendous power of a 
people who had thrown aside all restraint of 
law and custom, and all the old habits of 
obedience. Never was there a man who so 
entirely threw to the winds all ideas of 
friendship, natural affection, or pity, in 
pursuit of the chimera of a model republic, 
whose foundations were to be laid in blood. 
In time, he became suspicious of all parties, 
and no thought of old comradeship or of 
services received withheld him from crush- 
ing any man or any number of men from 
whom he apprehended danger to his supre- 
macy. But far more vile than the two 
others was Marat, the lowest and most filthy 
of miscreants. Hideous and loathsome in 
appearance, raging with an insane hatred 
against all who possessed education, refine- 
ment, wealth, or any of the advantages that 
raise men above the lowest strata of the 
community, he appealed to the lowest 
passions of the most degraded of men, 
publishing with a horrible and industrious 
malignity the most atrocious calumnies, with 
which he fed the fury of the mob, and aroused 
them to renewed rage whenever there was a 
chance that their evil passions might cool. 
With the ascendency of these men the 
crimes of the period assume a darker dye. 
Murder and wholesale proscription become 
recognised means of government, and the 
guillotine is established permanently as the 
great and only effectual means of retaining 
power and supremacy. 

Already in the Legislative Assembly there 
had been two powerful parties, whose incessant 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. 



antagonism was certain to culminate in mortal 
strife. These were that of the Girondists, 
so called from the department of the Gironde, 
represented by their chiefs, Vergniaud. Gua- 
det'Gensonn^, Ducos, Grangeneuve,' and 
others ; that of the " Montagne," comprising 
the rnost uncompromising of demagogues, 
shouting for the hands of their opponents. 



There was little doubt as to where the 
victory would be found. With the nation at 
fever heat, with every fierce pass' on at work, 
the lowest dregs of the populatici stirred up 
to vengeance by every art of invective and 
calumny, and suddenly invested with power 
and trusted with weapons, it was impossible 
that moderate counsels should prevail. The 




The Prison Massacre of September 1792. 



and dominating all the debates by noise and 
clamour, backed by the mobs and the Jacobin 
and Cordelier clubs ; and between the two, 
the moderate and the extreme party, were a 
large number of neutral members, ready to 
take part with whichever side should prove 
its strength by gaining the victory over its 
opponent. 



65 



Girondists, whose efforts had lately been 
directed against the reactionary Court party, 
and who had forced the King to accept 
ministers such as Roland, Servan, and Cla- 
viere, from among themselves, vainly tried to 
arrest the course of the raging flood of revo- 
lutionary hcense now let loose. The Reign of 
Terror, accompanied by blood, slaughter, and 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



barbarous horrors — the Reign of Terror had 
fairly begun. 

The municipality of Paris, in whose hands 
the whole of the authority was for the time 
placed, and in which Robespierre, Danton, 
and Marat were the ruling spirits, refused to 
answer for the safety of the King unless he 
were removed, with his family, to the strong 
tower of the Temple, a fortress that in old 
time had belonged to the famous chivalric 
order of that name. Accordingly the King 
and Queen, with their two children and 
Madame Elizabeth, the sister of Louis, were 
transferred to that domicile which became 
their prison, and from which only one of 
them, the Princess Marie, was destined ulti- 
mately to escape with life. 

Meanwhile house to house search was 
made for any fugitives who had taken part 
against the people on the loth of August, or 
who would be suspected of conspiring against 
the nation. All the prisons of Paris were 
crammed with captives, to the number of 
some thousands, and the churches were 
similarly crowded when the prisons would 
hold no more. Then, to increase the general 
frenzy, came the news of the successes of 
invading armies, — of the Prussians marching 
upon Paris and of Verdun surrendered to 
them — of royalists and emigres threatening 
vengeance, and the possible re-establishment 
of the old re'gijne. 

The people were in a state of savage ex- 
citement, The tocsin was rung, thousands 
of men and women assembled in the Champ 
de Mars, and volunteers were enrolled in 
great numbers to march to the frontier, and 
hurl back the invaders. " Marchonsf qu'tcn 
sang impiir abrezive nos sillons !" was every- 
where the cry ; and then came the further in- 
telligence that in La Vendue the royalists 
were in insurrection. This led to the horrible 
massacre that deluged every prison of Paris 
with blood from the 2nd to the 5th of Sep- 
tember. Ferocious men of the labouring 
classes, armed with cutlasses and bayonets, 
congregated in the prisons, where mock 
tribunals were formed, before which the 
prisoners, men and women, nobles, captive 
Swiss Guards, priests, working people, repre- 
sentatives of every grade and class, wei'e 
brought out, briefly interrogated, and then 
sent from the haU of judgment to pass out 
at a door, outside which a number of 
men were waiting to strike them down 
with sabres and axes, and to run them 
through with pikes and bayonets. These 
horrible ruffians worked like butchers in a 
slaughterhouse. Many of them, after tho- 
roughly exhausting themselves, ate, and 
drank, and slept, and then woke up to 
resume their hideous work. Danton and 
Marat have been accused of being the movers 
of this massacre, the chiefs of the " Septem- 



briseurs," as the murderers were called, but 
much doubt rests upon the point. The state 
of wild and savage apprehension, the reckless 
desperation of the hour, caused by the sur- 
rounding dangers, will sufficiently explain 
the outburst. The numbers who perished 
during the five days has been very variously 
stated ; but the estimate of the advocate 
Maton (who states the number at 1089) seems 
the most correct. With the establishment of 
the National Convention, a new page in the 
history of the Revolution begins ; for the 
first act of the body that thus succeeded to 
the Legislative Assembly was to declare the 
abolition of the monarchy and the erection of 
France into a republic. 

Trial and Execution of the King. 

The quarrel between the " Mountain " and 
the " Gironde " became more embittered day 
by day. The Girondist deputies boldly 
accused the Jacobin chiefs of aiming at 
dictatorship, and of the design to establish 
a tyranny founded on the noisy suffrage of 
the Parisians. The "mountaineers" retorted 
by accusing their opponents of Federalism ; 
while public opinion was suspicious of both 
parties, and, on the motion of Tallien, de- 
clared the Republic to be one and indivisible. 
The question was hotly debated whether the 
King had, or had not, forfeited his inviola- 
bility, and rendered himself liable to be 
judicially accused before the Convention. 
The " Mountain " party, supported by the 
Parisian mob, who yelled frantically for the 
tyrant's blood, procured an answer in the 
affirmative; and on the nth of Decembei 
the fallen monarch was brought before a 
tribunal, the great majority of whose m,embers 
had already made up their minds as to his 
guilt. The veteran Malesherbes undertook the 
defence of the King. Unhappily, there had 
been discovered in the Tuileries an iron safe 
or chest, containing papers that told only toe 
plainly the story of the negotiations with 
Mirabeau, and various acts of bribery and 
duplicity. After long and stormy debates, 
that lasted far into January of 1793, three 
questions were put before the Convention 
to decide: — Whether Louis Capet (for undet 
that name the King was arraigned) had been 
guilty of conspiring against the freedom or 
the safety of the State ? Whether the sen- 
tence to be passed upon him was to be placed 
before the people for confirmation ? And 
what punishment was to be inflicted on him? 
Out of 717 members present, 683 answered 
the first question in the affirmative. The 
second was answered in the negative by 424 
voices against 283. In replying to the 
third question, 366 voices out of 721 — there- 
fore a majority oi Jive — voted for death 
unconditionally. Among the remainder, 266 
voted for imprisonment until the conclusion 
654 



THE REIGN OF TERROR. 



of peace, or until banishment, while the rest 
voted for death, but " avec stirsis" (with a 
respite),— an understanding that the extreme 
sentence would not be carried out. The vote 
itself had been another proof of the triumph 
of the Mountain over the Gironde. The last- 
mentioned party would gladly have saved the 
King's life, but many were intimidated by the 
threatening attitude of their opponents and 
the spectators into giving a vote they inter- 
nally disapproved. But they felt that to 
show favour to the prisoner would have 
been to place their own republicanism under 
suspicion. 

All efforts to obtain a delay in the carrymg 
out of the sentence were vain. The Conven- 
tion insisted on immediate execution; and 
on the 2 1 St of January, I793, after having 
shown in the last days of his life the resigna- 
tion and charity of a Chris- 
tian, and solemnly par- 
doned all his enemies, 
Louis XVI., the most ami- 
able, virtuous, and well- 
meaning of the Bourbon 
kings, was brought forth, 
like Charles I., to die in 
the face of the nation he 
was accused of betraying. 
He had endured through- 
out four years every stage 
of degradation ; and on 
his devoted head had de- 
scended the punishment 
for the tyranny and wrong 
perpetrated throughout 
centuries by those who 
had gone before him. 
"After us, the deluge," 
had already been the pro- 
phecy of Philip the Re- 
gent eighty years before. 
The barriers of sand had stood longer than 
any man had a right to expect ; but they had 
given way at last, and the deluge was sweep- 
ing everything before it. 

The Fall of the Girondists; 
dumouriez. 
The death of the King sent a shudder 
through the whole of Europe. In England 
the French ambassador was at once expelled 
from London, and prepared for war. Prussia 
and Austria determined to pursue the con- 
test with increased vigour ; for the execution 
of the 2 1st of January seemed a challenge to 
every crowned head in Europe. Soon after 
was brought about the first of those six great 
coalitions of the nations against France ; the 
last of which succeeded in setting up the 
Bourbon monarchy once more in 1814. 
England was at the head of this coalition ; 
and with reason ; for on the ist of February 
the French Convention, angry at the expul- 




sion of the envoy, had declared war. Most 
of the powers of Europe were participators 
in this coalition. At the same time the civil 
war in La Vendue took more formidable pro- 
portions. 

But the Convention was undismayed ; and 
the party of the Mountain was more bitterly 
bent than before on the destruction of the 
Girondists. 

Circumstances soon occurred to facilitate 
that design. General Dumouriez had been 
for some time at the head of the French 
forces in the Low Countries ; and had gained 
great credit by the victory of Jemmapes, 
in November 1792, But after this the for- 
tune of war changed. Custine in Germany, 
and Dumouriez in Flanders, were alike un- 
successful ; and the latter, on the 1 5th of 
March, 1793, was defeated in the battle of 
__ Neerwinden. Five com- 

missioners were sent into 
the general's camp to call 
him to account, and to 
summon him to Paris be- 
fore the Committee of 
PubHc Safety. But Du- 
mouriez had for some time 
been meditating playing 
the part of General Monk, 
by leading his army over 
to the Austrians, and 
marching with them to 
Paris, there to restore the 
Bourbon monarchy. And 
now he threw off the 
mask ;■ and knowing that 
if he returned to Paris 
his doom would probably 
be the guillotine, he took 
the five envoys prisoners, 
and delivered them up 
to the Austrians. There- 
upon he attempted to induce his army to 
desert with him to the enemy ; but with a 
few exceptions they refused, and Dumouriez 
and his staff were compelled to appear in the 
Austrian camp with only a few hundred men. 
From that time the career of the traitorous 
general was ended. He lived to a great age, 
surviving till 1823; and subsisting in his 
declining years on a pension granted to him, 
it is difficult to say for what reason, by the 
English Government. 

In Paris the party of the Mountain made 
use of this defection of Dumouriez as a 
means of overthrowing the Girondists. Du- 
mouriez had been one of the most prominent 
men of the party ; and accordingly the Jaco- 
bins declared in the Convention that the 
Girondists were aware of, and participators 
in, the treason of the general. They tried 
to defend themselves, but in vain. The 
voice of reason and moderation in the 
Convention was always in the end over- 



655 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



powered by the threats of the furious 
demagogues, behind whom stood the mob. 
Every remonstrance against cruelty and 
wrong was now fraught with mortal peril. A 
revolutionary tribunal was established. Its 
members, the most ruthless men of those 
ruthless days, were convenient tools in the 
hands of Robespierre and his accomplices. 
Attempts Y,-ere made to procure the down- 
fall of Robespierre, Hebert, and Marat, the 
most truculent of the enemies of the Gironde, 
but in vain. The people insisted upon their 
release when arrested, and greeted them as 
martyrs. At length a great mob, composed 
of the "Sections" of the capital, partly urged 
by their own ferocity, partly by the chiefs of 
the Mountain party, marched against the Con- 
vention, with Henriot, one of the miscreants 
of September, at their head, and peremptorily 
demanded the arrest of twenty-two chiefs of 
the Girondists. The Convention temporised 
with these men, and flattered them. The 
insurrection being renewed, and cannon 
threateningly pointed against the hall of the 
Assembly, it was desired that thirty-four 
members, most of them Girondists, should 
be arrested. Some of those whose names 
were thus proscribed saved themselves by 
flight. Others perished during their retreat 
by starvation and misery ; the rest were kept 
in prisons until they were at last, in October 
1793, brought before their judges, and on the 
31st of that month they weie executed to- 
gether, to the number of twenty-one. 

One of their brother deputies, named 
Bailleul, then a proscribed fugitive hiding in 
Paris, had contrived to let them know that 
he would send them a supper on the day 
when their fate was decided— a triumphal 
or a funeral banquet, according as the verdict 
devoted them to life or death. He kept his 
word ; and on that last night of their lives 
the condemned Girondists sat together at 
the feast of death, Vergniaud presiding ; as 
he had presided in the Convention on the 
loth of August. Towards morning the con- 
versation took a more serious turn, and the 
dying men spoke of the future of the country. 
Brissot spoke prophetically of the misfortunes 
of the Repubhc, deprived of its most virtuous 



and patriotic citizens. " How much blood 
would it not require," he said, " to wash out 
ours ? " The words of Vergniaud were singu- 
larly impressive. " My friends," he said, " in 
grafting the tree we have killed it ; it was 
too old. Robespierre is cutting it down. 
Will he be more fortunate than we ? No ! 
this soil is too light to nourish the roots of 
civic liberty ; the people too childish to 
handle its laws without wounding itself. It 
will come back to its kings, as a child comes 
back to its playthings. We were mistaken 
in the time when we lived, and died for the 
liberty of the world," he continued. " We 
thought ourselves in Rome, and we were 
in Paris. But revolutions are like those 
great agonies which whiten the head of a. 
man in one night. They ripen people 
quickly. The blood in our veins is warm 
enough to fertilise the soil of the Republic." 

Within a few hours they went to the scaf- 
fold, sitting side by side in the rough tumbril, 
and singing the chant of the Marseillaise 
that told how the day of glory had arrived, 
though the blood-red flag of tyranny was 
upreared against them. At the foot of the 
scaffold they embraced as a last sign of 
fraternity. As each in turn laid his head 
under the axe, the song of the Marseillaise 
became weaker by one voice. Vergniaud was 
the last to die; and the corpses of the friends 
were carried away in the same tumbril, and 
one common grave received them. 

Other prominent persons of the Girondist 
party who had been proscribed at the same 
time endeavoured to escape by flight. Some 
few succeeded, but the greater number of the 
fugitives perished. Some hiding in the 
woods and desert places, were, like Pethion, 
stoned to death. Other<=. like Roland, put 
an end to their misery by suicide; others 
again, like Barbaroux, vi/ere taken, and 
perished on the scaffold. 

The triumph of the Jacobins was complete. 
Robespierre, Marat, and Danton, and their 
faction, ruled supreme. It will be the work 
of another narrative to tell how the terrorists 
ruled, what sanguinary victories they gained, 
and how by righteous retribution they fell. 

H. W. D. 




656 




The Battle of Agincourt, 



GALLANT KING HARRY: 

THE STORY OF THE BATTLE OF. AGINCOURT, OCTOBER 25th, 1415. 

"Upon Saint Crispin's day 
Fought was this noble fray, 
Which fame did not delay 

To England to carry ; 

Ojwhen shall Englishmen 

With such acts fill a pen, 

Or England breed again 

Such a King Harry ! " 

— Drayton. 



The Cause of the War— The Condition of France in 1415 -Henry's Preparations for War— More Attempts at Diplomacy— 
Iraitors m Henry's Camp— Discovery and Punishment of the Conspirators— The Fleet sets Sail— The Siege of 
Harfleur— Gallant Defence of the French— Negotiations for the Surrender of the Town -The Fall of Harfleur and 
Ceremony of giving up the Keys— Continuance of the Campaign— The Preparations of the French for a great Battle— 
Ihe Defence of the Somme— Henry finally crosses the River— The Sight of the French on the Plains of Agincourt— 
1 he Night before the Battle— The Disposition of the opposing Forces— The Attack of the Archers— The Brilliant 
Charge of the Constable of France— Defeat of the First Division of the French— Forward Movement of the English- 
Defeat of the Second Division and Flight of the Third Division of the French— Incidents of the Battle— Henry's Return 
to England. 




The Beginning of the Quarrel. 

N the audience chamber of the old 
royal palace at Westminster, which 

long since has been swept away to 

make room for the New Palace, otherwise 
known as the Houses of Parliament, there 
was gathered together one bright spring day 
in the year 141 5, a brilliant assemblage of 
England's most famous nobility. 



Among them might have been seen Lord 
Scrope, of Masham, the bosom friend of the 
young King, Henry V., the Earls of Cam- 
bridge, Westmoreland, and Erpingham, Sir 
Thonias Gray, the Duke of Exeter, uncle to 
the King, and many others whose names were 
then as familiar in the ears of most English- 
men as are those of the prominent statesmen 
of to-day. 



657 



u u 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



In the midst of this brilhant assemblage sat 
the young King. The severe simphcity of his 
apparel presented a remarkable contrast to 
the rich dresses of those about him ; and 
not only was his costume far less gay, but 
his slight form and smooth face gave him 
a more youthful appearance than any then 
present. Yet his features, plain and young- 
looking though they were, bore the un- 
mistakable stamp of a powerful will and 
a noble character. 

When all things were ready for the audience, 
liis Grace of Exeter, with much state and 
ceremony, ushered into the royal presence 
four ambassadors from the Court of France, 
The Frenchmen bowed low as they drew 
near the throne, and Henry, with great 
courtesy, rose to meet them. " And what 
answer does the French King send to our 
just claims ? " said he. 

" May it please Your Majesty, the answer 
is not from the King of France," replied De 
Gaucourt, one of the ambassadors, "for un- 
happily our royal master is now unable to take 
part in the affairs of state, but the reply is 
from his son, the Dauphin, who said that you 
were over young as yet to talk of war, and 
that he could not fear any preparations for 
battle which you might make against him ; 
and as he regards you as far more fit for the 
sports of youth than for the stern realities of 
the tented field, he herewith sends you a 
ton of tennis balls, with which to amuse 
yourself and your lords. " 

For a few moments there was a terrible 
silence in the audience-chamber. Surprise 
and anger at this scornful rejoinder struck 
the young King and his courtiers dumb. 
Then with frowning brow and flushed cheek 
the King cried, " By heaven, I will send the 
Dauphin some great gun stones to play with 
in place of tennis balls, and my tennis racket 
shall toss his father's crown instead of these 
toys." 

In haste the audience broke up, and the 
Frenchmen departed, while the King held a 
council of war, in which instant action against 
France was decided upon. 

Such was' the scene which we may imagine 
took place in King Henry the Fifth's palace 
in London on that memorable day. He had 
but recently come to the throne, but enough 
had been seen of his conduct to show that the 
"madcap prince," the riotous Hal, had been 
transformed into a brave and manly king. 

A short time after he ascended the throne 
he sent demands to the French Court that 
the Treaty of Bretigny should be fulfilled. 
This deed, signed in 1360 by Edward III. 
of England and John of France, and known 
as " the Great Peace," gave to the Enghsh 
sovereign, among other dukedoms, the pro- 
vinces of Poitou, Guienne, and the town of 
Calais. The French king, however, had not 

658 



respected the terms of this treaty, and Henry 
sent special ambassadors, among whom were 
Lord Scrope, the Earl of Cambridge, and 
Sir Thomas Gray to demand its fulfilment. 
To these noble lords the French king, or his 
son the Dauphin, uttered his determination to 
refuse the application, and, it is said, bribed 
them to conspire against their king ; and 
after further negotiations had passed between 
the two Courts, he at last sent a formal 
embassy to London to refuse all Henry's 
claims with scorn. 

There are some chroniclers who regard 
the incident of the tennis balls as entirely 
mythical ; and it is also asserted that Henry's 
claims were not only to certain dukedoms, but 
also to the sovereignty of the whole realm, in 
virtue of his descent from Isabella of France, 
wife of Edward II. Whatever may have 
been the exact nature of the claims first pre- 
ferred by King Henry, it seems certain that 
latterly he restricted them to the restitution 
of dukedoms awarded by the Treaty of Bre- 
tigny, and that the French refused to accede 
to his request. The authority for the scorn- 
ful rejection of the claim .by sending tennis 
balls rests principally upon Holinshed's 
chronicles ; and it is also mentioned in an 
old MS. supposed to have been written at the 
time, and now in the British Museum. Many 
other old writers also speak of it. It may 
therefore very fittingly stand as the opening 
scene of that brilliant epoch of English his- 
tory, when gallant King Harry, the idol of the 
English people, closed for a time by victory 
the constant wars then raging between 
the countries north and south of the Channel, 
and justified the pretension that so many 
English kings made that they were sovereigns 
of France as well as rulers of Britain. 

France in 141 5. 

With all haste, the preparations for the 
French war were pressed forward. Troops 
were hastily collected, commanders were 
appointed to the various corps, merchant 
vessels were hired for the conveyance of 
troops, and Henry made arrangements for 
the government of his kingdom during his 
absence. 

The condition of France at that time was 
very favourable for such an enterprize. The 
King was either an imbecile or a madman ; 
and so much was then dependent on the here- 
ditary ruler (no provision being made for a 
successor except in case of death, or a regent 
except in case of youth), that the country was 
left without a ruler or the means of legal 
government ; the death of the Duke of Bur- 
gundy, whose power and influence had pre- 
served some order, added to the confusion, 
and all parties strove for the custody of the 
maniac king. 

The contest principally existed between 



GALLANT KING HARRY. 



the Duke of Orleans, brother of the King, 
and the presumptive heir to the throne, whose 
party was known as the " Armagnacs," and 
the youthful Duke of Burgundy, whose broad 
lands and numerous retainers, known as 
" Bourgnignons," made him the most power- 
ful prince at the Court of France. 

In the midst of the contending factions the 
Dauphin strove in vain to preserve order, and 
the country was given up to the horrors of 
civil strife. 

Henry's Preparations for War. 

On the i6th of April, a great council was 
assembled at Westminster, and to this body 
Henry announced his intention of making a 
voyage "in his own proper person, by the grace 
of God, to recover his inheritance." He ap- 
pointed his brother, the Duke of Bedford, 
Lord-Lieutenant of his kingdom during his 
absence; and a council, which included the 
Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of 
Durham and Winchester, the Earl of 
Westmorelandj and Lords Grey, Morley, and 
Berkeley, was convened to assist and support 
him. 

Meanwhile the Duke of Exeter, the Earl 
of Westmoreland, Sir Walter Hungerford, 
and other chiefs to whom the duty of col- 
lecting soldiers had been entrusted, pre- 
ceded the King and gathered their troops 
together at Southampton. This seaport had 
been appointed the rendezvous, and it was 
from this point that Henry intended to 
sail. The King was much occupied with 
the arrangement of certain affairs of state, 
and it was not until the iSth of June that 
he journeyed south. He found a large 
fleet of vessels awaiting him ; between twelve 
and fourteen hundred ships had been pre- 
pared, of from twenty to three hundred tons 
burthen each, and were floating at anchor in 
and around Southampton Water. About 
thirty thousand men had been collected, and 
were encamped on a low-lying plain, which, 
it is said, has long since been submerged by 
the ever encroaching sea, and is now known 
as West Point. In the records of the town of 
Southampton there is an old document which 
sets forth with some minuteness the details of 
the encampment before the embarkation. 

The majority of the men had been obtained 
by impressment ; and for serving the King 
the following rate of pay was proclaimed: — 
" Every duke was to receive thirteen and 
fourpence per day ; every earl, six and eight- 
pence ; every baron, four shillings ; every 
knight, two shillings ; every man-at-arms, 
twelve-pence ; and every archer, six-pence 
per day." 

Sailors to man the ships had also been 
obtained in the same manner, and commis- 
sions had been issued to other captains to 
compel all vessels of twenty tons and upwards, 



that they might meet with, to sail to South- 
ampton for the conveyance of the troops. 
Sheriffs of counties were to levy and send to 
the same port a certain number of cattle, 
and the sheriff of Southampton was to get a 
sufficient quantity of ale brewed, and bread 
baked, in the towns throughout the county 
for the support of the great army gathered 
there for the French wars. 

The same pressure was put upon the nation 
to furnish money. Parliament voted a large 
sum, the crown jewels were pawned, and 
loans were obtained on all sorts of securities 
until about ^170,000 had been made up. 

King Harry, knowing something of the wild 
nature of his troops when excited by the 
prospect of war, and desirous of keeping the 
goodwill of his people, caused an elaborate 
set of rules to be drawn up, the object of 
which was to maintain strict discipline among 
the soldiers, decreeing severe punishment for 
those who aggrieved or molested any of the 
inhabitants. The sheriff of Southampton 
was ordered to proclaim publicly that if any 
person had been so molested,he wasto lodge a 
formal complaint before the Seneschal of the 
Treasury,or the Controller of the King'sHouse- 
hold, when the mattei would be examined, 
and complete justice should be done them. 

More Attempts At Diplomacy. 

While these preparations were being pushed 
forward, further attempts to promote peace 
seem to have been made. 

It is reported that while Harry was staying 
at Southampton, or on his way thither, he 
was met by the Archbishop of Bourges, who 
had been sent by the Dauphin from France, 
to prevent the war if possible, and turn Henry 
from his purpose by argument. Henry told 
the prelate that he was bent on vindicating 
his rights by the sword. The Archbishop 
replied, "If thou makest the attempt, we shall 
invoke the aid of the Blessed Virgin and all 
the holy saints, and thou wilt be driven back 
into the sea, or taken captive, or slain." To 
which Henry, like a true Englishman, replied 
with quiet determination, " We shall see." 

The English people applauded his re- 
solution with great enthusiasm, for the war 
exactly hit the temper of the time ; and both 
Parliament and the Church urged on their 
young king to assert his claims by force of 
arms. A French war seems to have been 
always popular in those days, not only be- 
cause of the great antipathy existing between 
the two races, and their constant struggles 
for victory, but because of the claims of the 
English kings to the throne of France. 

The validity of this claim was really pre- 
posterous ; but it served as an incitement to 
conquest and as a pretext for the fictitious title 
of King of France which was used by the Eng- 
lish sovereigns for some five hundred years. 



6?c 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Until the reign of George III., it was 
customary for the English sovereigns to add 
this title to the style of their designation. 
This was first assumed, and the French arms 
quartered, by Edward III., in right of his 
mother Isabella, the wife of Edward II.; she 
was the daughter of Philip le Bel, King of 
France; and he claimed to be the nearest 
male heir through her. The Salique Law 
excluded females from the throne; but Edward 
maintained that it could not operate against 
their male descendants. 

Traitors in Henry's Camp. 

The expedition to France was greatly 
delayed by the discovery of a conspiracy 
against the King. This came upon Harry with 
the suddenness andviolenceof athunder-clap, 
for his bosom friend. Lord Scrope of Mas- 
ham, "who shared his bed and half his heart," 
was found to be one of the leaders; and 
until the most indisputable proofs were before 
him, he refused to believe the report. It is 
said that the conspirators were bribed by 
the Dauphin of France, and that the object 
of their plot was to execute Henry and 
put the Earl of March on the throne. It 
does not appear possible, however, at this 
lapse of time to ascertain with accuracy the 
exact motives or objects of this conspiracy. 
The Earl of Cambridge had married Anne 
Mortimer, the sister of March, and it is 
quite possible that he thought the event of a 
foreign war a favourable opportunity to urge 
,his kinsman's claims. The French Court also 
may have helped it forward, seeing in it a 
chance of keeping their country free from 
invasion. In any case the diabolical plot 
was discovered in time, and the Sheriff of 
Southampton summoning a jury for the trial 
of the conspirators, they were found guilty 
of treason, and condemned to death. 

According to Holinshed, Henry said to the 
prisoners, " If you have conspired the death 
and destruction of me, which am the head of 
the realm, and governor of the people, with- 
out doubt I must of necessity think that you 
likewise have compassed the confusion of all 
that here be witli me, and also the final de- 
struction of your native country, . . . Where- 
fore, seeing that you have enterprised so great 
a mischief, to the intent that your fautours, 
being in the army, may abhor so detestable 
an offence by the punishment of you, haste 
you to receive the pain that for your demerits 
you have deserved, and that punishment that 
by the law for your offence is provided." 

The Earl of Cambridge and Lord Scrope 
demanded to be tried by their peers ; and the 
lords then at Southampton were formed into 
a court, which ratified the verdict of the first 
jury, and, on the 5th of August, they were 
executed. 



The Fleet sets sail. 

These untoward events caused great delay, 
and it was not until the nth of August that 
the whole of the large fleet finally set sail. 
On the 7th of August, Henry left Porchester 
Castle, where he had been staying, and pro- 
ceeded in a little ship to his own vessel, the 
Trinity Royal, which lay off the coast between 
Southampton and Portsmouth. The final 
arrangements were then completed, and the 
wind being then favourable, he signalled for 
the whole fleet to weigh anchor and hoist up 
sails, and they went off with the tide in very 
much the same direction that the steamers 
to Havre now take. It must have been a 
superb sight to have seen those gaily decorated 
vessels sail away so proudly in the splendid 
sunshine of that August morning; and the 
people lining the shores cheered their King 
and countrymen to the echo. The ships 
were divided into squadrons, each led by one 
of the King's carracks, in which was an able 
commander; and they all kept their appointed 
place as well as a horse in the battle-field. 
Henry had fixed upon Harfieur, at the mouth 
of the Seine, as the landing-place ; and it was 
here that two days afterwards the transports 
discharged their soldiers without resistance 
from the French. On the 17th, Henry 
moved to the siege of the town. The old 
historian Stow thus describes the place in 
those days : — 

" Herflute (Harfieur) is the key of the sea 
of all Normandie, and is scituated upon the 
seaside, by the river of Seene, betwixt two 
hils ; through the middle thereof runneth a 
river, which not farre from the same towne 
entreth into the Seene, and from thence both 
those rivers in one descend into the sea, 
whereas a great and goodly haven is be- 
longing to the same towne, which haven is 
garnished by the defence of two fine and 
strong towers ; and in the same haven, a right 
great navie of shippes may ride in safetie ; 
and if the inhabitants of this towne inclose and 
keepe within the towne, the course of the 
foresaide river by their sluces, as they may 
righte well doe, then the river riseth without the 
towne so high that it forecloseth all entries 
to the walls, so that no man may approach 
the towne on that part. This towne is also 
defended with high and thick walles and 
towers, and is also environed with broad and 
deepe ditches. To this towne also belongeth 
only two gates for entries, the one called 
Calturances, the other Mostrouillier." 

The Siege of Harfleur. 

As soon as a sufficiently strong force had 
landed, Henry moved forward to besiege the 
town. Though small, it was of great strength, 
being well fortified with embattled walls. 



660 



GALLANT KING HARRY. 



One of the towers, on the side nearest the 
English, was formed of thick trunks of trees 
strongly fastened together, inside of which 
was a wall of earth, with narrow apertures 
through which the defenders could annoy the 
English with arrows and other missiles. 

The army having taken up its position 
before the town, Henry issued orders to 
prosecute the siege with the utmost vigour. 
A detachment was sent, under the Duke of 
Clarence, to beleaguer the fortress from the 
other side, and that movement completed the 
entire investment of the place, for it was 
blockaded from the sea by the fleet, from 
the river by boats, and from the other quarters 
by the army. This being done, Henry sent 
a formal summons to the town to surrender, 
and meeting with a haughty refusal, he at 
once caused the guns and siege-trains to be 
placed within range of the walls. 

Anticipating heavy siege-work, Henry had 
taken the precaution to provide himself with 
the newest inventions in siege machinery and 
cannon, which included large catapulta fitted 
with movable coverings of thick boards to 
protect the men who worked them, and mor- 
tars fired with gunpowder, which had then 
recently come into use. The catapulta were 
capable of throwing stones of such enormous 
size that they speedily reduced the fortifica- 
tions to heaps of ruins, and caused the walls 
to fall in with a frightful noise. 

The French defended themselves with great 
gallantry, and numerous stratagems were re- 
sorted to by them to resist their tireless and 
persistent foes. When their outer defences 
were demolished, they worked all night to 
repair the wreckage of the day, piling up 
Avood and earth to fill the breaches. They also 
ensconced themselves in the heaps of ruins, 
and kept up a continuous fire upon their 
enemies. Pots of quick-lime to throw in 
the eyes of the English were prepared, also 
jars of burning sulphur and boiling oil, in 
case the besiegers came too near. 

As the days went on, and the defence con- 
tinued very stubborn, Henry ordered mines 
to be dug from the side on which the Duke 
of Clarence was situated, hoping to reduce the 
town in this way, but the French sunk counter 
mines, which, opening into those of the 
English, became the scenes of violent encoun- 
ters — and the subterranean trenches speedily 
became choked with the dead and dying. The 
French also made several sallies, and troops 
were sent by the Dauphin to relieve the 
town. On one occasion, a large body of 
horse came near to the English camp, in- 
tending to harass the invaders by ambus- 
cades ; but Henry detached troops to meet 
them, and a sharp engagement took place, 
in which the French Avere forced to fly. 

The surrounding country was now scoured 
by the English for food and forage, and also 



for faggots of wood with which to fill up the 
trenches dug round the town. In these excur- 
sions, Henry's troops frequently fell in with 
companies of the French, who were now 
assembling in larger numbers than ever. 

Meanwhile the siege continued with great 
vigour, being carried on in accordance with 
the directions laid down by one " Master 
Giles," the great authority on besiegers' 
science in those days. The faggots, consist- 
ing of bundles of wood ten feet in length, 
having been procured, they were carried to 
the trenches and thrown in, and built up one 
upon the other, so that they afforded com- 
plete and useful screens from the enemy's 
shot. Archers were also placed behind them ; 
and being now within range of the ramparts, 
could pick off the Frenchmen on the walls. 
Thus the trenches, instead of being a hind- 
rance, became of great service to the English. 
The Duke of Clarence also made a deep 
trench on his side of the town, and fenced it 
with trees and earth, behind which his 
soldiers kept up a continual fire upon the 
besieged. 

But now a fiercer foe than the French, 
men-at-arms began to attack the English- 
army. A frightful attackof dysentery visited 
the invaders, and thousands fell victims^ 
Among the deceased was Richard Courtenay, 
Bishop of Norwich, a great favourite of 
the King. He expired on the 15th of 
September, after an illness of five days. It 
is reported that the same disease also at- 
tacked the besieged, and greatly thinned their 
numbers ; but notwithstanding the mortality 
on both sides, the attack and defence were 
still continued with the utmost vigour. 
Bundles of flaming tow were tied to the 
missiles hurled from the catapulta; and these 
fires not only set fire to the town in various 
parts, but greatly hindered the French from 
repairing the ruins, for in the darkness 
they showed the English where to direct their 
shot. Night and day missiles of every 
description were poured upon the devoted 
town, and the garrison was worn out 
with fatigue and want of sleep. They daily, 
almost hourly, now expected the assault. But 
on Tuesday the 17th of September, Henry 
again summoned the town to surrender. Not 
coming to terms, however, the King gave 
orders that it should be stormed on the 
following day. 

During the night an unceasing shower of 
shot was sent into the town, the flames from 
its burning houses showing the archers 
where to shoot. About midnight, however, 
I the besieged changed their minds, and mes- 
sages were sent over the walls asking for a 
cessation of fighting until the 6th of October. 
This being refused, and an answer being 
sent that they must unconditionally yield up 
the town on the morrow morning or not 



661 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



expect any terms, they agreed to send 
hostages the next day. 

Negotiations for the Surrender of 
THE Town. 

Soon after dawn on Wednesday the i8th 
of September, twenty-four of the most in- 
fluential rrien were sent from the town into 
Henry's camp, and a message was also 
delivered stating the deplorable state of the 
town, and asking that delay might be granted 
until the following Sunday. It was finally 
agreed that the Frenchmen should send to 
the Dauphin, and if not relieved by Sunday, 
the town should be formally given over to the 
English. 

The commissioners acting for the English 
and the French hostages having mutually 
sworn on the sacred elements of the Eu- 
charist, orders were given for the hostilities 
to cease, and the inhabitants of the town were 
told that they need not fear harsh treatment 
from the invaders, as their rightful king, 
Henry, did not desire to injure his territory, 
and wished his people to live in peace and 
plenty. 

The messengers to the French Prince re- 
turned in due time, with the answer that the 
army, not having been yet assembled in any 
numbers, relief could not be sent to the 
town. It was therefore given up to the 
English on the 22nd of September, the cir- 
cumstance of rendering up the keys being 
made the occasion of a most imposing cere- 
mony. At the hour appointed, Henry, 
apparrelled in his best armour, took his 
seat on a throne erected under a silk 
pavilion. He was surrounded by his prin- 
cipal officers and the peers who had journeyed 
with him to France, while the soldiery, 
standing in two lines, formed a long pathway 
from the tent to the town, through which Sir 
Lionel Braquemont, the governor of the town, 
attended by his chief knights, and those 
who had sworn to the treaty, walked to the 
presence of the King. As soon as they 
entered the tent. Sir Lionel Braquemont 
knelt before the throne, and presenting the 
keys to the King, addressed him thus, — 

" Victorious King, here are the keys of this 
town, which we yield to you by treaty and 
conquest, together with myself and my 
followers." 

Henry ordered his Earl Marshal to take 
the keys, and then made a gracious speech, 
in which he said that although they had kept 
hi*- town from him, yet, in consideration of 
their final submission to him, he would not 
be harsh to them. They were then enter- 
tained at dinner, after which they were 
handed over to guards who were strictly 
charged to treat them well. 

Some accounts state that the hostages 
were subjected to great humiliations, and that 



they were kept kneeling in an outer tent a 
long time before Henry deigned to order 
their approach ; however this may be, there 
was no doubt great ceremony observed, and 
they were in the main well treated for 
prisoners of war in those days. 

The fall of Harfleur was of great value to 
Henry from a mihtary and strategic point of 
view. It had taken thirty-six days of vigorous 
siege, and the defence had been conducted 
with the utmost skill and bravery, yet it had 
fallen at last, and the prestige attaching to 
his arms was consequently all the greater. 
The key to the fair province of Normandy 
was in his hands, and a large portion of the 
territory he claimed was thus laid at his feet. 

On Monday, the 23rd of September, Henry 
entered and took formal possession of the 
town. At the gate he dismounted, removed 
his shoes and stockings, and walked barefoot 
to St. Martin's Church, where he offered 
solemn thanksgivings to the Almighty for his 
success. He then issued commands that a 
number of women, children, and all those 
who would not swear allegiance to him should 
be sent out of the town. About t\vo thousand 
persons were thus turned away from their 
homes. An escort was sent with them as 
far as Lislebone, where Marshal Boucicault 
received them, and whence they were con- 
veyed to Rouen. The principal burghers, 
with several knights and gentlemen, were 
permitted to leave, after making oath that 
they would surrender themselves at Calais 
in the following November. 

In order to re-people the town, Henry 
caused to be proclaimed throughout England 
that those tradesmen who would settle there 
should receive the gift of a freehold house, 
to be secured to him and his heirs for ever. 

Continuance of the Campaign. 

So far the campaign had proceeded satis- 
factorily, but Henry's position was now such 
as to give him serious concern. The sur- 
render of Harfleur had been obtained at a 
terrible cost. Numbers of his men had been 
slain in the siege, a far greater number had 
been carried off by dysentery, and others 
were so weakened by the disease that they 
had to be sent home. It is said that at least 
five thousand men of all arms were thus 
forced to return; and as twelve hundi'ed were 
left to garrison Harfleur, and great numbers had 
deserted, the army was reduced to about six 
thousand archers and three thousand men- 
at-arms, — a very small number wherewith to 
prosecute the invasion in face of the large 
army the Dauphin was known to be collect- 
ing to oppose him. 

On the 5th of October, therefore, Henry 
held a council of war, at which several' of 
his officers urged him to return to England. 
It is said that about eight days before this 



662 



GALLANT KING HARRY. 



CO :ncil was held, a message had been sent to 
the Dauphin from the Enghsh King challeng- 
ing him to single combat if he was not now 
prepared to acknowledge Henry's claims. 
No answer was received to this, or, at all 
events, if an answer were sent, it was a re- 
fusal, and thereupon Henry called his council. 
The advice that he should return to England 
found no favour in his eyes. He said that he 
wished to view the territories that were his by 
right, and that if he quitted France so soon 
after such a glorious conquest as that of Har- 
fleur, he would be stultified in the eyes of his 
people, and his enemies would call him a 
coward. He trusted in God, and determined 
to proceed, and at least make a progress 
through his domains and embark at Calais. 
To this bold resolution we may say, as was said 
of another splendid feat of English arms some 
hundreds of years later, "It was magnificent, 
but it was not war." It was magnificently 
brave, but it was not wise. It seemed but to 
court disaster thus to ma^rch a hundred miles 
through a hostile country when he knew that 
for weeks his opponent had been collecting 
all the troops he could possibly summon to 
meet him. 

Upon the 8th of October, however, Henry 
and his little army quitted Harfleur and, 
proceeding in three columns, marched to- 
wards Fecamp. They were only provisioned 
for eight days. The young King published 
a proclamation forbidding his soldiers on 
pain of death to plunder any house or build- 
ing, or commit any depredation upon the 
inhabitants; no one was to burn, lay waste, or 
take anything except victuals and necessaries. 
Henry kept strictly to the terms of this pro- 
clamation, and every excess was punished 
with the utmost severity. 

The English at first met with but little 
opposition. Slight skirmishes took place 
here and there ; and at Arques, a small town 
about four miles south of Dieppe, some shots 
were exchanged, and Henry prepared for a 
battle, but the town surrendered and acceded 
to his demands to grant a free passage and 
an ample supply of provisions for his troops. 

On the I2th of October, the English army 
approached the town of Eu, where a division 
of the French army was staying. They 
came out in great numbers to meet the 
English, and a smart encounter toolc place, 
in which, however, the French were soon 
repulsed. An arrangement similar to that 
made at Arques was then entered into, 
the army being again refreshed with bread 
and wine. The next day they reached 
Abbeville, and found the bridges over the 
bomme all destroyed, and the fords held by 
strong detachments of the French army. 

The Preparations of the French. 
It was now felt that the crisis of the 



struggle was at hand. Hitherto the English 
army had not met the main body of their 
opponents ; and although up to the present 
time the invaders had been successful, yet 
they had not met the full force of the French. 
Henry and his officers now rode all day clad 
in their full fighting armour, and an engage- 
ment was constantly expected. 

The next natural barrier to their progress 
was the river Somme, which they rhust 
cross to reach Calais. For some time past 
the French had been actively engaged in 
collecting a magnificent army, which was 
gathered now on the other side of the river 
opposing the progress of the English. Until 
Henry had actually laid siege to Harfleur 
the French seem to have done but little for the 
defence of their country. This was owing, no 
doubt, to the imbecility or insanity of the 
King, Charles VI., the youth of his heir, the 
Dauphin, and the rivalries and jealousies of 
the two powerful factions, the Burgundians 
and Armagnacs. The danger of Harfleur, 
however, roused Charles's Council, and troops 
were urgently summoned from all parts of the 
kingdom. It was not, however, till Harfleur 
had fallen that patriotism rose superior to 
jealousy, and rival parties joined hands to 
support the common cause. 

On the 9th of September, at Notre Bame, 
Charles offered prayers for success against 
the English, and with great ceremony received 
the Oriflamme — the ancient royal standard 
of France — from the Abbot. He then marched 
direct for Rouen. There a council was held 
on the 20th of October, consisting of the 
most eminent personages in the realm, to 
consider of the affairs of the kingdom. After 
much deliberation it was decided to meet the 
English with overwhelming numbers, and 
fight a pitched battle which should entirely 
crush them. Accordingly, every effort was 
made to collect an enormous army, and the 
forces were concen' rated on the banks of 
Somme to oppose the crossing of Henry's 
soldiers. 

The Passage of the Somme. 
It had been the intention of the English 
King to cross the river at Blanchetache, a 
place of glorious memory, for it was here that 
Edward III. had crossed before the battle 01 
Cressy. But when near, Henry learned the 
passage was strongly held by six thousand 
French men-at-arms and many noblemen, 
and that to pass over in face of the dense 
masses of hostile troops lining the opposite 
bank was simply impossible. Some accounts 
state that this intelligence afterwards proved 
to be false, but that Henry could not pass 
because the ford was staked. Whatever 
may be the exact facts, it was decided to 
cross by another ford, higher up the river ; 
and the army marched southward in search 



663 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



of a suitable place, , but they found all the 
bridges broken, and all the fords strongly- 
guarded. 

The position of the English troops was now 
of the greatest danger. Before them ran a 
broad and rapid river, guarded by a large and 
watchful army ; their stock of provisions was 
failing ; disease was rife in their midst ; they 
were exhausted with long and fatiguing 
marches, and worn with anxiety. To cross 
the river appeared impossible, to march sixty 
miles inland to its source was but to court 
greater disaster, for even should they be able 
to obtain food to support them during so long 
a march, they would fall an easy prey to the 
enormous army the French could then bring 
upon them, when utterly exhausted with 
marching and weak from want of food. Yet 
to retreat to Harfleur was out of the question, 
for not only was the thought of the dishonour 
intolerable to the brave young King, but his 
ships having sailed from that port, there would 
be no prospect of getting to England ; more- 
over the difficulty of obtaining food would 
be as great there as here, for the French were 
laying waste the whole country. After long 
and anxious debate, Henry determined to 
skirt the banks of the river, watching his 
opportunity to cross. 

For some days did this state of affairs 
continue ; the English passing Amiens and 
Boves (where they obtained bread and wine 
as at Arques and Eu), proceeding along the 
bank of the Somme searching for a means 
of crossing; and the French on the opposite 
bank watchful and vigilant following all the 
movements of their enemies, and guarding 
the passages closely. By this means they 
hoped to tire out their English foes and weary 
them with fatigue and semi-starvation. 

Notwithstanding all these difficulties and 
dangers, the strict discipline of the English 
army continued to be well preserved. When 
near Corbie, Henry caused a soldier to be 
hung for stealing a pyx from a church. It 
was when near this place also that he gave 
that important order which was to prove 
of so much service to his army. One morn- 
ing as the young King was riding on through 
the wood near the Somme slightly in advance 
of his troops and surrounded by his principal 
officers, a scout came riding in with the news 
that the French cavalry were about to descend 
upon the archers; whereupon he gave the 
famous order that each man should provide 
himself with a sharply pointed pole, six feet 
long, and when attacked by cavalry, he should 
place it sloping before him. This was on 
the 17th of October; and next day the whole 
army was rejoiced by the news that an un- 
defended ford had been found at Voyenne, a 
small village not far from Nesle, which was 
to be their resting-place for the night of the 
1 8th. 



Immediately on the receipt of this encourag- 
ing intelligence, Henry sent forward an 
advance guard to prove the accuracy of the 
report, and to make sure of the ford, while he 
followed with the main body. It was an 
undertaking of extreme peril, for the way led 
across a treacherous marsh, through which 
ran a rivulet, and he was thus shut up in 
a corner between the two streams. It is 
difficult to ascertain why the French should 
have omitted to take advantage of such an 
opportunity; but it is very probable that the 
English were too quick for them, and they 
knew nothing of it until their foes had passed. 
Some writers assert that the French were 
not even aware of this ford, and that it was 
undiscovered until Henry's sharp-sighted 
emissaries, with wits quickened by neces- 
sity, discovered it ; others again assert 
that the French broke up the causeways 
through the marsh leading to it, and relied 
upon that manoeuvre for defence, being con- 
vinced that Henry could not attempt such a 
perilous passage. We are inclined to believe 
that by skilful generalship and prompt 
marches, Henry had for the moment eluded 
their sight, for after leaving Corbie he left 
the bank of the river in order to cut off a 
corner, for it bends considerably not far from 
the latter place; and as the movements of the 
English were remarkably quick, we may 
believe that whether the ford was known to 
the French or not, he was so swift in his 
march that he completely took the defenders 
by surprise, for they were obliged to march- 
round the bend of the river. Consequently 
his advance guard was over and the passage 
in his hands before the French were near 
the place. When they made their appear- 
ance, which they did about an hour after the 
advance guard had crossed, to their great 
surprise they received a cloud of cloth-yard 
shafts from the archers, and they found that 
the English had nearly accomplished what 
they had so long striven to prevent. 

First of all a detachment of lancers, archers,, 
and cavalry was sent across, and the water 
was found to be no higher than the horses' 
knees. The broken causeways through the 
raarslies were meanwhile mended with trees, 
faggots, straw, and stones. Henry then took 
up a position near the river to prevent crowding, 
and caused the soldiers to file across in order, 
which they did three abreast. It is said 
that some houses in the vicinity were 
rapidly pulled down, and the doors and walls 
used in constructing a rough bridge over the 
shallow ford. Whatever were the exact 
means employed, they were quick about it, 
for they were all over by the evening of the 
day— the 19th— on which it was discovered. 

The detachment of the French army which 
discovered the passage of the English, finding 
that their opponents had so speedily made 
664 



GALLANT KING HARRY. 



good their position, retreated on their main 
body, and trusting to their superiority of 
numbers and their determination to crush the 
English in a pitched battle, left them un- 



greatly to Henry's credit. His boldness and 
promptitude were unequalled, and he darted 
hither and thither among his men encouraging 
and giving orders with the most untiring energy. 




Sir Lionel Bra uemont presenting the Keys of Harfleur to Henry V. 



molested, while they concentrated their forces 
around the Calais road. 

Without doubt this passage of the Somme 
was a brilliant achievement and redounds 



665 



As Henry marched on direct to Calai?, 
he found signs everywhere of the enor- 
mous force which the Dauphin had col- 
lected to bar his progress. Onward, by 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Peronne, the roads were found so trodden as 
if multitudes had passed before his httle army, 
while no food or forage could be found, for 
the French had laid the whole country waste. 
The position of the English was now truly 
desperate, and the joy of crossing the river 
was speedily forgotten as the terrible dangers 
awaiting them became realized. 

But nothing could daunt the courage of 
the young King, and it was his presence and 
his manly words which kept up the hopes of 
his troops. He was met by heralds from the 
French King, who told him that they should 
certainly fall upon him and crush him in 
revenge for his conduct. The gallant prince 
replied with firm voice and unruffled face 
that all things would be done according to 
the will of God, that he intended to march 
straight through his dominions to Calais, and 
that if his enemies opposed him he should 
fight them, but he warned them to desist 
from the attempt, and prevent the effusion of 
human blood. 

Henry was as good as his word, and his 
little army marched steadily forward. Early 
on the morning of the 24th they crossed the 
little river Canche, and reached Blangy in 
perfect discipline. Arrived there, Henry 
lound from his scouts that the enemy were 
miassed in considerable numbers on some 
rising ground about a league distant across 
the Ternoise, a tributary of the . Canche. 
Perfectly undismayed, he gave orders to pass 
over this stream before it should be defended. 

The French are here ! 

On the other side of the Ternoise, as the 
English were ascending the hill towards 
Maisoncelles, a scout came riding in, his 
face all pale with fear, with the news that 
the French were coming, and in such immense 
numbers that they resembled a moving forest. 

Undismayed at this intelligence, Henry 
completed his ascent of the hill, and then, 
halting his army, went forward to view the 
enemy. Before him lay the plain of Agin- 
court, a name then scarcely known, but des- 
tined to become the scene of a battle which 
should immortalize the victor's name, and 
become one of the most glorious achieve- 
ments of the English arms. The French 
army lay there ; it was drawn up in three 
columns, and appeared so numerous that it 
seemed like a host of locusts spread over the 
plain. 

Calmly Henry returned to his men, and 
with great coolness ordered them to dismount, 
and arrayed them for battle. His bold 
language and courageous deportment ani- 
mated them even more than reinforcements 
would have done. I'hey expected to be at- 
tacked immediately, and after being drawn 
up in order of battle, they gave their thoughts 
to prayer and preparation for death. Many 



there were who fell on their knees and be- 
sought the blessing and protection of God ; 
the few priests that were with the army were 
in constant request for confession, so much 
so that there were not enough to attend to 
the numerous demands. 

It was here that Sir Walter Hungerford 
made that famous exclamation which caused 
one of King Harry's most characteristic re- 
marks, and which Shakespeare has immor- 
talized in his drama. While waiting for the 
shock of battle on that eventful night, Sir 
Walter (Shakespeare places the words in the 
mouth of the Earl of Westmoreland) exclaimed 
as he looked on the well filled French lines, 
and then on the small English army, " Oh that 
we had here to-day ten thousand of those good 
English archers who are in England, and 
would be glad to be with us if they knew our 
situation." To which Henry promptly replied, 
" I do not wish a man here more than I have ; 
we are indeed in comparison with the enemy 
but few, but if God in His clemency do favour 
us and our just cause (as I trust He will), we 
shall speed well enough." 

The Night before the Battle. 

After waiting in order of battle for some 
time, it was found that the French had taken 
up their quarters for the night in the villages 
of Agincourt and Ruisseauville, and had evi- 
dently put off the battle until the morrow. 
Accordingly Henry moved forward to the town 
of Maisoncelles, where his wearied men found 
rest and food. But before quitting the posi- 
tion, the gallant young King gave orders that 
all prisoners should be allowed to depart on 
condition that if he were victor in the ex- 
pected battle they should give themselves 
up again the next day ; but if he suffered 
defeat;, they were to consider themselves 
released. 

This done, he turned his attention to the 
disposal and arrangement of his army for 
the morrow. Gallant King Harry was the 
very life and soul of his toil-worn troops, and 
his men forgot their troubles when they heard 
his cheery voice, and saw his active form busy 
about them. For days the weather had 
been wet and wintry, the roads heavy with 
thick mud, the food woefully poor, and in- 
sufficient. It was only with the greatest 
difficulty that the baggage waggons had been 
forced forward. For several nights the men 
had been obliged to encamp with little or no 
shelter ; yet King Harry never gave up ; he 
passed from company to company encourag- 
ing the men by his presence and his cheery 
words, and even helping them light their 
watch-fires. And to-night his presence was 
needed more than ever, for their difficulties 
seemed to have reached their height, and 
many of the men feared for the morrow, the 
enemy being so numerous and powerful. 



666 



GALLANT KING HARRY. 



Through the thick night they could see the 
French watch-fires gleam redly in the gloom, 
and could hear the shouts and cries of the 
great host as it made merry before turning 
in to sleep. Confident in the superiority of 
numbers, the French were certain of victory, 
and played at dice for the disposal of the 
prisoners they would surely take on the 
eventful morrow. Their banners were furled, 
their armour and weapons laid aside, their 
baggage unpacked, and straw had been 
brought from the surrounding villages to afford 
them soft and easy couches. Their numbers 
have been variously computed at from one 
hundred, to one hundred and thirty thousand 
fighting men, while the English army cannot 
have been more than ten thousand, including 
the servants of the knights and the camp- 
followers. During the night heavy rain fell, 
and the weary soldiers suffered severely from 
cold and wet. In silence they burnished their 
weapons for the fateful morrow, and then 
confessed their sins and received the sacra- 
ment. A solemn stillness brooded over the 
English encampment, while their opponents 
spent the time in noise and revelry. 

Henry, wet to the skin, covered with mud, 
and aching all over from exposure and fatigue, 
visited every company of his little army to see 
that his men were as comfortably bestowed 
as was possible under the circumstances. 
With encouraging words he passed from one 
to another, and frequently gave them a help- 
ing hand in the erection of shelter-tents, or 
the making of watch-fires. As one of them 
is reported to have said, "The sight of the 
King was more refreshing than a draught of 
wine." 

Having thus spent some hours, he retired 
to a small hut near Maisoncelles, where a 
final council of war was summoned. Assisted 
by all his principal officers, the disposition 
and movement of the troops was decided 
upon for the morrow. He then sent out 
scouts to examine the ground ; and this done, 
he retired to rest. 

It was a dark and stormy night. The wind 
blew in chilly blasts, and cold showers 
drenched the sodden earth; the last leaves 
of autumn were whirled to the ground, even 
as on the morrow many a brave man now 
in lusty life would fall to his last resting-place. 
Gradually the noise subsided from the French 
camp, and all was hushed save for the moan- 
ing wind and the pattering rain. So the 
night passed, — an ominous, gloomy pause 
before the cries and shouts and shock of 
battle which would come with the dawn. 

The Day of Battle. 

Slowly and cheerlessly the morning broke. 

Gradually the cold grey light stole over the 

heavily clouded sky, and the stiffened soldiers 

rose one by one to their frugal breakfasts. 



There was as yet no sign that this day was 
to differ from any other that had just preceded 
it, for everything was still and quiet ; but 
to-day would see their fate decided, to-day 
would see a battle fought, the fame whereof 
would last for ever. The King had been 
up long before his men, and had reverently 
heard mass in his cottage. Then he pre- 
pared himself for the battle with unusual 
care. He put on his best and most magnifi- 
cent armour, which bore embossed on the 
breast the arms of France and England, while 
on his helmet, which was of that particular 
kind known as a bacinet, he wore a splendid 
crown. Having breakfasted, he mounted a 
small grey horse and rode forth to marshal 
his ranks, as coolly and collectedly as if it 
were a hunting morning in merrie England. 

As yet it was but scarcely light, dense 
masses of cloud had gathered overhead, but 
now no rain fell. The early morning air was 
keen and sharp, and the cold wind pierced 
the men to the very bone. Noiselessly, 
without the heart-stirring blast of trumpet 
or the roll of drum, the troops were led out 
to their various positions. The priests, the 
sick persons, and the baggage were left near 
Maisoncelles, with a small detachment to 
guard them. The former were commanded 
to continue praying all day for the success of 
the army. 

The main body, commanded by Henry in 
person, and consisting of about equalnumbers 
of archers and men-at-arms, was led forward 
some distance beyond Maisoncelles, to a fine 
open plain, where they could manoeuvre with- 
out difficulty, and the archers could have fair 
play for their weapons. The right wing, 
which also acted as the advance guard, under 
the Duke of York, was drawn up near a small 
forest; the left wing, under Lord Camoys, 
rested on another small wood. Both of these 
divisions consisted almost exclusively of 
cavalry. 

These positions being taken up, Henry 
next caused the archers to advance a little 
distance before the men-at-arms and formed 
them like a gigantic triangle, the point of 
which was towards the enemy, so that nearly 
all could shoot at once. The sharpened 
stakes, which they had brought with them 
from Corbie, were placed in readiness to be 
fixed in the ground, sloping upward and out- 
ward towards their opponents. They were 
also armed with hatchets and short swords 
or hunting knives, with which to defend them- 
selves at close quarters. 

Everything being now in readiness, Henry, 
accompanied by the Dukes of York and 
Gloucester and the Earls of Huntingdon and 
Kent, rode through his ranks stopping at vari- 
ous points, to address them in heart-stirring 
and inspiriting speech (which Shakespeare 
has paraphrased in his immortal play) : — 



667 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



" I charge you to remember, my brothers — 
for all Englishmen are my brothers — why you 
fight this day. It is to regain my just and 
lawful heritage, and to win for you a portion 
of this fair land. In support of my honest 
claims you may safely fight. Remember 
whom you are and whence you came. Your 
limbs were made in England ; your ancestors 
gained many a victory over those who now 
scorn you, and who have diced for you as 
captives last night over their watch-fires. 
But they will not take you captive. They 
have boasted they would cut three fingers off 
the hands of every archer, so that he shall 
shoot no more. But you will conquer or 
die; and you will never prove yourselves 
unworthy sons of such great sires. Not far 
off is the field of Cressy, where your fathers 
fought so well and gained the victory. Think 
of your fathers and of your wives and children 
now in England. The path home to them hes 
through yonder host. You cannot go home 
to them without cutting your way through it. 
Rouse ye then ! Think of the glory that will 
be yours, when you conquer an army not 
twice, but ten times your number ; how ye 
will talk in days to come when this day's 
work is remembered, and how proudly you 
will tell your children's children that you too 
fought with Harry at Agincourt on Crispin 
Crispian's day !" 

His address was received with shoutings 
long and loud. " Long live King Harry ! 
Harry for England ! St. George and Merrie 
England. God give you good life and a 
victory over your enemies!" These and 
similar exclamations sounded wide and far 
over the field, and gave the first intimation 
to the French that their enemies were astir 
and full of spirit. 

The French position was between the 
valleys of Agincourt (called by the French 
Azincourt) and Tramecourt, the main body 
having a large wing on either side. They were 
arrayed in three divisions, or " lines," each 
"line" being about thirty men deep. The 
advance guard, led by the Constable of 
France, consisted of eight thousand knights 
and noblemen, with their esquires, and about 
six thousand archers and cross-bow men, who 
were posted at various points of vantage, 
whenceit wa s considered they could most 
effectually harass their enemies. 

The immense quantity of rain which had 
fallen, rendered the ground a mere marsh, 
and greatly impeded the movements of the 
men, who were heavily weighted with their 
thick armour, and sank into the soddened 
earth at every step. For a short period, there- 
fore, no movement was made. 

After remaining in this position for some 
time, the French commander, probably think- 
ing that Henry would be intimidated by the 
sight of the great host opposing him, sent 



messengers proposing a truce. By the terms 
of this treaty Henry was to renounce his 
claim to the crown of France, and to restore 
the town of Harfleur. He was to be allowed 
to retain certain ancient conquests in 
Guienne and Picardy. 

But the Frenchmen little knew the man 
with whom they had to deal. He showed 
no sign of yielding or of fear, and his reply, 
dictated in the centre of the enemy's country, 
and in face of a hostile host ten times the 
strength of his own, was but little diffe- 
rent from the claims he had sent at first 
from his palace at Westminster. He offered 
to waive his claim to the crown if the 
King of France would surrender to him 
the duchy of Guienne and certain other 
cities and territories, and also give him his 
daughter Catherine in marriage, with 800,000 
crowns for her dowry. These terms were re- 
jected, and Henry, finding the morning was 
wearing away, for it was now eleven o'clock, 
and thinking that the enemy were purposely 
waiting in order to weary out and starve his 
men, whom they knew to be poorly provided, 
gave the signal to advance. Thereupon Sir 
Thomas Erpingham, a venerable soldier of 
the highest reputation, rode out to the front, 
and, addressing the archers in a short and 
vigorous speech, bade them fight their hardest, 
but to be wary, threw his baton in the air, 
and cried, " Now strike!" 

Forward went the triangle of archers in 
splendid style, the trumpets sounding and the 
men shouting. On either side were the 
men-at-arms flanking them, and bringing up 
the rear; and the confident Frenchmen, seeing- 
the small body approach with so much 
boldness and firmness, could hardly believe 
their eyes. The men over whom they ex- 
pected to gain such an easy victory were 
actually marching to the attack, instead of 
acting on the defensive ! But on they went 
those sturdy English yeomen unfearingly 
and unfalteringly against the mail-clad thou- 
sands of France. 

"Halt !"and at the word the archers stopped 
instantly, as one man. They were within 
range, lor the Constable of France had 
ordered his men to press forward. 

Another short, sharp word of command 
and the air was literally dark with the clouds 
of cloth-yard shafts which winged their way 
without pause from the mass of English 
bowmen. With fatal precision the arrows 
went straight to the mark, piercing through the. 
joints of the armour, and many a bold knight 
fell from his horse and died in mortal agony 
before he had a chance of wielding a stroke. 
Numbers of the horses were also wounded, 
and becoming unmanageable from pain and 
fright, they reared and threw many of their 
riders and dashed back upon the main body, 
which they threw into confusion. 



658 



GALLANT JUNG HARRY. 



It was the same on every side. From the 
front and flank poured forth the continuous 
flights of deadly arrows ; and the French 
cavalry, which liad been ordered to overlap the 
body of archers, on both sides, like a living 
wave, were sent back reeling on their supports, 
leaving at least half their number dead on 
the field. Some companies suffered even 
more severely ; and it is reported that of one 
division alone, of 800 men led by Clignet de 
Brabant, 650 were slain. 

Disheartened at this firstrepulse, something 
like a panic seized the advance guard ; and 
it was a critical moment indeed for the 
French arms, when the Constable, seeing the 
danger, rushed to the head of one of his nu- 
merous reserves, and, with splendid courage, 
dashed forward to the httle band like a hving 
avalanche. "These troublesome archers must 
be swept away," cried he. 

Regardless of the arrows which still poured 
on in deadly flight, regardless of the comrades 
who fell around them, supported by the 
burning excitement of the moment, and the 
overpowering desire to vindicate the honour of 
their arms, the mail-clad men swept on, and 
the ground shook beneath their heavy tread. 
With heads bent low, lances close to the side, 
and points well to the front, they came on, as 
though nothing should stand before them. 
It was a critical moment for the English. 
The tide of victory seemed suddenly to have 
swung back to their opponents. Their 
arrows were beginning to fail, and at this 
most supreme moment the deadly shower 
slackened. But now was seen the immense 
value of those sharp-pointed wooden pikes 
which Henry's foresight had provided. The 
archers kept them always close at hand, and 
now they were planted firmly in the ground 
sloping upwards and outwards towards the 
enemy. When therefore the shock of battle 
came, the mail-clad horsemen found them- 
selves and their horses impaled by their own 
speed on these lines of dreadful pikes. It 
was a fearful scene. In one terrible moment 
the air was rent by the agonised screams and 
yells of the tortured horses and the wounded 
men, whilebehind their shelter the archers still 
sped a few arrows to aid in the deadly work 
and add to the confusion. In vain the French 
horse attempted to ride over the barrier, or 
sweep the stakes away. If at places they 
partially succeeded, the archers rushed for- 
ward in a body, and with their sharp bills or 
small swords wounded the horses, causing 
them to rear backwards, while their riders 
were taken prisoners or slain on the spot. 
Terrible was the slaughter of the French, 
and the soft ground was soon covered ankle- 
deep with blood. At close quarters the 
long lances were most inefficient, and the 
nimble English, unencumbered with heavy 
armour or weighty weapons, darted hither 



and thither behind their lines of pointed pikes 
slaying their opponents by scores. 

Seeing, that in spite of his most brilliant 
efforts, it was useless to endeavour further to 
pierce ihe triangle of archers, the Constable 
of France called off his men, who retired in 
confusion. Instantly Henry ordered his men- 
at-arms to follow; and these sturdy warriors, 
bursting upon the French from either side, 
cut up the division completely. The English 
King paused not a moment, but taking advan- 
tage of the further confusion of his enemies, 
pressed all his men forward before the French 
had time to re-form their scattered line. The 
whole of the Enghsh line dashed onwards and 
drove the shattered remnant of the French 
first division back on their second line. It was 
now that the English loss was greatest, and 
the battle at its height. The Duke of York 
was killed bravely fighting at the head of his 
troops, and other noble Englishmen were 
slain. Henry had dismounted from his 
horse and now fought shoulder to shoulder 
with his men, sharing all their dangers and 
encouraging them with his manly words. 
The battle raged hottest where the sparkle of 
his crown was seen, and many a man died 
bravely in sound of his voice. The fighting 
was terribly severe. The French struggled 
bravely, notwithstanding their first reverses. 
But the English, flushed with victory, and 
remembering the desperate nature of their 
position, rushed on like an all-conquering 
tide, sweeping all before them. The archers 
threw away their bows, and catchingup lances, 
broadswords, or long handled hatchets, with 
which the field was strewn, rushed on with 
overwhelming impetuosity, slaying all before 
them. 

The second line of the French could not 
extricate themselves from the confusion 
caused by the rout of their advance guard. 
And being shut in by woods on either side, 
they could not deploy their men, or bring 
greater numbers to bear at one time upon 
their opponents. The carnage was so 
immense that the dead lay piled up in 
great heaps; and those from behind, not 
knowing the position of affairs, pressed for- 
ward to get at the English, and thus their 
comrades were made to fall over the dead 
bodies, and were easily put to death by their 
enemies. As the wall of corpses grew 
hideously higher, the English mounted upon 
them, and slew the French from this ghastly 
vantage post with their swords and axes. 

The battle now became more like a 
slaughter than a fight. The French, wearied 
and dispirited, over-weighted with their ar- 
mour, and massed together in such immense 
numbers so that they could hardly move, 
slipped on the soft and marshy ground and 
became an easy prey. Noble and gallant 
efforts, however, were made by some of the 



669 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



French leaders to stem the tide of defeat ; 
and when the Duke of Alengon saw the 
lines giving way, he rode forward in the press, 
rallying his men and leading them again and 
again to the charge. In the last of these 
encounters he came to that spot where the 
fighting was most severe, round the jewelled 
crown of England's gallant , young king. 
Then indeed came the supremest effort, and 
the commonest men on both sides performed 
prodigies of valour. Henry's sword kept a 
circle clear about him, and Frenchman after 
Frenchman fell before his blade. Alen§on 
pressing forward, entered into personal 
combat with him, and strove his utmost to 
vanquish the young hero; but Henry seemed 
to bear a charmed life, and his sword smote 
his adversary to the earth at last. 

Around the King, who was now re- 
mounted, fought the Duke of Gloucester, 
Sir Thomas Erpingham, the Earls of Kent, 
and Suffolk, and other noblemen, and the 
French made continuous efforts to break 
the little band. At last came sweeping 
through the field, like a thunderbolt of war, 
a company of eighteen knights belonging to 
the train of the Lord of Croy, who had bound 
themselves by a mighty oath that they would 
strike the crown from Henry's head or perish 
in the attempt. These men, keeping close 
together and putting their horses to their 
highest speed, dashed on to the spot where 
Henry, like a royal lion, fought fiercely at bay. 
With a tremendous sweep of his mighty 
sword Henry smote the nearest to the earth, 
while those around him engaged the others. 
His brother, the Duke of Gloucester, was 
severely wounded and fell to the ground. 
The King, with splendid bravery, leaped 
before him, and defended him until he was 
carried from the field ; but while stooping to 
assist in lifting him, a sweeping blow was 
aimed by one of the knights at the King's 
crown, and as Henry swerved it struck some 
of the jewels on one side and broke them 
off. The knight was instantly killed by 
those around, and all the men of that daring 
band were cut to pieces. 

Duke Anthony of Brabant also made a 
strenuous effort to reverse the failing fortunes 
of the French. He threw himself into the 
thickest of the fight and nobly endeavoured 
to turn the tide of battle, but he was speedily 
slain, and at his death the second division 
gave way. 

The third line, seeing the disaster which 
had befallen their comrades, took to flight ; 
the victorious English pressing on, made 
captives of those who remained. 

Slaughter of the Prisoners. 
And now occurred one of those extra- 
ordinary actions which at first sight ap- 
pears simply inexplicable. The gallant 



and manly King Henry, whose conduct 
throughout had been so magnanimous and 
generous, suddenly gave order that all 
prisoners were to be slaughtered. He had 
been informed that a large body of those who 
had been routed had re-formed and marched 
to his rear to attack his baggage and sick, 
and to engage him under more favourable 
circumstances. This, considering the number 
of prisoners, would, without doubt, have been 
productive of the direst consequences, and 
consequently the imperative necessity of 
self-preservation dictated the measure. 
Every man was ordered to put his prisoners 
to death. They refused, however, not, it 
would appear, so much from feehngs of 
humanity, but because they feared to lose 
their ransoms. A detachment therefore was 
told off for the bloody work, and the fearful 
massacre took place, in which only the most 
illustrious persons were spared. 

It had the desired effect, for the French, 
finding that the English were prepared to 
receive them, sheered off An attack had 
actually been made, however, on the baggage 
of the EngHsh, and many horses and much 
of the jewellery belonging to Henry and his 
nobles had been carried off. This appears 
to have been done by a number of armed 
peasants, who were severely punished after- 
wards by the French authorities. Moreover, 
those Frenchmen who were the cause of the 
slaughter of the prisoners by reason of their 
hostile demonstrations, without the courage 
to follow them up, were also severely censured. 

It is also worthy of note that all the French 
writers of the time regard Henry's action in 
this matter as perfectly justifiable under the 
circumstances, and consider that he had re- 
course to it with repugnance. They give 
him credit for his usual generous and noble 
conduct ; and, as it was with him a matter of 
life and death, they regard it simply as a stern 
necessity. If this is the view taken by those 
who were certainly influenced by every feel- 
ing to abuse him, we can hardly be expected 
to regard it differently, especially as the 
oblivion of the four hundred years which 
have since rolled by has concealed so many 
of the details. 

The Night after the Battle. 

This was the closing scene of the great 
conflict. The immense French host was 
scattered far and wide like autumn leaves 
before the breath of a mighty wind. But a 
short time since they were crowding thick 
together like locusts, full of confidence and 
elate with hope : three fateful, fatal hours had 
passed, and thousands were dead or dying on 
the field, and the rest were fleeing to the four 
winds of heaven. 

The carnage had been fearful. The corpsess 
lying as they had fallen, were piled in heap, 



670 



GALLANT KING HARRY. 



higher than a man's head. The French 
position was covered with waggons laden 
with provisions, bows, bill-hooks, arrows, 
lances, and military stores of every descrip- 
tion. After pursuing the flying enemy but a 
very short distance, Henry called off his 
troops and, assembling them in order, 
addressed them in a brief speech, in which 
he thanked them for their courage and their 
perseverance, and bade them regard their 
victory as an absolute proof of the justice of 
their cause, and admonished them to attribute 
it to the Almighty and not to pride themselves 
upon it. 

He then asked the name of the nearest 
fortress, and on being told it was Agincourt, 
he replied, — 

" Then this shall be for ever known as the 
Battle of Agmcotirt, for all battles should 
bear the name of the nearest fort to which 
they occur." 

The English now bethought themselves of 
rest and food. An abundance of the latter 
was quickly found in the numerous provision 
waggons left by the French, and soon a 
hundred watch-fires were gleaming red in the 
dusky gloom of the autumn afternoon. JVlany 
of the dead were plundered as they lay. A 
French writer, Monstrelet, says that the Eng- 
lish carried off the jewels and gold, but 
that the neighbouring peasantry robbed the 
dead of their clothing. Under the heaps of 
slain were found many men yet alive, who, as 
far as possible, were attended to. Huge piles 
of armour were collected and brought in to 
Maisoncelles. 

As the dusk drew on and evening closed 
in, the wind blew in stormy, fitful gusts, and 
heavy rain fell. The victors withdrew from 
the well-fought field, and left it to the silence 
and dreariness of death. 

The King entertained the most distin- 
guished of his prisoners at supper, and the 
men gathered around the fires in such shelter 
as they could find to recount the incidents 
of the eventful day ere they sank into well- 
earned sleep. 

Out there in the desolate battle-field, 
miserable, wounded forms, aroused from 
their swoons by the rain, crawled out from 
among the heaps of corpses into the adjoin- 
ing wood, where some expired, while others 
contrived to reach some of the surrounding 
villages. 

Early the following morning — Saturday, 
the 26th of October, 141 5 — the English were 
up and, securing their remaining prisoners, 
continued their march to Calais. Passing 
over the field of battle, they found many of 
their enemies still alive, some of whom, it is 
said, they put out of their misery, and others 
were made prisoners. Henry halted for awhile 
on the fateful field, and then made all haste 
forward. 

671 



It is impossible to tell accurately the 
number of the slain and missing on this 
fearful day. Sir Harris Nicolas, in his 
admirable and exhaustive work on the Expe- 
dition of Henry V. into France, gives a list 
of no less than sixteen different accounts 
taken from old records, in which the numbers 
vary from three o. four thousand to eleven 
thousand and upwards of the French, and 
from seventeen persons only, to sixteen 
hundred of the English. 

Contradictory as these statements may 
appear, Sir Harris Nicolas explains them, 
and forms an approximate estimate by re- 
garding the smaller numbers given as those 
of superior rank only. In that case we may 
believe that about eleven thousand men of 
all ranks were slain on the French side, and 
sixteen hundred of all ranks on the English. 

After the English had departed from the 
ground, the bodies of the most eminent of 
the French were sought out, and having 
been washed, were interred in the Friars' 
Minor church at Hesdin. Others were taken 
by their retainers to their own estates, while 
the great bulk of the dead were buried in 
three immense trenches, each twelve feet wide 
and twenty-four feet long. This ground was 
afterwards consecrated by the Bishop of 
Guisnes, and a strong thorn hedge planted 
round it to preserve it from the depredations 
of wild animals. The English had collected 
their dead, and burned the corpses in a barn, 
with the exception of the bodies of a few 
eminent persons, which were taken to Eng- 
land. 

The English army entered Calais on the 
29th of October, much hampered with their 
numerous prisoners and booty. Bread was 
very scarce, and the men suffered greatly from 
insufficiency of food. Henry stayed here a 
few days, and the people were very obsequious, 
the women and children crying aloud in the 
streets, "Welcome the king, our sovereign 
lord." On Sunday, the 3rd of November, a 
special service of praise and thanksgiving 
was celebrated for his great triumph. Mean- 
time, the victorious army was sent by divisons 
back to England. Some portions landed at 
Sandwich and Deal, and others at Dover; and 
delighted indeed were the men at finding 
themselves once more in their own country, 
and wonderfully proud of their great victory, 
and eager to repeat it to their friends. At 
many and many a chimney corner was the 
tale told that winter, throughout the length 
and breadth of the land. 

Henry delayed his passage until the i6th of 
November. He then embarked with many of 
his principal prisoners and distinguished men. 
And for the benefit of those who shrink from 
the horrors of the Channel passage in these 
days, we may record the fact that the passage 
was so rough that the sufferings from sea- 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



sickness of those brave men were so severe, 
that they said they suffered more severely 
then, than on the day of battle. It appears, 
however, that Henry was superior to even 
this complaint,— so the old chroniclers say 
(perhaps they slightly garbled the truth, wish- 
ing to flatter their sovereign), and that the 
others were much astonished that he escaped 
sickness and appeared as composed as when 
on shore. 

The people were overjoyed to see their 
gallant young King, and so excited were 
they, that they rushed into the foaming sea 
to meet his ship. He remained at Dover 
but one day, and then hastened to London 
with his prisoners. At every town on 
the way he was met by joyous crowds, 
and his entry into London was made the 
occasion of a gorgeous pageant, during which 
Henry's deportment is reported to have been 
singularly modest and unassuming. 

The war was renewed in future years, and 
slowly but surely the young King continued 
his career of conquests, until the fall of Rouen 
and the death of the Duke of Burgundy 
enabled him to dictate terms to the French 
king. By the terms of this treaty— known 
as the Treaty of Troyes— his duchies were 
secured to him, he was to act as regent during 
the life of the imbecile French King, and at 
his death succeed to the crown, while last, 
but no doubt Henry did not regard it as least, 
he was to receive in marriage the beautiful 
princess Catherine of France. 

Henry had now obtained all he desired, 
and his power and prosperity were at their 
height. He was the" virtual King of France, 
and all acts of authority v/ere headed, " By 
this the King, on the relation of the King of 
England, heir and regent of France;" while 
the imbecile King was forced to call him 
" Our well-beloved son, the heir and regent of 
the kingdom." 

But alas for the mutability of earthly honours 



and happiness ! Henry died in the plentitude 
of his power and the zenidr of his glor3\ And 
no doubt that event which then seemed so 
disastrous was a great blessing to the nation. 
For during the reign of his young son, the 
great possessions in France were wrested 
from his grasp, and with this loss ended all 
the English projects for large territorial 
acquisition on the Continent. These would 
have been found incompatible with that 
liberty which, after all, is the principal glory 
of England, and has so largely caused her to 
occupy her present proud position. It may 
be that there were far-sighted statesmen even 
then who thought this, and were not sorry to 
see France once more under her own kings. 

But be this as it may, it does not detract 
from the glory of the victory of Agincourt, — a 
victory the splendour of which is perhaps 
unsurpassed by any since, save the defeat of 
the Armada, and, four hundred years later, 
the victory gained at Waterloo. Of the 
splendidbravery,rigid discipline and admirable 
conduct of the English itis impossible to speak 
too highly, and, together with the courage and 
manliness of their gallant young King, will 
ever remain a glorious tradition in the annals 
of this country. That Englishman must be 
indeed unworthy of the name whose heart is 
not stirred at the memory of the noble deeds 
of that great day. 

The men who fought and won that glorious 
fight have long since mouldered into dust. 
The helmet of the King looks quietly down 
amid the solemn silence of the Abbey, and 
of Agincourt itself there remains but a 
memory and a monument. But through 
all the centuries yet to come, as long as 
the English name endures, the memory of 
Agincourt will remain as the most brilliant 
achievement of that brilliant epoch when 
gallant King H^.rry conquered France. 

F. M. H. 




672 








JoSEi'H LiVESEY (the Pioneer of the Temperance JSloveJucnt). 

THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT: 

ITS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. 

"The most remarkable instance of a combined movement in society, which history, perhaps, will be summoned to 
notice, is that which in our own day has applied itself to the abatement of intemperance." — Thomas de Quincey, 1845. 

" Every day's experience tends more and more to confirm me in my opinion that the Temperance cause lies at the 
foundation of all social and political reforms." — Richard Cobden, 1856. 



' Adam's Ale " and Noah's Wine — Temperance of the Ancients— Old Testament Temperance — Temperance of Early 
Christians — Temperance in Later Ages — Spirits and Anti-Liquor Legislation — Anti-Spirit Movement, 1829-32 — 
Development of " Teetotalism," 1832-35 — Joseph Livesey's Teaching — The Rechabite Order, 1835 — Abstinent 
Temperance Leagues, 1835-37 — Ireland and Father Mathew, 1838-40 — Teetotal Life Insurance, 1840 — Organization 
and Work, 1S41-49 — A Decade of Organization, 1850-60 — Sunday Closing Association. 1861-63 — Permissive Bill and 
Local Option, from 1864 — Temperance Public-houses, 1867 — Establishment of Good Templary, 1868-72 — Medical 
Temperance Movement, from 1873 —Denominational Movements, 1873-80 — Auxiliary Movements and Special Work, 
1S80-82 — Conclusion. 




"Adam's Ale" and Noah's Wine. 

GOOD many years ago, a writer in 
the Westminster Review remarked 
that Temperance Societies may boast 
of as ancient and honourable an ancestry as 
any in the world, and that in some of their 
features they are as old as history, and in 
others as modern as yesterday. V/e will 
merely glance at their ancient " water-marks," 
and then record their modern operations more 
fully. 



67 



The popular inference that water was the 
primitive beverage is crystallized in the 
phrase which yet calls it " Adam's Ale ;" yet 
Milton not unreasonably depicts Eve drink- 
ing and enjoying the " inoffensive must " 
freshly pressed from the luscious vine fruit. 
The brief records of the next seventeen hun- 
dred years give no indication of the existence 
of fermented or intoxicating wine ; but then 
came the Deluge, after which Noah planted 
a vineyard, and became drunken. An He- 

XX 



EPOCHS AND' EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



brewfable says that Noah's vines were fertilized 
by the blood of a sheep, an ape, a lion, and 
a sow ; and thereafter wine-drinkers became 
successively innocent, mischievous, fierce, and 
filthy, like these animals. But this discredits 
the grape, as erroneously as does theTurkish 
proverb, " Every berry of the vine hath a devil 
in it." 

Intoxication (from toxicum, "poison") is 
solely induced by the spirit alcohol, and the 
grape contains none. The grape contains 
about 25 per cent, of sugar, and, protected in 
its natural bottle, its skin, it will long remain 
intact, as witness our Christmas " raisins " 
and "currants," which are varieties of dried 
grapes. Old Noah, however, probably 
pressed out the fresh juice — the " inoffensive 
must" — and, during a few days' exposure, 
atmospheric germs would settle in it, de- 
compose or ferment the grape sugar, and 
transform it into say 12 per cent, of alcohol. 
Such, in brief, probably was, as it now is, 
the course whereby fresh unfermented wine 
changes into an alcoholic and consequently 
intoxicating beverage ; and— as the author of 
Hudibras puts it — 

"Which since has overwhelmed and drowned 
Far greater numbers on dry ground 
Of wretched mankind, one by one, 
Than ere before the Flood had done. " 

The Temperance of the Ancients. 

Grapes fresh and dried have generally 
been a staple food among Eastern peoples ; 
the fresh juice, too, was a grateful beverage ; 
and several processes of long preserving it 
from fermentation were commonly known 
among the ancients, as indicated in the 
Hebrew term Debesh, by the Roman Passim, 
and the Greek Glukos. Such wines were 
described by Pliny and other ancient writers, 
and are most recently expounded by Dr. Nor- 
man Kerr, in "Wines, Scriptural and Eccle- 
siastical." Pharaoh's butler, in telling Joseph 
his dream, at least indicated Egypt's royal 
beverage at that period — 1718 B.C. — when 
he said, " And I pressed the grapes into 
Pharaoh's cup, and gave the cup into Pharaoh's 
hand." Old writers refer to ancient Egyp- 
tian rules limiting the allowance of intoxi- 
cating wine to the priests, and prohibiting it 
to the kings; and Plutarch cites Psametichus 
(650 B.C.) as their first king to depart from 
this rule. Solomon, husband of an Egyptian 
princess, may have reflected that law where 
his proverbs declare that " it is not for kings 
to drink wine, nor princes strong drink." 
In ancient Hindustan, too, Megasthenes' 
History (cited by Strabo) shows that the 
Costes, known as Brachnians, Germanas, and 
Hylobians, had been abstainers from time im- 
memorial; and Budda, "the Sage" (500 B.C.), 
enjoined all to "drink not liquors that 
intoxicate and disturb the reason" — a pre- 



cept siiW generally practised by his followers, 
who now constitute a fourth of the population 
of the world. Chinese tradition tells how 
four thousand years ago the Emperor forbad 
the use of intoxicants, whereupon heaven 
rained gold three days; and history tells how 
his successor. Key, punished three thousand 
drinking subjects by drowning in wine ; 
and how (about 1,000 B.C.) the vines were 
uprooted by imperial edict. The Chinese 
philosopher Confucius (500 B.C.) also enjoined 
abstinence ; and the old precepts to the 
Chinese priesthood exhorted them "rather 
to drink melted copper " than sin-producing 
intoxicants. 

The Magi were an abstinent community 
in the Medean Empire. Herodotus says the 
ancient Persians drank only water ; and old 
writers tell how Persia's hero, Cyrus the 
Great, when a youth, refused the wine and 
rebuked the drinking of his maternal grand- 
father, Astyages, whose Medean Empire he 
subsequently overthrew, as he did that of 
drunken Babylonia, with soldiers whose ab- 
stemiousness he commended. 

The dawn of the Grecian Empire, about 
1200 B.C., reflects temperance knowledge in 
the reply of the noblest Trojan, Hector, to 
his royal mother's offer of wine : — 

" Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind, 

Unnerves the limbs, and dulls the noble mind," 

— an advanced exposition by the "father of 
poetry," Herodotus, 900 B.C. Ancients tell us, 
too, that the Spartans warned their children 
against wine by exhibiting their slaves in- 
toxicated ; that Lycurgus (884 B.C.) uprooted 
all vines in Laced^monia ; that Zalucas made 
it death to drink wine undiluted; that later the 
Epizephrii law decreed death to any taking 
wine save under physician's prescription ; and 
(340 B.C.) Epicurius's precept to his followers 
was, "Wilt thou support life?— Have bread 
and water ; for twenty years less than a penny 
a day has kept me." 

Of the Roman Empire, founded 753 B.C., 
Dionysius and others cite the early law pro- 
hibiting women taking fermented wine under 
a penalty of death, though they could drink 
unfermented raisin wine. Men under thirty 
years of age were also prohibited, save at 
festivals. Pythagoras, the Italianphilosopher, 
taught entire abstinence: Milo, "the Italian 
Samson," being one of his disciples. The 
African territories touched by Greece and 
Rome furnish other examples. The long- 
lived Macrobians of Ethiopia abstained, 
and the Theraputffi — "Healers" — of Egypt 
abhorred wine ; while Plato cites the valorous 
Carthaginians as allowing only water to be 
drank in camp, and compelling magistrates 
to abstain during their year of office, etc. 
The warlike Suevians of south-west Europe 
prohibited wine ; while, in Arabia, another 



674 



THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 



people — the Nabathte-ins — existed, of whom 
Diodorus Siculus (60 B.C.) wrote that it was 
a law among them not to use wine. 

Old Testament Temperance. 

A Divine command of abstinence from 
intoxicants was given during the Exodus 
(1491-1451 B.C.), when the priests were com- 
manded under pain of death for ever to 
abstain from drink during their ministrations, 
— an injunction repeated through Ezekiel 
nearly 1,000 years later, prior to the building 
of the second Temple. During the Exodus, 
too, God called into existence the Nazarites, 
whom hecommanded to "separate themselves 
unto the Lord " by a vow to entirely abstain 
from all grapes and wine— fermented and 
unfermented — an extreme safeguard called 
forth perhaps by unintentional drunkenness 
resulting from the people's lack of discrimina- 
tion between unfermented and fermented 
grape juice. This Nazarite vow was termina- 
ble by a ceremonious withdrawal. Three 
centuries later an angel told Manoah's barren 
wife that she must immediately similarly 
abstain, and she should bear a son who must 
be " a Nazarite unto God from the womb," 
and who should begin to deliver Israel ; and 
thus the mighty Sampson was born, who ruled 
Israel twenty years. The Prophet Samuel 
was born and dedicated under somewhat like 
circumstances, and is referred to by Philo 
and others as a Nazarite. Eventually, how- 
ever, the Israelitish rulers became "sick" with 
wine ; the administrators of justice greedily 
"drank the wine of the condemned ; " and even 
"the priest and the prophet erred through 
wine," and sunk into idolatry. Further, they 
had even given wine to the Nazarites, — to 
whose former purity and comeliness Jeremiah 
refers, — and for these misdeeds God ordained 
the fail of the kingdom of Israel, and its people 
were lost in captivity. 

Before the Kingdom of Judah similarly 
ended, a lesson was taught them by God com- 
manding Jeremiah to assemble the household 
of the sojournmg Rechabiies and place wine 
before them, which he did. The Rechabites 
replied that their forefather had commanded 
thein to secure length of days by abstaining 
for ever from wine, and by living a nomadic 
life, and they therefore refused the wine. 
God, contrasting such obedience against 
Judah's disobedience, condemned the latter 
to captivity, while He said of the Recha- 
bites they " shall not want a man to stand 
before Me for ever," — a promise repeatedly 
verified. Thus, Dr. Wolfe, when in Arabia 
in i8j6, found the multiplied descendants 
of Rechab still distinctive, and practising their 
old abstinence and other precepts. 

The refusal of the courageous Daniel and 
his three brave companions in captivity to 
take the king's meat and wine, and their 



consequent greater comeliness, only needs 
mention as beginning a period which fitly 
ended when he probably influenced their 
deliverer, Cyrus the Great, to facilitate Judah's 
return (606-536 B.C.). 

And then another abstinent community 
arose — the Essenes — whom Josephus tells 
us numbered four thousand about Jerusalem ; 
whose regulations combined the strictness 
of the Nazarites and of the Rechabites, 
and exhibited a purity of life extorting 
admiration even from opponents of their semi- 
monasticism. 

Temperance of the Early Christians. 

As the Christian era dawns, an angel fore- 
tells the birth of its herald, John the Baptist, 
and commands that he too shall be a 
Nazarite from his birth. He therefore not 
only abstained from fermented wine, but 
from the " fruit of the vine " in the cluster, or 
freshly pressed. His Divine Master was 
under no such pledge, and certainly drank 
' ' the fruit of the vine " at the last supper, 
and turned a large quantity of water into wine, 
at the marriage of Cana : but abstainers 
generally believe such wine to have been 
analogous to the pure unfermented blood of 
the grape which is still attainable, and not to 
the fermented wine which they admit was 
also in common use. The cause, however, 
need not depend upon disputed points, for its 
Christian adherents can anchor their prin- 
ciples to Paul's words : " It is good neither 
to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything 
whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, 
or is iTiade weak." 

The Temperance Bible Commentary cites 
old authorities showing that entire sections 
of the early Christians enjoined abstinence ; 
that tradition names Matthew, Peter, and 
St. James the Less as abstainers ; that Tatian 
(172 A.D.) abhorred the use of wine ; that the 
Severians " were averse to wine ; " that the 
Eucratites said it was " of the devil ; " and 
that the Manichees rigidly abstained from 
wine, but did not refuse the unfermented 
fruit. St. Augustme, though opposed to the 
Manichees, heartily commended others who 
avoided wine, and preferred water as the 
safer ; and St. Monica and others of un- 
questionable orthodoxy practised total ab- 
stinence. 

Temperance in the Later Ages. 
Mahometanism united various Eastern 
peoples under a rule of abstinence which 
no doubt promoted their physical vigour, 
and was in marked contrast to the inebriety 
which obtained among some of their "Chris- 
tian " opponents in the early and middle ages. 
" Pay tribute" cried the Saracen leader, Abou 
Obeidah, to besieged Jerusalem, " and be 
under us forthwith, otherwise I will send mer 



675 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



against you who love death better than you 
do the drinking of wine." And uhimately 
these Asiatics drove the Christian forces from 
Asia, captured Constantinople, and obtained 
a grip on Europe which is not quite loosed 
yet. 

At the other end of Europe the Spanish 
nation rose into greatness, and of its early 
soldiers Mariana {Hist, de Rebus Hispania, 
1540) says: "In war their sustenance was 
coarse and simple ; their common drink water, 
seldom wine. The lightness and activity of 
their bodies were wonderful." 

True, as the Germanic element dominated 
Central Europe, drinking became a virtue ; 
but even then some of the very poets 
of Bacchus abstained, for, as Longfellow- 
writes : — 

" Claudius, though he sang of flagons, 

And huge tankards filled with Rhenish 
From the fiery blood of dragons, 

Never would his own replenish. 
Even Pedi, though he chanted 

Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys, 
Never drank the wine he vaunted 

In his dithyrambic sallies." 

As early as 1517 the Order of St, Chris- 
topher was founded in Prussia to discourage 
health-drinking ; in 1600, an Order of Tem- 
perance was formed in Hesse to limit wine 
drinking ; soon afterwards a kindred society, 
called the Ring of Gold, was formed by the 
Count Palatine ; and later on Scandinavian 
drinking was rebuked by Carlos XII. of 
Sweden, of whom Swedenborg wrote : " He 
knew not what that thing was which men 
called fear, neither did he know of that 
spurious courage which is inspired by in- 
ebriating draughts, for he drank nothing but 
water." 

In England, too, the principle had its 
votaries. Not unreasonably does Mr. 
Bardsley, in his "Romance of the London 
Directory," assume that the ancestors of the 
many people named Drinkwater got their 
names from their abstinent practices. The 
sublime John Milton was a water-drinker too; 
so was the poet Waller. Sir Isaac Newton 
was generally abstemious, and so was John 
Locke. Sir Matthew Hale vowed against 
health-drinking. Benjamin Franklin, when 
working as a journeyman printer in London 
in 1727, drank only water, and showed his 
shopmates how a penny loaf was better than 
a pint of beer. Pepys Liary tells how he 
himself improved by giving up wine; Dr. 
Samuel Johnson strictly abstained ; and John 
Wesley denounced spirit-sellers as "poisoners 
general," and forbad preachers dram drink- 
ing. 

In 1814, Basil Montagu, O.C, published 
his '"'' Essay onFej-inenicd Liqitors, lay a Water- 
drinker." In 1820, William Cobbett (though 
believing in beer) issued his Plea for Sobriety, 



to show that spirits neither nourished nor 
warmed, but undermined the hiwnan system : 
and later, the witty Sydney Smith, in an 
hilarious letter to his daughter, Lady Holland, 
urges her to leave off wine, as he has done, 
and thus secured robust health and happy 
dreams. 

Spirits : and Anti-liquor Legislation 

The common sale of ardent spirits and 
malt liquors, as well as wine, was early inter- 
fered with by law. At first spirits were called 
Aqua VitcB ("Water of Life"), and were 
only used as a drug ; but as their use 
became common, they proved, as Dr. Ure 
says, the Aqua Mortis ("Water of Death ") 
to thousands. The earliest distilled beverage 
was probably Brandy, named from Brant 
Weill (" Burnt Wine "), consisting of the 
alcohol separated by heat from the residue . 
of the wine. Its original element is grape- 
sugar; and this fact led Jamaica sugar-planters 
to similarly ferment and distill cane sugar 
into an alcoholic liquor, and call it Rum, 
— from Sacchar;/;;?, " Sugar." Then grain, 
being malted, produced malt-sugar, and this 
(flavoured with juniper berries) was distilled 
at Geneva and called Gin; and finally another 
grain spirit was mainly produced in Scotland 
and Ireland, called Usquebaugh, hence the 
word Whisky. The process and product is 
so identical that the fermentation of grape, 
cane, or grain sugar, is equally called ''''vinous 
fermentation," and the intoxicating principle 
alcohol as produced from either is technically 
called " Spirits of Witie" " Full proof," or 
strongest rum, gin, whisky, or brandy is fifty 
per cent, alcohol ; forty-five per cent, water, 
and five per cent, flavouring etc. 

In the reign of Edgar, only one alehouse 
was allowed to remain in each parish, and 
large drinking cups had pegs inserted, to 
limit the quantity to be drunk — hence our 
phrase " taking down a peg." Ever since 
that time the traffic in intoxicants has been 
more or less under restrictive license-laws, 
which, in effect, permit a few, but prohibit 
the many from drink-selling. Entire pro- 
hibition was affirmed as early as 1552, when 
magistrates were empowered to suppress the 
ale-houses and " tippling houses " in any 
towns they thought fit. In 1556, distillation 
of spirits was absolutely prohibited ; but was 
afterwards allowed as a source of revenue, 
often for war purposes. In 1698, a tax was 
also levied on " malt, sweets, and cider," to 
raise money for war with France ; but the 
next year distillation was prohibited, as the 
grain was needed for food. In 1743, the 
" Gin Act" was passed, to raise funds for the 
German war. Lord Chesterfield, in a speech 
(still reprinted in the Treasicry of British 
Eloquence) vehemently opposed it as money- 
raising by poisoning and demoralising the 



676 



THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 



people, he declaring that "vice is not properly 
to be taxed, but suppressed," and that the use 
of things hurtful should be prohibited. 
Eighteen years later the distilleries had to be 
stopped again to similarly save the grain ; 
the people of Leadhills protesting against their 
re-opening, 1759-60, and refusing to drink 
their produce. In Ireland, during the years 
of scarcity, such as 1811-12, 1813-14, the 
distilleries were closed by Parliament on the 
same ground, and the consumption of spirits 
there was consequently reduced nearly one- 
half : the result (as proved by Parliamentary 
returns) being that the people imported and 
purchased more real home comforts during 
scant harvests with closed distilleries, than 
in years of plenty with the distilleries at 
work. 

Yet in 1823-25 such legislation was enacted 
as so facihtated spirit distilling and vending 
that the spirit consumption in the United 
Kingdom increased 120 per cent, in five 
years, and the increasing drunkenness called 
loudly for some movement to promote 
national sobriety. 

The Anti-Spirit Movement, 1829-32. 

Intermittent efforts having resulted in the 
formation, at Boston, in 1826, of the parent 
"American Temperance Society," and of its 
later numerous branches, the progress of the 
American movement attracted attention in 
Ireland ; and on August I4ih, 1829, the Rev. 
Dr. Edgar issued an appeal on Temperance 
in the Belfast Neius-Letter. 

On August 20th, 1829, the first of a series 
of Temperance Societies, on the Anti-Spirit 
basis, was formed, at New Ross, by Rev. 
George W. Carr, after correspondence with 
Dr. Edgar. The latter, with others, formed 
the "Belfast Temperance Society," on Sep- 
tember 25th. A "Dublin Society" followed ; 
and a "National Hibernian Temperance 
Society" had developed by 1831, wnen its 
secretary, Mr. (afterwards Judge) Crampton, 
— then Solicitor-General for Ireland, — re- 
ported 15,000 members in that country. 

In Scotland there had been intermittent 
efforts before the National movement began 
at Greenock, where, in October 1829, an 
Anti-Spirit Society was formed by John 
Dunlop, who long continued a leading advo- 
cate, and wrote a work on " Compulsory 
Drinking Usages '' of that period. The 
formation of the Glasgow Society followed 
in November; and in 1830 this developed the 
Scottish Temperance Society, their Teni- 
perance Record being issued by William 
Collins, the Glasgow publisher. 

From Scotland the movement spread to 
England through the efforts of Henry Forbes, 
a Bradford merchant, who started the Brad- 
ford Society in February 1830. Others 
soon followed at Warrington, Manchester, 



Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol, Birmingham, and 
in London. As early as 1829, one Boatswain 
Smith had republished some American anti- 
spirit tracts in the metropolis ; but it was 
left to William Collins of Glasgow to plant 
the first society in London, as in some other 
centres, and he having done this late in 
1830, a "British and Foreign ' Temperance 
Society" developed by 1831, and a Tem- 
perance Herald was issued. 

Now came the turn of Preston. On 
January ist, 1832, a Temperance Society was 
established there, in connection with a 
Mission School associated with the philan- 
thropic efforts of Joseph Livesey. It was 
headed by Henry Bradley, formerly of 
Bradford, where he had been associated 
with Temperance work. A general society 
for Preston soon followed, and, like the 
preceding societies throughout the kingdom, 
prohibited the use of spirits, but allowed 
the moderate use of wines or malt liquors. 
But Preston moved on, as we shall see. 

The Development of "Tetotalism" 
1832-35- 

In Ireland there had existed as early as 
1817a Total AbstinenceSociety at Skibbereen, 
but it had not headed any national movement. 
In Scotland in 1830, the "Dunfermline Tem- 
perance [Anti-Spirit] Society " had a leading 
spirit in Mr. John Davie, who, on Sept. 21st, 
concurred in promoting a re-organization on 
the lines of Total Abstinence, "excepting 
small beer, " — said to mean treacle-beer, as 
sometimes eaten with porridge. Dr. Rich- 
mondand others started the " Paisley Youths' 
Society" on January 14th, 1832, excluding all 
intoxicants, " except when absolutely neces- 
sary, " — i.e., as a vicdicine. " The Tradeston 
(Glasgow) Total Abstmence Society" was 
formed next day ; and the battle of Total 
Abstinence versus Anti-Spirit pledges was 
soon being waged in all directions. 

In England also the work developed. 
Among the members of the Preston Anti- 
Spirit Society were John King and Joseph 
Livesey — the benevolent Cheesemonger — the 
latter issuing The Moral Refornier, in the 
interest of morality and sobriety. These 
and others soon began to find reclaimed 
spirit drinkers could not take malt liquors 
without becoming intoxicated ; and hence 
the confab and agreement in Livesey's shop, 
where these two signed a total abstinence 
pledge on August 23rd, 1832. Several others 
similarly signed at a meeting of the society 
on September ist. Tfie matter was debated 
at the society's later meetings, in the old cock- 
pit ; and on March 23rd, 1833, the society 
agreed to constitute a separate section for 
total abstainers— the pledge being only "for 
one year." In discussing the matter a 
fervent convert, one Richard Turner, had 



677 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



declared that as to malt liquor?, "mode- 
ration was botheration " — he was for " tee, 
total abstinence;" whereupon Joseph Livesey 
cried, "That shall be the name, Dicky!" 
The word " Teetotal " was, however, in 
use generations ago, in some parts, as an 
emphatic "expression of total or entire; but 
here it was supposed to be an emphatic 
utterance of the word " total," and it was so 
caught up, and has become a dictionary word 
signifying total abstinence from intoxicating 
drinks. Richard Turner's tombstone records 
that he was its author in this connection. 

On April i8th, 1834, a "Youths' Temper- 
ance Society " was started at Preston on an 
exclusively teetotal basis, with a pledge " for 
one year ;" and in the following year the 
Parent Society abandoned its anti-spirit 
pledge, and, amidst great rejoicing, adopted 
continuous teetotalism as its sole basis. 

Joseph Livesey's Teaching. 
Societies in a few other towns had began 
to adopt teetotalism, but Preston was the 
centre from which earnest men missioned 
the country. Joseph Livesey mainly pro- 
pagated the new departure by his " Malt 
Liquor Lecture," which has been published 
and republished through fifty years. Num- 
bers of working men had spent so much of 
their substance in beer, that to them it was 
truly the '''poor man's beer," for they became 
poor enough. They preferred beer to bread, 
as illustrated on the sign of "The Brewer 
and the Baker": — 

" The Baker said, ' I've the staff of life, 
And you're a silly elf.' 
The Brewer replied, with artful pride, — 
' Why, this is life itself.' " 

Malt liquor had not been regarded as a 
cause of, but as a nourishing cure for, the in- 
temperance caused by ardent spirits. Livesey 
demonstrated that in making a gallon of 
malt liquor, ale, beer, or porter, 6 lb. of 
barley would be required. Out of this the 
malting process took away \\Vo. as " sprits" 
or " combs ; " by mashing, 2 lb. would be 
removed as "grains ;'' \iy fer-menting, i lb. of 
the malt sugar is changed into alcohol and 
acid ; and by fining or clearing, f lb. is re- 
jected as " barrel bottoms," leaving only | lb. 
of solid material in the liquor ; and this 
mostly gum and other innutritious substances 
including the hop flavouring. He showed 
that the brewers thus annually appropriated 
60,000,000 bushels of ^rain food, occupying 
1,565,000 acres to grow it. He demonstrated 
that a gallon of ale weighing 156 oz. con- 
sisted of 140 oz. of water, 7 oz. of alcohol, and 
9 oz. of remnants of barley ; and that 100 
parts of beer comprised 90 of water, 5 of 
alcohol, and 5 of barley extract, etc. It 
would seem that malt liquors have not 



greatly changed, seeing that at the recent 
Brewers' International Exhibition in London, 
the analysed barrel (144 qt.) of Burton Ale 
was labelled as : " Alcohol [Spirits of Wine, 
strongest), i^"^ pints ;" " Dextrine (substance 
resembling guni), -]lb. 1 2oz ; " " Maltuose 
{sugar of malt), 3 lb. 6 oz. ; " " Albtwienoid 
{fleshforming matter), i lb w oz. ;" the re- 
mainder being v/ater. Roughly recast, this 
would give in quarts : Alcohol 7, gum 4, 
sugar 2, flesh-forming matter i, water 130 ; 
total 144. Livesey further pointed out that 
apart from being valueless as food, all malt 
liquors were spirituous : a quart of such 
averaging about as much alcohol as an aver- 
age pint of wine, or half a pint of rum, gin, 
whisky, or brandy. 

The Rechabite " Benefit" Order, 1835. 

Abstainers did not Hke public-house clubs, 
and so, at Salford, on 25th August, 1835, there 
was formed the " Independent Order of 
Rechabites," a total abstinent sick-benefit 
fraternity, consisting largely of working men. 
It takes the lead as the oldest and largest 
abstinent benefit society, and has from its 
head-quarters at Manchester established 
branches, or "tents," throughout the kingdom, 
and elsewhere ; and has attained a member- 
ship of 36,000, and an accumulated fund of 
^200,000. Its statistical returns during its 
whole existence present a marvellous record 
ofthe generally good health of total abstainers. 
In comparison with those of the similar but 
non-abstaining "Order of Odd Fellows," the 
statistics (omitting fractions) of each of five 
successive years, gave the following averages: 
— Ofthe Rechabites 16 per cent, came on the 
sick list ; of the Odd Fellows, 28 per cent : 
the Rechabite invalids averaged six days' 
sickness each ; the Odd Fellows ten days' 
each ; showing that while there were 350 
days' sickness among 1,000 Rechabites there 
were 1050 days' sickness among 1,000 Odd- 
Fellovvs— three times as much as the 
abstainers. During the same five years the 
Rechabite annual death-rate averaged just 
over 7 per 1,000 ; the Odd Fellows' dealh- 
rate, just over 12 per 1000 — a rather high 
percentage for a Friendly Society. 

A kindred society, the " Order of the 
Sons of Temperance," was soon afterwards 
started in America, and being introduced 
into the United Kingdom, has here a fund 
of ;/^45,ooo, and 15,000 members. They 
exhibit a similarly low death-rate with the 
Rechabites ; while for five years their sick 
rate was nearly 8 per cent., in contrast to 
the Foresters' sick-rate of nearly 28 per cent. 

Abstinent Temperance Leagues, 1835-7. 

On September i5-i6th, 1835, delegates of 

many societies of Lancashire, Yorkshire, etc., 

met at Manchester, and constituted the 



67S 



THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 



" British Temperance League," — then called 
an "Association." In 1836, under the pre- 
sidency of Dr. R. B. Grindrod, a very noted 
advocate, the League insisted on teetotalism 
being adopted by its remaining Anti-Spirit 
Societies. Its head-quarters were at Bolton, 
and are now at Sheffield. With its staff of 
agents, and its 7 evipe^'ance Advocate, it still 
continues a leading — as it is the oldest — 
association inculcating both abstinence and 
prohibition. 

London had heard of teetotalism, too, but 
it was left to Joseph Livesey to inaugurate in 
1835 the first total abstinence society in the 
metropolis ; and after this an organization 
was developed, which, in 1836, was reorganized 
as the '•''New British and Foreign Temperance 
Society," Earl Stanhope soon signing the 
pledge, and becoming its president. 

On August loth, 1837, the Western Tem- 
perance League originated at Street, Somer- 
set, and, being afterwards reorganized at 
Bristol, gradually covered the West of 
England and South Wales with its missioning 
influence. With its agents and its Herald, 
it still carries on, in fourteen counties, an 
extensive advocacy. 

Ireland and Father Mathew, 1838-40. 

The most remarkable era of the Tem- 
perance cause was inaugurated in Ireland by 
the Rev. Theobald Mathew, a Capuchin friar, ' 
who attended a Temperance tea meeting, 
arranged by a Quaker, at Cork, on April loth, 
1838, and there signed the pledge of total 
abstinence. Fired with new-born zeal ; 
possessed of a yearning for the delivery of 
Ireland from its whisky curse ; gifted with a 
most lovable countenance and persuasive 
powers, he became the great apostle of 
Temperance. His priestly calling doubtless 
added to his influence. The people crowded 
into the towns he visited, and scores of 
thousands simultaneously, on their knees, 
assented to his pledge, and wore his tem- 
perance medal. His converts actually 
numbered millions ; the face of the country 
was changed as he laboured ; and in a very 
few years (as shown in Parliamentary 
blue-books), crime and the consumption of 
ardent spirits in Ireland diminished one-half; 
its drink revenue diminished over ^750,000 ; 
but the loss was far more than met by 
revenue from sales of more necessary com- 
modities. Father Mathew visited English 
centres, and the United States, with much 
success, noblemen and statesmen vieing to 
do him honour. He was an irresistible 
speaker like Whitfield, but not an organizer 
like Wesley ; and though many thousands 
ever followed his teaching, the bulk no doubt 
lost -interest in after years. While abused 
by traducers as selfishly making money by 



the sale of his medals, he actually became 
bankrupt. But his record was honest, and 
he was not allowed to fall. He peacefully 
ended his days with ^300 a year granted 
by the Queen, and his statue at Cork com- 
memorates his work in the Emerald Isle. 

The Teetotal Life Insurance 
Movement, 1840. 

In 1 840, Mr. Robert Warner (who hves to 
tell his story in 18S2) found that, owing to his 
known teetotalism, an Insurance Company 
wished to charge an extra premium for in- 
suring his life. Speedily he and other ab- 
stainers determined on independent action, 
and on Dec. 31st, 1840, the "United King- 
dom Temperance Provident Institution" was 
started in London, to insure total abstainers 
only for sums of ^100 and upwards, the 
insured to have a share in the profits. The . 
death-rate during the first ten years proved 
to be much lower that the average in other 
insurance offices. This success assured, they, 
in 1850, added a "general" section for ad- 
mitting moderate drinkers. The receipts, 
claims, and bonuses of each section were, 
however, kept separate, so that each should 
bear its own claims, and share its own profits. 
About 76,000 policies havebeen issued, and the 
accumulated capital is over ^3, 100,000. The 
comparative returns of the two sections startle 
the unthinking and impress all. Throughout 
the thirty years during which the two sections 
have existed side by side, the pcr-centage of 
deaths per thousand in the abstaining section 
has invariably been much lower than in the 
"generaP'section. Yet the acceptabihty of the 
administration to non-abstainers is shown by 
the fact that they outnumber the abstainers 
in the assured. Taking the ten years from 
1870 to 1880, the deaths in the "general" 
section, according to common insurance aver- 
age, should have been 2,753 i ^^^ they were 
a few over — viz. 2,810. By the same aver- 
age per cent, the deaths in the teetotal section 
should have been 1,556, but the actual deaths 
were only 1,162, leaving alive 394 of those 
abstainers who should have died, but who 
"could not die for the life of them;" and 
who thus left in the funds about ^80,000, 
which, had they died, their relatives would 
have drawn out. Had those insured in the 
general section exhibited a similar tenacity 
of life, 87S out of the 2,810 deceased moderate 
drinkers would have been still alive, and their 
section would have retained their claims in the 
treasury. The abstainers being longer-lived, 
receive a much higher percentage of bonus 
every five j'ears than do those in the non- 
abstaining section. 

Several of the other large Insurance Com- 
panies have since added total abstinence 
sections, and with similar results, as their 



679 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



prospectuses testify ; while on the other hand, 
many large companies will not insure drink- 
sellers at all : for while, as the Commercial 
World says, these statistics prove abstinence 
to be " most favourable to longevity," the 
Insurance Directory has to admit that " it is 
notorious amongst Life Insurance Offices 
that innkeepers and publicans are a short- 
lived class." 

Organization and Work, 1841-49. 

In 1841, an.^;i;//-teetotal Society was born, 
and died. A National Temperance Society 
c o m - 
bined the 
London 
workers 
in 1842. 
In 1843, 
theEvan- 
'g el i c a 1 
Union of 
Scotland 
ori g i n- 
ated ; and 
all its 
eighty 
ministers 
are ab- 
stainers, 
and all its 
ninety 
churches 
use un- 
fermented 
sacra- 
mental 
wine. 

Scotch 
represen- 
t a t i V e 
societies 
in 1844 
harmoni- 
ouslyuni- 
t e d in 
forming 
the Scot- 
tish Tem- 
perance 
League, 

which has reached over 10,000 members — 
subscribing over ^3,500 annually — and dis- 
tributes yearly ;{^4, 500 worth of its valuable 
Temperance literature. 

Then in 1845 the "Scotch United Presby- 
terian Abstinence Society" started ; and 250 
— or one-half — of the United Presbyterian 
ministers are now abstainers. 

In 1846, there was held in London the 
first "World's Temperance Convention," 
when the leading spirits of America and else- 
where fraternised with their British kindred. 

In 1847 was published a Declaration of 




Sir Wilfrid Lavvson (President o/ the " United Kingdom Alliance") 



2,000 medical men that abstinence was safe 
and desirable. In 1848 the first National 
MinisterialTemperanceConferencewasheldin 
London; and in 1849 was formed the-Scotch 
Free Church Abstinence Society, which, with 
its strengthened pledge to neither drink nor 
offer intoxicants, has Sir William Collins and 
Principal Cairns as Presidents. One-half of 
the Free Church ministers and 78 per cent. 
of its students are abstainers. 

A Decade of Organization, 1850-1860. 
The Established Church of Scotland started 

its Tem- 
perance 
organiza- 
tion in 
1850. 
This 
c o m- 
menced a 
decade of 
organ iza- 
tion,forin 
1 85 1 the 
English 
Friends, 
Qitakers, 
and the 
Irish 
Pre sby- 
t er i ans 
similarly 
organ- 
iied; and 
in 188 I 
the latter 
had a ma- 
jority of 
its min- 
ister s 
and stu- 
dents ab- 
stainers; 
18,000 
me m bers 
in its adult 
abstain- 
ing socie- 
ties, and 
20,000 in 
in its Bands of Hope. 

In 1852 Glasgow started the City Mission 
system which so unobtrusively labours to re- 
claim the inebriate and fallen. 

On June ist, 1853, there was formed at 
Manchester, on the instigation of a "Friend," 
Nathaniel Card, the "United Kingdom Alli- 
ance," for the suppression of the liquor 
traffic. Four years later it had secured the 
names of 4,000 ministers in support of its 
principles. The late Sir Walter C. Trevelyan 
was long its president, and was succeeded 
by Sir Wilfrid Lawson. With an income 



6S0 



THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 



reaching ^20,000 a year, it has grouped the 
English counties under fullyemployed district 
superintendents ; established local auxiliaries 
with agents in populous centres ; sent its 
organ, The Alliance News, everywhere, 
and strewn the land with millions of pages 
of temperance literature. 

In 1854 there was started in London "The 
Temperance Permanent Building Society," 
relating to property free from drink sell- 
ing, and whose receipts have amounted 
to ^5)53o,ooD, while it has advanced 
;^3,ooo.ooo. An Artizans' and General 
Dwell- 
ings 
Company 
since 
fo rmed, 
with a 
capital of 
1 , 000, 000 
pounds, 
has built 
some 
3,000 
houses on 
metropo- 
litan land 
where no 
drink 
license is 
allowed. 

Before 
this 
period, 
children's 
abstinent 
organiza- 
tions had 
been 
formed ; 
among 
them 
the " Lea- 
g u e of 
Juvenile 
Abstai- 
ners" at 
Edin- 
burgh, 
founded 

by WiUiam Hope, W.S., who has expended 
^60,000 in connection with it. Now, how- 
ever, in 1856, the "United Kingdom Band 
of Hope Union" was founded in London by 
Stephen Shirley, who is still Vice-President, 
Samuel Morley, M.P., being the Presi- 
dent. The Union has an income of 
;^6,ooo, and has affiliated to it about 8,000 
societies with their juvenile abstaining 
membership of about 1,000,000 souls, who 
are taught through its monthly C/t7'onicle, 
and its many other publications, and stimu- 
lated by prize competitions. 




Samuel Bowly {President of the " National Temperance League "). 



In 185 6, the "National Temperance Society" 
and the '"London Temperance League "united 
to constitute the " National Temperance 
League," of which Mr. Samuel Bowly, of 
Gloucester, is still the venerable president. 
Its annual income is ;^5;5oo, and its in- 
dispensable organ The Temperance Record. 
Its work is distinctively " moral suasion," by 
the agency of visitations, lectures, drawing- 
room meetings, and breakfast conversations 
in connection with the learned societies and 
educational institutions ; Crystal Palacey^/^J/ 
and the extensive circulation of Temperance 

. literature 
through 
an asso- 
c i a t ed 
" Nation- 
al Tem- 
perance 
Publica- 
tion De- 
pot." 

In 1857 
was held 
the first 
anniver- 
s a r y of 
what 
has de- 
veloped 
into the 
' Midland 
T e m - 



per ance 
League," 
andwhich 
still con- 
tin u e s, 
with in- 
creasing 
activity. 
In 1858, 
t h e 
"North of 
England 
Temper- 
ance Lea- 
gue" was 
formed, 
and, led 

by Alderman Charlton, has ever since worked 
Northumberland, Cumberland Westmore- 
land, and Durham, for abstinence and pro- 
hibition. 

The busy decade was closed by the start- 
ing in 1859 of the "Scottish Permissive Bill 
and Temperance Association" at Glasgow, 
with the Social Reformer as its organ ; and 
the "Irish Temperance League" at Belfast, 
issuing the League yonrnal. Both of these 
still continue active organizations, disburs- 
ing ^4,000 to ;^5jOOo annually. 



6S1 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



" Sunday Closing Association," 
1861-63. 

In 1 861, the first local society for closing ; 
public-houses on Sunday was started at Hull; . 
and from this came a National organization | 
at Derby in 1863. Sabbatarian Scotland had i 
in 1853 secured entire Sunday closing; and in 
the following ten years the Scotch con- 
sumption of spirits decreased fifteen million 
gallons, or over 20 per cent, (although the 
population had largely increased) ; on the 
other hand the consumption of spirits in 
England and Wales increased in the same 
ten years twenty million gallons, or over 20 
per cent. 

The " Central Sunday Closing Association" 
was reorganized at Manchester in 1866, Mr. | 
Edward Whitwell of Kendal being its lead- 
ing spirit. It has probably spent ^35,000 in 
active advocacy, and early helped to establish 
a separate society in Ireland. The latter 
scored a victory ini 878, when the Irish Sunday 
Closing Act was passed, except as to five 
towns, where the hours of sale were reduced 
from seven to five. Government returns 
show that since Sunday closing in Ireland 
there has been a reduction in the consumption 
of spirits and beer from ^12,169,915 worth in 
1877 to ^9,174,803 in 1880, being ^2,995,112 
less than when Sunday sale was allowed. 
The arrests for drunkenness were reduced from 
110,903 in 1877, to 89,980 in 1880, or 20,923 
fewer. Of arrests on Sundays — apart from 
other days — there were during the last two 
and a half years preceding Sunday closing, 
11,887 arrests, and in the succeeding two 
and a half years only 4,269, — a reduction of 
7,618, or 64 per cent. A separate analysis 
shows a reduction of 30 per cent, in the five 
exempted towns following on the reduction 
of hours ; and a late canvass of house- 
holders in these towns, show 76,817 for, and 
only 13,702 against the extension of entire 
Sunday closing to them. 

A canvass of house-holders in all parts of 
Wales showed 98 per cent, in favour of 
entire Sunday closing for the Principahty. 
In the last days of the session of 1881, 
Parliament passed the Welsh Act, and it 
came into force at the various hcensing 
sessions in 1882. 

In England the householders in 500 towns 
and villages have been canvassed with 
separate voting papers, the result showing 
seven to one in favour of Sunday closing. 
In June 1880, the House of Commons, with- 
out a division, affirmed the necessity for 
legislation stopping the Sunday sale of 
liquor for consumption on the premises ; 
and the Cabinet has later supported the 
right of counties to secure entire Sunday 
closing when they so desire. 



The Permissive Bill and Local Option, 
FROM 1864. 

Between 1823 and 1830, legislation cheapen- 
ing spirits had increased the consumption 
120 per cent. Then the Beer Act of 1830 
had been advocated to correct excessive spirit 
drinking, by making malt liquors more 
accessible ; but while during the succeeding 
five years the consumption of beer increased 
25 per cent., that of spirits also increased 8 
per cent. Then in 1 860 the Wine Bill was 
adopted, and soon several thousands of 
grocers obtained, first wine, and then spirit 
licenses; their main source of supply — Messrs. 
Gilbey increasing their annual sales to over 
800,000 gallons of wine, and over 900,000 
gallons of spirits. This " legislation in the in- 
terest of Temperance" ! commenced a decade 
which showed 25 per cent, increase in the 
national expenditure on intoxicants, and 
drew a protest, through the Lancet, from 
nearly r,ooo medical men, who attributed to 
these Grocers' Licenses the great increase in 
female intemperance. 

In 1864 commenced the parliamentary 
campaign of Sir Wilfrid Lawson with his 
" Permissive Bill," which measure had all 
the forces of the " United Kingdom Alli- 
ance " at its back ; and had been no doubt 
stimulated by a great International Temper- 
ance and Prohibition Convention held in 
London three years before. The principle of 
the Bill was, that if any locality determined 
by a majority of two-thirds of the taxpayers 
that there should be no license issued for 
the term of three years, then that decision 
should prevail, and no common sale of in- 
toxicating beverages be allowed during that 
time — nor after, unless the taxpayers reversed 
their decision. On the first division, the votes 
were 40 for, and 279 against. 

The agitation was, however, continued. 
Originally moved by an " Alliance " sup- 
porter (Archdeacon Sandford) the Convoca- 
tion of Canterbury instituted an exhaustive 
inquiry into the subject of Intemperance, and 
in 1869 its voluminous report was published, 
and presented to Her Majesty. It contained 
thousands of returns from Clergyman, Gov- 
ernors of Gaols, Masters of Workhouses, and 
Heads of Lunatic Asylums, which showed 
that over 1,400 parishes in the Southern Pro- 
vince had no drinkshops, and consequently 
little or no crime, pauperisrn, or insanity ; 
while, on the other hand, the bulk of the 
crime, pauperism, and insanity of the Pro- 
vince, and its consequent burden of taxation, 
etc., came from drink consumption, fostered 
by the public-house .system, against which 
the public should possess protective powers. 

After varying divisions, SirWilfrid Lawson, 
in 1878, secured in the House of Commons 
106 votes for, to 319 against, his Permissive 



68: 



THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 



Bill ; and the next year he deferred to state- 
men who objected to its provisions but 
assented to its principle, and resolved to 
drop the Bill, and proceed by resolution. 
Accordingly in 1879 Sir Wilfrid moved as a 
resolution an almost literal extract from the 
above-named Convocation Report, as fol- 
lows : — 

" That inasmuch as the ancient and avowed 
object of licensing the sale of intoxicating 
liquors is to supply a supposed public want, 
without detriment to the public welfare, 
this House is of opinion that a legal power 
of restraining the issue or renewal of licenses 
should be placed in the hands of the persons 
most deeply interested and affected, namely 
the inhabitants themselves, who are entitled 
to protection from the injurious consequences 
of the present system, by some efficient mea- 
sure of local option." 

The resolution was lost; it receiving 185 
votes for, and 273 against. On March 5th, 
1880, just as the Beaconsfield Government was 
going out of office, the resolution was again 
rejected: receiving 166 votes for, and 280 
against it. The dissolution of Parliament 
gave temperance people the wished-for oppor- 
tunity to use their political influence, and the 
Gladstone Government coming in, the above 
quoted Local Option resolution was, on June 
1 8th, 1880, adopted by 245 votes, against 219 
— including pairs. This triumph scored, Sir 
Wilfrid, in 1881, induced the House of Com- 
mons to declare that Government ought, by 
Bill, to give effect to the resolution. This 
the Premier assented to, but the pressure of 
business connected with the Anti-rent agita- 
tion in Ireland was held to prevent action 
upon it then, and in the 1S82 session. The 
Times observes that Mr. Wm. Hoyle, the 
most notable statistican on the subject, com- 
putes that the entire rental value of land in 
Ireland (before recent reductions) amounted 
to ^11,518,392 per annum; while the in- 
habitants ot Ireland have during the ten 
years, 1870-80, spent in intoxicants an average 
of ^13,823,102 annually ; or ^2,304,710 more 
per year in drink than all dues for rent. 

In the meantime the question has moved 
on in the British Colonies, and in 1878 the 
Canadian Parliament adopted " The Tem- 
perance Act,"givingtothevotersofeachcounty 
in the Dominion the power to entirely suppress 
the drink traffic. An appeal from Nova 
Scotia against this Act, as unconstitutional, 
was dismissed by the Dominion Court in 
1881 ; and the same case has been similarly 
decided in 1882 by the English courts, which 
thus declare the constitutionality of such 
prohibition of the traffic in intoxicants. 

The Temperance Public-house Move- 
ment, 1867. 

Temperance Hotels had multiplied, in- 



683 



eluding the "Trevelyan" at Manchester, 
costing ^20,000; London had long had its 
coffee-houses of various kinds ; but the era 
of temperance public-houses may be said to 
have commenced in 1867, when Mr. and Mrs. 
Hind Smith originated the " British Work- 
man Public-house" movement at Leeds, 
v^fhere, by securing old beer-houses, etc., they 
transformed them into temperance public- 
houses, where labouring men could resort to 
read the newspapers, hold their "free and 
easy," and purchase unintoxicating beverages 
and light refreshments. The idea spread else- 
where, and many hundreds of such houses 
were thus secured. Some, however, cost 
thousands of pounds, and included public 
dining rooms and hotel accommodation; but 
the bulk were simply rivals to the beer-houses. 
The spirit shops, however, also met with 
rivalry when the idea was further developed 
in Liverpool by Ronald McDougall and others, 
and "Temperance Cafes" were opened; and 
what was called the " Cocoa-house " System 
took root there in 1875. The beverages sold 
included coffee and tea also, and the vast 
business done incited the formation of 
" Coffee-house" companies in all directions 
— some of which, by the way, sell more tea 
than coffee. The promoters, however, have 
not been content with old beer-houses, but 
have in places opened " Coffee Palaces," 
rivalling the great gin palaces in appearance, 
and furnishing excellent refreshments at low 
yet remunerative rates. The fact that the 
Liverpool Company can sell weekly 20,000 
gallons of unintoxicating beverages, and 
receive ^75,000 a year ; the Birmingham 
Company, ^^55,000; Swansea, ^40,000, and 
the Bradford Company, ^35,000 a year, will 
in some measure account for the now lessen- 
ing consumption of intoxicants, and the de- 
creasing value of public-house property. An 
illustrated organ, the Coffee Public-house 
News, represents the movement. The chan- 
nels opened in these houses for cheap 
aerated beverages seemed to invite higher 
attempts, which have resulted in the invention 
and consumption amongst the middle classes 
of enormous quantities of "Zoedone," "Phos- 
phodonc," "Vin Sante," "Hygeia," and other, 
non-alcholic rivals of the wine bottle. A 
notable indica ion of the further extension of 
Temperance principles among others besides 
the working classes is furnished by Mr. Cook, 
the Excursionist, in successfully establishing 
the "City Club," at Ludgate Circus, on total 
abstinent principles, at a first cost of several 
thousands of pounds. 

Establishment of Good Templary, 

186S— 72. 

The "Good Templar Order" (which origi- 
nated in America thirty years ago), is a non- 
beneficiary fraternity — " The Freemasonry 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



of Teetotalism" — and was planted in this 
kingdom in 1868 by its present English 
chief, Joseph Malins, at Birmingham, which 
remains its English head-quarters. In 1869 it 
was planted in Scotland; and by 1870, Grand 
Lodges were established in both countries. 
In 1 87 1 -the Grand Lodge of Ireland opened ; 
and in 1872, the Grand Lodge of Wales, 
which was afterwards divided into two — an 
English speaking and a Welsh speaking one. 
From 1872 to 1874, the increase of the Order 
in the United Kingdom was abnormally 
rapid, and a reaction followed, but this has 
ceased, and latterly it has been steadily 
gaining. Persons of both sexes are equally 
eligible for membership, and to serve in any 
capacity, each paying a small entrance fee 
and quarterly subscription. The rules and 
journals of proceedings are accessible to the 
public ; and the opening, closing, and initi- 
atory services, though not publicly issued, 
consist only of counsels, prayer, the com- 
munication of exclusive methods of recog- 
nition, and the taking of 1 pledge of Ufe long 
abstinence from intoxi- 
cants. It also aims at 
the legal suppression 
of the drink traffic. 
Its local lodges hold 
'• sessions " — for mem- 
bers only — every week, 
when, besides the 
ceremonial and formal 
business, conducted 
under parliamentary 
rules, there are read- 
ings, music, debates, 
addresses, or lectures. 
Every member wears 
a " regalia," or sash, 
attained in the Order. 




Tf.mi'erance Orphanage, Sunbury-on-1hames. 



indicating the rank 
Third deeree mem- 



bers are elected to constitute the District, 
or County Lodge, which may meet quarterly ; 
and the various districts elect representatives 
constituting the National or Grand Lodge, 
a movable annual meeting. The Grand 
Lodges are represented in the International 
or " Right Worthy Grand Lodge of the 
World," which met in 1881 in Ireland 
(where the five divisions of the globe were 
represented), and fixed its next meeting 
for 1883 in Nova Scotia. The Order exists 
in eighty different countries and territories. 
The membership in the United Kingdom in 
1881 was 142,853 adults (12,000 more being in 
a separate Order), and about 85,000 in the 
juvenile section, the latter inculcating not 
only abstinence from intoxicants, but from 
tobacco, gambling, and profanity. There are 
over 40,000 adults in 683 lodges, and 20,000 
juniors in about 300 branches under the 
Scotch Grand Lodge, which employs a staff 
of agents, and (like the Welsh Grand Lodges, 
which also have some thousands of adult and 



junior members), issues a monthly organ. The 
Grand Lodge of England'now has over 90,000 
adults in 2,000 lodges, and about 50,000 
juvenile templars in 800 temples ; all meeting 
weekly, besides holding about 10,000 public 
meetings each year. The English organ is 
the weekly Good Templajs' Watchword; 
several districts also issuing monthly papers. 
The members throughout the kingdom 
probably subscribe ^50,000 per annum, and 
spend most of it in local working, — a per- 
centage supporting the District, Grand, and 
Right Worthy Grand Lodges. By voluntary 
contributions they have " annuitied " old 
John King, the early pledge signer; expended 
hundreds of pounds in enrolling the ex-slaves 
of the American States ; presented a life- 
boat, etc., to the National Life-Boat Insti- 
tution ; raised ^1,500 towards the Temper- 
ance Hospital ; and started the Temperance 
Orphanage at a cost of ^4,500. 

The Medical Movement from 1873. 
All thiough the hst century certain medical 
writers were dis- 
puting the utiHty of 
alcohoUc beverages, 
and in 1802, Dr. 
Beddoes had declared 
in his Hygeia, that the 
injury from any fer- 
mented liquor is to be 
measured by the quan- 
tity of alcohol or ar- 
dent spirit which is 
to be obtained from 
it. Later, Sir Astley 
Cooper, President of 
the Royal College of 
' I never suffer ardent 
believing them to be 
evil spirits." Dr. Beaumont, of Bradford, 
was one of the ablest sponsors of the move- 
ment of 1830, while his American namesake 
spent years in experimenting upon the 
accidentally exposed stomach of Alexis St. 
Martin, demonstrating the power of intoxi- 
cants to retard digestion. By 1839, Dr. 
Percy found by experiments on dogs, that 
within two minutes after intoxicants were 
swallowed, the alcohol reached the brain. 
In 1849, Dr. Davy demonstrated to the 
Royal Society, how alcohol lowered, instead 
of increased the temperature of the body. 
In 1853, Virchow, and in 1854, Boecker, 
showed how alcohol kept effete matter in the 
blood, and lessened its vitality ; in 1865, Dr. 
H. Munroe, and Dr. Thompson verified in 
England Beaumont's experiments as to 
alcohol retarding digestion; and in 1870, 
Parkes and Wallowitz's experiments were 
brought before the Royal Society, showing 
that one ounce of alcohol caused the heart to 
beat 43,000 times more in twenty-four hours. 



Surgeons, had said, 
spirits in my house, 



684 



THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 



In the meantime the action of intoxicants 
even as medicines was being questioned. 
Dr. Higginbotham of Nottingham had never 
prescribed such since 1832, and challenged 
disproof of his increased success in curing 
patients ; Dr. Simon NichoUs, of Longford, 
by stopping alcoholic prescription during the 
cholera epidemic, claimed to have reduced 
the mortality among his patients from ninety- 
four to thirty-three per cent. ; others gave 
like testimony, while Dr. Mudge, of Bodmin, 
had published a dictionary of non-alcoholic 
treatment. Others also protested that the 
past "bleeding" and "purging" eras were 
no more irrational than the later " alcoholic " 
era; and this was emphasised when, in 1871, a 
document was signed by 269 members of the 
medical staffs of the London Hospitals urging 
that alcoholics should be prescribed with 
the same care as any other drug, and not be 
indiscriminately obtained or continually taken. 

The fact, too, that by the needless prescrip- 
tion of intoxicants reclaimed drunkards were 
sometimes drawn to fatal intemperance, 
helped to lead the Rev. 
Dawson Burns and 
G. Wilson McCree 
further 
1872, at 
of the 
Temper- 



to suggest 
steps, and in 
the rooms 
" National 

ance League," a Con 
ference projected a 
hospital where all 
diseases and opera- 
tions should be treated 
without intoxicants. 

Accordingly, on 
October 6th, 1873, the 
" London Temperance Hospital" was opened 
in temporary premises in Gower Street ; and 
by 1880, it had received 860 in-patients, of 
whom 472 had been cured, and 350 relieved, 
while only 38 died — a very low death-rate for 
a hospital. The out-patients numbered over 
7,000. About one-third of each class were 
not previously abstainers. Such success led 
to their projecting a new hospital in Hamp- 
stead Road, part of which was opened by the 
Lord Mayor on 4th March, 1S81, costing over 
;£ 20,000, which sum was already subscribed. 
The senior physician is Dr. James Edmunds, 
the triple gold medallist. The hospital has 
during its nine years' existence never spent a 
penny in alcoholic intoxicants. During the 
same period the twelve principal metropolitan 
hospitals have apparently spent in wine, 
spirits, and malt liquors, over ^50,000, their 
exact expenditure on such in the year 1878 
being £6,j66 ias. 2d. ; the amount of alcohol 
prescribed varying from 85 oz. per patient in 
one hospital to 33^ oz. in another. 

Our prisoners have thrived under constant 
compulsory abstinence ; but in our Unions 




London Temperance Hospital. 



not only officers, but paupers — sick, aged, 
and " working " — have often had '' drink 
allowance," the average annual cost varying 
for indoor paupers, from 4^. yd. per head 
in Carnarvon, to ^4 6s. z^d. per head in 
Radnor ; while outdoor paupers varied from 
4d. per head in Cardigan, to ^i ly. per 
head in Berks. Scotland and Ireland, dur- 
ing the last decade have similarly varied, — 
one Irish Union spending 3^-. 4^. per inmate, 
and another spending in the same year 
£1 ^s. lod. per inmate; and one Scotch 
Union spent is. 2d. per inmate, while ano- 
ther spent £2 8s. ']\d. per inmate. Some 
years ago, Mr. Luke Ralph, Master of the 
Wrexham Workhouse, polled the inmates 
on the matter of their drink allowance, and 
a majority voted for its discontinuance. 
Subsequent years showed a reduced per 
centage of sickness and death there, and the 
scheduled results were widely published. 
Since then many other unions have stopped 
or lessened the drink allowance — that of 
Marylebone saving ^300 a year by doing so 
— and in no case has 
diminished health 
been alleged to result; 
except at West 
Derby Workhouse, 
and that allegation 
has been dispelled by 
a Government inquiry. 
The workhouse doctors 
generally have wide 
latitude in these mat- 
ters. 

Following the esta- 
blishm ent of the 
Temperance Hospital 
in 1873, came the promotion of the British 
Medical Temperance Society, which was 
formed in 1876, it being originated by its 
Hon. Sec, Dr. J. J. Ridge, of Enfield. 
It has enrolled hundreds of the abstaining 
medical practitioners. A quarterly Medical 
Temperance yourua/strQngthensihe orgamza- 
tion, which now has as its President the emi- 
nent scientist Dr. B. W. Richardson, whose 
Cantor Lectures on " Alcohol" have gained 
a world-wide circulation, as has his "Tem- 
perance Lesson Book," now adopted by many 
School Boards. It was before this that he 
had declared that the practice of temperance 
would increase the national vitality one-third ; 
and the subsequent testimony of Sir William 
Gull, before the House of Lords' Committee, 
that '■ Alcohol is a most deleterious poison," 
injuring "even in so-called moderate quanti- 
ties ;" the concurrence of Sir Henry Thomp- 
son, that men are generally better without 
alcohohc drinks," even beer ; and the later 
confession of the Premier's physician, Dr. 
Andrew Clark, that true health " cannot 'be 
benefited by alcohol in any degree,"— have 



685 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



raised the abstainers up to the seventh 
heaven ; and helped to lead the Times in 
1882 to tell its readers that the doctors, 
though much too prudent to connect them- 
selves to a losing cause, have declared 
for temperance ; and that if a patient is out 
of sorts they no longer advise a little more 
drink, but tell him to abstain altogether from 
intoxicants. 

The Denominational Movement, 
1873-80. 

The Bible Christian Conference had 
endorsed total abstinence in the infancy 
of the cause, and all its 312 ministers, 
aud most of its students, teachers, and 
scholars, are regarded as abstainers. The 
Primitive Methodist Connection was founded 
by an abstainer, the Rev. Hugh Bourne, 
and has always endorsed abstinence. The 
ministers of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists 
have commonly been abstainers ; while the 
great majority of the entire Society of Friends 
(" Quakers ") are probably teetotalers. 

An " unofficial " Church of England Total 
Abstinence organization, formed in 1862, had 
registered over seven hundred of the clergy 
as abstainers. Canon Ellison always being a 
leading spirit. 

Not till 1873, however, did the general 
Denominational Movement begin. In that 
year, under the authority of Convocation, the 
present " Church of England Temperance 
Society" was formed, with tlie Archbishops as 
Presidents, and, later, Her Majesty as Patron. 
Its basis is dual : the parish pastor is ex officio 
president of the parochial society, which can 
adopt a "moderation" or "teetotal" basis, 
or both. It has enrolled three hundred 
thousand members in nine years ; several 
bishops, many canons, and some thousands 
of the clergy being abstaining members. Its 
Irish branch has fifty thousand members. 
Its annual income is ^9,000 ; and it issues 
weekly an able, illustrated. Temperance Chro- 
nicle. No doubt this organization made it 
possible for thirteen thousand five hundred 
(about two-thirds of the whole) of the clergy 
in 1876 to memorialize the bishops in favour 
of that principle of " Local Option" (in repres- 
sing the liquor traffic) which has latterly been 
so generally endorsed. Three years after the 
Church of England, the Church of Scotland 
also reorganized its Temperance Society on 
a dual basis. Its statistics are not out. 

The "Total Abstinence League of the 
Cross," headed by Cardinal Manning, dates 
from 1872, when Father Nugent began his 
Temperance work at Liverpool ; but its first 
National assembly was at the Crystal Palace 
in 1874; and in 18S1 it counted about one 
hundred and eighty thousand members. The 
" Congregational Union Total Abstinence 
Society" was endorsed in 1874. Its president 



is the octogenarian, Sir Edward Baines, an ab- 
stainer of forty-five years. There are over two 
thousand Congregational ministers, and of 
these 1,168 are known abstainers, as are nearly 
all its ministerial students. The year 1874 
also saw the projection of the " Baptist Total 
Abstinence Association." About six hundred 
of the Baptist ministers, and eighty percent, 
of the college students, are now known to be 
abstainers. 

In 1875 the old Sacramental Wine question 
began to take an organized form in Ireland ; 
and in 1876 in Scotland, and later in Eng- 
land, by the formation of societies to promote 
the use of unfermented wine at the Lord's 
Supper. Prior to 1841, the Primitive Metho- 
dist Conference had thus used tmfermented 
wine ; while in that year the Wesleyan Con- 
ference, among other things, prohibited such 
use of ?/;^ fermented wine in the ordinance ; 
these prohibitions resulting in a secession. In 
1872 the American Wesleyan Conference en- 
joined the use of unfermented wine ; and five 
yearslater the English Methodist Conference 
declared it could only sanction the fruit of 
the vine, and recommended the "light," 
but yet alcoholic "Tent" wine, while not 
prohibiting the unfermented element. It is 
curious that in the same year the Virginia 
Conference of the African Methodist Episco- 
pal Church prohibited the use of any but the 
unfermented juice of the grape. One firm 
at Kensington, which has long made pure 
unfermented grape wine for this purpose, 
now imports foreign wines similarly preserved 
unfermented, and supplies one thousand eight 
hundred places of worship with it, including 
some of every denomination. 

The Wesleyan Reform Union, which largely 
consists of abstainers, and uses unfermented 
sacramental wine, got so far in 1876 as to 
urge personal abstinence upon all, and to 
advise voters to support only such candidates 
for Parliament as would vote for the people 
having power to suppress the drink traffic. 

The Wesleyan Methodist Conference iri- 
augurated its Temperance movement in 1877, 
but many of its adherents were previously 
temperance workers ; and the Methodist 
Temperance Magazine had circulated- since 
1869, its leading editor being the Rev. Charles 
Garrett, a zealous abstainer for forty years, 
and who was recently elected President of 
the Conference. The Temperance Societies 
organized on the Conference basis are 
managed by an equal number of abstainers 
and moderate drinkers. Wesleyan abstainers 
cannot have generally enrolled in these 
societies, which only report 10,000 members, 
while the Conference Bands of Hope, on a 
strictly abstinent basis, soon reported two 
hundred thousand members in two thousand 
societies. 

In 1878, the United Methodist Free Church 



6S6 



THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT. 



Conference projected a " Temperance League," 
which was inaugurated on a total abstinence 
basis, in 1880, the Rev. John Thornley being 
subsequently engaged by the Conference as 
its organizing secretary. Of the 341 home 
ministers, 300 are abstainers, and 250 belong 
to the League. 

The Methodist New Connection had long 
recognised Bands of Hope ; but its present 
"Temperance and Band of Hope Union " 
was formed in 1879, and its juvenile adhe- 
rents now number about twenty- five thousand. 
Of its 186 ministers, 120 are abstainers, as 
are all its college students. 

The Primitive Methodists in 1879 pro- 
jected a Connexional Temperance League ; 
and also organized, in connexion with their 
Sunday-Schools, Bands of Hope, which 
comprise over 60,000 members. The great 
majority of their ministers and students are 
abstainers. 

The New Church (Swedenborgians) pro- 
jected a Temperance Society in 1880 ; as 
have other smaller denominations, during the 
last few years. 

AuxiLARY Movements ; and Special 
Work in 1881-2. 

The last decade fitly preceded the Tem- 
perance Jubilee Year by enlisting so many of 
the medical men and the ministers of the 
land in the ranks of the movement ; and it 
also witnessed or heralded many other im- 
portant, though sectional, organizations. For 
instance, the " British Women's Temperance 
Association," with Mrs. Lucas (sister of the 
Right Hon. John Bright) as its president, 
has its two hundred branches among the 
gentler sex ; and other female societies do 
similar work. The new " Young Abstainers' 
Union" is enrolling children of the middle 
class, and educating and interesting them by 
monthly letters, garden parties, etc. A 
"National Total Abstinence Society" has 
been formed for the deaf and dumb ; and 
another for " Travellers " — showmen, etc. — 
attending fairs. The police of Hull, Bir- 
mingham, London, etc., have total abstinence 
societies, as have metropolitan postmen and 
cabmen. Scotland now boasts an " Highland 
Temperance League," and a " Scotch Railway 
Temperance Society." The army, though 
producing ^100,000 in a few years as fines for 
drunkenness, is being encouraged to be sober, 
its Good Templar Lodges, at home and 
abroad, flourishing under military sanction ; 
the "Soldiers' Total Abstinence Society" in 
India, under the Rev. Gelson Gregson, having 
official support, and numbering ten thousand 
members ; while Sir Garnet Wolseley is 
almost emulating the rigidly abstinent Sir 
Henry Havelock, in denouncing drink as 
the soldier's worst foe, and total abstinence 
as his best friend. Miss Robinson's tem- 



perance "Soldiers' Institute" at Portsmouth, 
and Miss Weston's " Sailor's Home " at 
Devonport, are two of the monuments of pro- 
gress ; the " National Temperance League's" 
two hundred branches in the navy are en- 
couraged, and the latest legislation lessens 
the facilities for insobriety which the service 
formerly afforded to its jack tars, while the 
abstinent seamen are now specially served 
with temperance fare instead of the old 
allowance of grog. Of late all these efforts 
have been stimulated by the Gospel Tempe- 
rance or "Ribbon'' movement, started in 
London by William Noble, and carried 
through the kingdom with unprecedented 
success by the American advocates, Messrs. 
R. T. Booth and Francis Murphy ; while 
the abstinence teaching of the " Salvation 
Army " has done much to reclaim those in 
the lowest strata of society. 

Conclusion. 

Our readers will judge whether that was a 
reasonable saying of the writer in the West- 
minster Review, that temperance is as old as 
history, and yet as modern as yesterday. 

We have seen that the practice of absti- 
nence from intoxicating drinks was as old as 
humanity ; contemporaneous with the civili- 
zation of the ancient Egyptians, Chinese, 
and Hindoos ; was practised by the Recha- 
bites, the Nabathaeans, the Essenes, the wise 
Magi of the East, the warlike Suevi of the 
West, the soldiers of Carthage, and by the 
Macrobian warriors of Ethiopia ; was iden- 
tified with the best days of the Medes and 
Persians, and associated with the empires of 
Greece and Rome ; while a history of In- 
temperance could show the share strong 
drink had in the downfall of successive 
nations. 

The Israelites were taught to abstain by 
divine command in such special cases as the 
Priesthood, and the honoured Nazarites ; 
the practice was associated with the strength 
of Sampson, the wisdom of Solomon, the 
comeliness of Daniel, and with the sacred 
mission of the forerunner of Christ, John 
the Baptist ; while in early Christian ages 
it was adopted by some of the saints and 
martyrs. 

In the middle ages, total abstinence held 
a place in at least some communities ; and 
in later times could count among its ad- 
herents the poet Milton, the philanthropist 
Howard, the patriot Franklin, the philo- 
sopher Locke, and many other men of fame. 
John Bright's eloquence was first aired at a 
temperance meeting, and for nearly half a 
century he has neither drank intoxicants nor 
allowed them in his house. John Cassell, 
when a journeyman carpenter, signed the 
pledge after an address by Dr. Grindrod, and 
then went through the country ringing a bell 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and speaking for temperance ; and after- 
ward, still practising abstinence, founded 
and reared the great publishing house to 
which his name is still attached. The inimi- 
table caricaturist, George Cruikshank, who 
would whistle and dance at eighty-four years 
of age, was an abstainer from an early period. 
And Sir Wilfrid Lawson's " gay wisdom " is 
that of a strict abstainer. 

Among eminent abstaining divines are the 
Bishop (Temple) of Exeter (with several 
other Bishops), Canons Farrar, Fleming, 
Ellison, Barker, and Wilberforce ; Cardinal 
Manning ; and such leaders in Noncon- 
formity as the Revs. C. H. Spurgeon, C. Gar- 
rett, and Newman Hall. 

The physical excellence of abstainers is 
testified to in the persons of such examples 
as David Livingstone, the great Christian 
traveller; Elihu Burritt, the blacksmith-con- 
sul ; Grace, the eminent cricketer ; Angus 
Cameron, twice the winner of the Queen's 
prize at Wimbledon ; Hanlan, the oarsman ; 
and Weston, the pedestrian. 

Many temperance pioneers of half a cen- 
tury ago still live to rejoice in the jubilee of 
their work. Instance Richard Allen, of 
Dublin; Erskine Mayne, of Belfast; John 
Davey, of Dunfermline ; Dr. Richmond, of 
Paisley; Dr. Grindrod, of Manchester; John 
King and Joseph Livesey, of Preston. 

These may be regarded as representative 
of the great army of abstainers, of whom 
fully a million adults, and a million and a 
half of children, are registered members of 
the various societies ; while probably an 
equal number of both adult and juvenile 
abstainers are unattached ; giving an aggre- 
gate of 5,000,000, or about one in eight of 
the population of the United Kingdom ! 

In America (where the movement has pro- 
gi-essed even more rapidly than at home), 



the Beecher family were from the first identi- 
fied with it ; and the roll of illustrious ab- 
stainers of that country includes Presidents 
Lincoln and Hayes, and Lloyd Garrison, the 
founder of the Anti-Slavery movement. 

On the Continent of Europe, the propor- 
tion of abstainers is small, but, through the 
influence of International Temperance Con- 
gresses, and especially in Scandinavia of 
Good Templary, steady advances are being 
made. Probably the great majority of the 
peoples of Asia, Africa, and South America 
are practically abstainers, though some in- 
toxicating compounds are to be found in most 
countries. 

Among most Christian nations the ab- 
stainers are in the minority; but it is perhaps 
not unreasonable for them to claim that, the 
world over, a majority of the people practise 
their principles. 

When, on July 5th, 1882, the Total Absti- 
nence Jubilee was celebrated by 50,000 people 
at the Crystal Palace, a critic seized the 
occasion to suggest that " the net result, after 
half a century's propagandism of total absti- 
nence, seems to be that there are more public- 
houses, that more people get drunk, and that 
more money is spent in drink." The fact is, 
that the last few years have witnessed a 
material decrease in the consumption of, and 
expenditure of money on, drink ; and that, 
in spite of depression in general trade and 
less wage earning, the people have annually 
deposited millions of money in savings banks 
more than before. But the critic had already 
answered himself, when in the same article 
he wrote : " // is always open to the total 
abstainers to reply that Ifthins;s are no better 
now than they were in 1832, they would have 
been infinitely worse if there had been no 
temperatice propaganda." 

J. M 



/ ^ 




AuTo-jRAPH OF Joseph Livesey. 



68S 



"~w^^^ 




Charles I. hooted by the Jt'eui-le after his ATTEiUi'TEu AuKtiT of the Membeks. 



THE ARREST OF THE FIVE 
MEMBERS. 

THE STORY OF KING CHARLES'S FOLLY. 



Flight of the Royal Fam'Iy— A Gay Scene on the Thames— The People's Kings— Incompatibility of Temper between 
Charles and England— The Long Parliament— The Earl of Strafford sacrificed— The Queen threatened— Charles's 
Scottish Trip— King Pym— A Plague-rag in the House— Dreadful Massacre in Ulster— What about the Army?— 
Peep at the Inside of the House of Commons in 1641 — Some of the Leaders--The Grand Remonstrance— Eleven 
* Years without a Parliament— The Policy of "Thorough" — Pillory and other Iniquities— What the Long Parliament 
had done already — The Great Debate — Bloodshed imminent between the Parties— What Mr. Oliver Cromwell had 
resolved on— Citizens fired on at Westminster— The Whitehall Guard— The Bishops sent to the Tower— The New 
. Year opens, 1642 — Impeachment of Pym and other Members— Their Chambers Sealed— The Action of the Houses 
— ITie Lord Mayor gone to Bed — King marches into the Commons — The Birds flown — Raising of the Royal Standard. 



Flight of King Charles, and Arrival 

OF King Pym. 

!S the bells of Westminster were 

chiming the hour of four on the 

afternoon of the loth day of the 

bitter month of January 1642, a coach issued 




from the gate of Whitehall Palace, contain- 
ing the King himself, his wife, and five 
young children, accompanied by a very small 
number of the noble courtiers who had so 
often enjoyed themselves in the gay scenes 
of the luxurious banqueting-hall, but attended 
!q XX 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



by a large retinue of officers, mainly of 
the braggadoccio type. If we could look into 
the somewhat rude vehicle and catch a 
glimpse of the royal features, we should 
readily discover traces on them of discontent 
and anger; and a glance at the handsome 
face of the merry, black-eyed French princess, 
to whom he was so passionately devoted, 
would probably reveal deeper tokens of 
the same emotion. It is a sad, eventful 
day in the hfe of this little band of noble 
travellers, and they are leaving the great 
surging metropolis behind them, without the 
comfort of a single cheer from the thousands 
of close-cropped citizens who witness their 
departure, each sullenly holding in his hand 
a staff on which there flies a white paper 
inscribed with the word "Liberty." Little 
did either of those royal heads dream that 
the gates of the happy mansion were left 
behind them for ever — that the " bright Glo- 
riana" would never again fill the splendid 
galleries of the palace with the enchanting 
cadences of her divine voice, or that the 
haughty Charles would never again enter the 
spacious banqueting-hall until he passed 
through it to the scaffold erected outside one 
of its windows. In fact, by the flight of 
Charles and Henrietta, with their priests and 
desperadoes, the English Revolution was 
morally consummated ; but far from appre- 
hending this, they only turned their backs 
on London, its Parliament, merchants, and 
apprentices, in order that the Queen might 
escape to the Continent to raise funds with 
the stolen crown jewels, that the King by 
" divine right " might speedily return with a 
strong and loyal army to overawe and over- 
power the rebellious spirit of the city. 

At noon on the day after this sudden flight, 
far from there being any trappings of woe 
visible in London for their departure, the crisp, 
bright winter air was filled with sounds and 
sights that seemed to betoken the approach 
of some conquering hero. The broad bosom 
of the Thames, then the chief highway of 
London, was covered on either side, from 
London Bridge to Westminster, with a 
glittering array of armed boats and other 
gaily decorated craft, while both shores 
were lined with thousands of the militia of 
Southwark and the City, who wore on their 
pikes, hats, and bosoms, printed copies of a 
document by which they bound themselves 
to stand up for the King, the liberties of 
Parliament and the country, and the " true 
religion." 

For the people's real kings were coming 
back that day to sit secure and grand upon 
the humble thrones from which they had 
been driven by the traitor who had fled 
unloved from Whitehall, — the five men whose 
lives had been placed in jeopardy, and who 
had been outlawed because they had dared 



to lift up their voices somewhat loudly within 
the privileged walls of old St. Stephen's 
against the deeds and plots of a tyrant, and in 
defence of the ancient rights of Englishmen ; 
and when the heroes of the day embarked on 
one of the gayest of the city barges, passed 
in triumph amid the thundering volleys of 
the seamen along the " large, gentle, deep, 
majestic king of floods," and stepped as 
proud freemen on the stairs at Westminster 
towards their accustomed seats in the dim 
and dingy House, they were welcomed with 
the roar of muskets and cannon, mingled 
with the ringing cheers of immense crowds 
of enthusiastic citizens of every rank, from 
the luxurious merchant to the struggling 
artizan. 

Incompatibility of Temper the Secret 
OF AN Unhappy Reign. 
If we may venture to compare political 
with private life, there is perhaps no term 
that would so well sum up the source of 
distraction between Charles I. and the 
English nation, as the unfortunately too well- 
known one, — "incompatibility of temper." 
" He and his respectable traditions and 
notions," says Carlyle, "clothed in old sheep- 
skin and respectable Church tippets, were 
all pulling one way ; England and the 
eternal laws pulling another ; — the rent fast 
widening, till no man could heal it." When 
we have spoken the worst word that can be 
uttered with truth against Charles, when we 
review temperately the intrigues against 
liberty that have been proved against him, — 
intrigues which include his wife's dealing 
with the Pope and France, — we shall not be 
able to charge him with a lack of moral 
earnestness, of regard for the country, how- 
ever much we may regret and disapprove of 
the " temper " with which it was asserted. 
He endeavoured to live in a high and lonely 
solitude, moving amid a galaxy of chosen 
favourites, esteeming himself the fountain of 
wisdom and honour, looking down on Parlia- 
ment as " a mere excrescence of the constitu- 
tion, and on the public opinion on which it 
rested as a wild beast to be put down." Just 
as everything touched by the hand of Midas 
turned into gold, so did every scheme, how- 
ever fairly it bade for success, change into 
dross and failure under the unblessed touch 
of Charles. Perhaps there never lived a man 
who, with the very best intentions, had such 
an unhappy knack of stirring the pool in 
which he angled : for example, in reclaiming 
the fen country from marshes, ague, and wild 
geese, he managed to rouse the poor natives 
into serious riots ; in trying to bestow on 
Scotland a decent church service, he threw the 
people into a rebellion he could not fairly meet 
and allayed only byconcession thatwasamere 
cloak for treachery and assassination; intrying 



690 



THE ARREST OF THE FIVE MEMBERS. 



or pretending to construct a good navy of 
wooden walls around our sea-girt isle — when 
Barbary corsairs swept the channels, landed, 
plundered villages, and carried off thousands 
into slavery, and France and Holland had 
their ej'-es on Dunkirk — he inflicted an "illegal 
and insupportable" ship-tax that made the 
'•'■ farmers faint and the plough go heavy," and 
set John Hampden, the Parliament, and the 
whole country in opposition to his pretensions. 
All his sins are laid bare with the grim 
severity of the Puritan scalpel in the pre- 
amble and two hundred and six clauses of 
the Grand Remonstrance, — a document we 
shall have occasion to notice at some length 
in the present paper. 

In his unbending attitude and his lamen- 
table struggle, carried on until his ill-acted 
royalty was hissed off the stage by the indig- 
nant voice of the country, he stands before 
us as the very opposite of Queen Elizabeth, 
who managed, in spite of her Tudor nature, 
as intensely autocratic as his, to gain the 
worship of her country and leave to posterity 
the reputation of being by far the greatest 
woman that ever wore a crown. The dif- 
ference between them lay in this, — that 
while she- mingled with a hearty sympathy 
among her ''good people," and yielded under 
the internal pressure of the country, he, on 
the other hand, did not hesitate to appeal to 
external force, and thus raised against himself 
the patriotic instincts of the nation. 

The Long Parliament ; Execution of 
Strafford; An Unheeded Warning. 

The Long Parliament started on its me- 
morable career on the 3rd of November, 
1640. It was only summoned by the King 
that it might grant him an immediate vote of 
money. Up to the time of the Short Parlia- 
ment, which had assembled in the spring of 
that year onlyto be dissolved at once, eleven 
years had passed since Charles deigned to 
consult the nation. Multitudes had fled 
across the broad ocean to make new homes 
for themselves in the forests of America. As 
the King had gone through all those years 
without appealing to the voice of the country, 
the new Parliament was determined to have 
its turn without consulting him. It would 
not be got rid of Knowing the fears of 
Charles that the army of the rebellious 
Scottish Covenanters might march on London 
if Parliament were dissolved before the Scots 
were satisfied, the members stuck this time 
to legislative existence with the obstinacy of 
leeches. They passed a triennial bill ; they 
forced the King to grant this parliament the 
right of sitting so long as it pleased, taking 
from him the power of dissolution. Prynne 
and his fellow-martyrs, whose ears had been 
lopped off in the pillory by the sentence of 



the obnoxious Star Chamber, — a juryless 
court that had done good service in older 
days, and was composed of two judges and 
the members of the King's Council, — were 
released from their prisons in the Scilly and 
Channel Isles, and entered London in 
triumph, with laurels strewn upon their 
path. The several hated tribunals were 
abolished, and a clean sweep was made of 
many other grievances that had weighed 
heavily on the shoulders of the nation. Yet 
the important Acts of this Parliament, even 
Hallam has allowed, did not disturb the 
balance of the constitution ; rather they 
restored it to its former equipoise, and by 
new retrenchments of pernicious or abused 
prerogative shaped our constitution pretty 
much as it now exists. 

Its policy, hesitating to touch the person of 
His Sacred Majesty, was to cast the blame on 
his advisers, especially on the junto of which 
the heads were Laud and Strafford. A 
few leading examples were to be struck down, 
so as to re-establish the principle of parlia- 
mentary control of the administration. Laud, 
sacred archbishop though he was, was bridled 
in the grim Tower, and other ministers fled 
to the Continent in wholesome terror from 
its outstretched arm. The Parliament did 
not halt in the least in carrying out the pro- 
gramme hinted at in a conversation that 
took place between Pym and Hyde (after- 
wards the whitewashing royalist Earl of 
Clarendon), when at the time of its assembly 
they paced up and down the floor of West- 
minster Hall. Those two worthies, so soon 
to stand at opposite poles of the political 
compass, were agreed that they must not 
only sweep the lower part of the house, but 
pull down all the cobwebs in the tops 
and corners that they might not breed 
dust. 

The chief scapegoat was the Earl of Straf- 
ford, a gentleman whose picture has been 
drawn by the Queen herself with true Parisian 
touch. He was ugly, she said, but agreeable 
enough in person, and had the finest hands 
in the world. To a part of the nation he was 
"the wicked earl ;" by others he was loved. 
He had succeeded in raising a stron^g and 
necessary army in Ireland, but it was feared, 
and perhaps justly, that he woul d bring it across 
the Channel to overawe the English Parlia- 
ment. The unwillingness of Charles to sacri- 
fice his faithful servant was within an ace of 
costing him his throne ; by the House and 
the threatening mobs that backed them, his 
reluctance was looked on as a guarantee of 
the horrid rumour of a French invasion 
which had raised a wild panic in the streets of 
the metropolis. Under the influence of the 
revelation that roused this terrible alarm, on 
Pym's disclosure of the approach of French 
troops to the coast with probable intent to 



691 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



sail across the Channel and seize Portsmouth, 
and of the connection of some of the Queen's 
immediate attendants with these dangerous 
and disreputable plots, the House of Lords 
drifted into consent to the condemnation of 
Strafford. On the morning of the 8th of 
May, 1 641, the alarmed citizens shouted for 
the confinement of Charles and Henrietta in 
the Tower. The Queen herself, in her sinful 
consciousness, had her carriage standing at 
the palace door to hie her off to Portsmouth 
from the righteous and ruthless outburst of 
the wrath of an uprisen mob, and was only- 
kept back from this suicidal act by the posi- 
tive assurance given her that escape was 
impossible. An armed multitude followed 
the two Houses to Whitehall, demanding 
Strafford's head, became furious when the 
King put off his answer from Saturday till 
Monday, besieged the palace all that day 
and during the whole of Sunday with threats 
against the Queen's life, the courtiers mean- 
while employing the time of panic in making 
confession to the priests or secreting their 
jewels in case the doors should be dashed 
open. It is scarcely probable that the King 
closed his eyelids during that Saturday night, 
trembling as he did for the fate of Strafford, 
and still more for that of the beloved woman 
whose eyes he had seen bedewed with tears 
and who he feared might be torn to pieces by 
the sharp clutches of the fierce mob. At 
last, worn out with mental agony, he made 
up his mind on Sunday evening, just as the 
sun was setting on the western horizon, to give 
up Lord Strafford, — a resolve that haunted 
him ever after like a spectre, even to his own 
scaffold at Whitehall. " If my own person 
were only in danger," said Charles in tears to 
the Council, " I would gladly venture it to 
save Lord Strafford's life ; but seeing my wife, 
children, and all my kingdom are concerned 
in it, I am forced to give way unto it." And 
so, two days later, the statesman whom his 
enemies denounced as a black tyrant fell as 
a scapegoat on the scaffold. " I thank God," 
said he, with true courage, " I am not afraid 
of death, but do as cheerfully put off my 
doublet as ever I did when I went to 
bed." 

But Charles was not taught even by this 
terrible lesson to learn the nation's temper or 
to forecast the possibility of his own stubborn 
head going the way of Strafford's. Still he 
persisted in his obstinate course, wishing to 
rule England after his own ideas, not from 
any instinct of injustice or of money-grabbing, 
but that the people might enjoy the fruits of 
his paternal wisdom, ignoring that he was 
wantonly driving in and in the people's con- 
fidence, arousing an ever-growing suspicion 
of his designs, while he had no army in 
England or Scotland to strike down any 
possible rebellion he might provoke. 



The King's strange Visit to Scotland ; 
Attempts on Pym's Life j A Plague- 
rag IN THE House. 

Immediately after the assembling of the 
Long Parliament in November 1640, it had 
been passionatelymoved that a Remonstrance 
should be drawn up to give the King " a 
faithful and lively representation of the de- 
plorable state of the kingdom ;" but the matter 
hung fire for months, while Charles continued 
to give his assent— his "royal varnish" 
Carlyle would say — to the sweeping changes 
passed by the Commons. Pym, Hampden, 
and their friends, who formed the majority of 
the strenuous and lynx-eyed Liberal party, 
were not ignorant of the hollowness of the 
royal condescension — that the Bills which 
had been carried and had received the im- 
primatur of the sovereign, would be shuffled 
aside with uncourteous hauteur when His 
Majesty imagined his feet safely enough 
planted to deal thus with them. They also 
saw that popular enthusiasm was falling off, 
and that a reaction had set in since the blow 
had been struck at Strafford ; the life of Pym 
himself, the recognised leader of the reform- 
ing party,hadmore than once been threatened. 
The King set forth at the beginning of August 
on his memorable journey to Edinburgh, 
under the delusion that he would be able to 
win over the Scottish army to assist him in 
pressing home a charge of treason against 
the English parliamentary leaders for having 
acted in complicity with the Scottish Cove- 
nanters. It therefore appeared necessary to 
Pym, Hampden, and their allies that they 
should make a direct appeal to the waning 
affection of the people, and firmly hold ofi" 
and crush the plots of their suspected 
sovereign. 

From the 9th of September to the morn- 
ing of the 20th of October, the doors of 
Parliament were closed. On the first day of 
meeting, Pym, who had been Chairman of 
the Committee during the six weeks' recess, 
laid before the House information of a new 
army plot in England, and of the conspiracy 
in Scotland to assassinate Argyll and Hamil- 
ton, the chiefs of the Covenanters. Instruc- 
tions were issued for the occupation of the 
military posts of London, and for the defence 
of Parliament, night and day, by the train- 
bands of the city. The crisis was fast 
approaching. When the quiet and subtle 
Hampden returned from Scotland, where he 
had been watching keenly the conduct of 
the King, the great Liberal party was broken 
up on the burning question of the expulsion 
of the bishops from the House of Lords. 
The two divisions were from that time to run 
neck and neck in a contest that grew more 
and more sharp and bitter until the hour 
arrived when they stood face to face, with 



6g2 



THE ARREST OF THE FIVE MEMBERS. 



drawn swords, upon the battle-fields of the 
Great Rebellion. Chief among those who 
fell away from the popular ranks was the 
honest, learned, and broad-minded Lord 
Falkland, who was by-and-by to yield up 
his saddened life for a cause he never loved. 
The popular party saw that all the redoubts 
that had been gained by years of struggle 
would now be lost, unless they stood firm and 
^lear-eyed to their guns amid the plots that 
were suggested or woven round them in Holy- 
rood and Whitehall. 

Pym, the " great and comprehensive brain" 
of his party, who dauntlessly led it in the 
mighty conflict, was the constant target of the 
vilest calumnies and the frequent object of 
political assassination. On the morning of 
the 25th October, 1641, a man arrived at the 
door of Parliament with a letter for the famous 
tribune. He said it had been handed to him 
by a gentleman on horseback whom he had 
met on Fish Street Hill, and who had given 
him a fee of one shilling to carry the message 
with the greatest care and speed. Pym 
opened the letter, from which a piece of rag 
dropped upon the floor ; he glanced at the 
contents, and then denouncing it as a scan- 
dalous libel, sent it up to the table, where it 
was read aloud by the Clerk's assistant. 
Besides containing abuse of Pym, it threat- 
ened him with a dagger if he escaped the 
present attempt, which the writer proceeded 
to explain was contained in the rag that had 
covered a plague-wound, and as we have seen 
had fallen out on the letter being opened. 
After these lines had been read, in what was 
naturally an agitated manner, the letter was 
thrown down by the Clerk's assistant and 
thrust out of the door. Pym had the good 
fortune to escape the infection of the foul and 
fatal disease then raging virulently in the 
vicinity of the Houses ; but in a few days a 
man who had been mistaken for him was 
stabbed in Westminster Hall. This was 
possibly done in fulfilment of the threat that 
had accompanied the plague-rag. 

These and other attempts to strike down 
" King Pym," the darhng of the people, and 
the chief object of the doggerel and ribald 
lampoons of the royalists — " wretch," "mali- 
cious Puritan," " poisonous man," "a man 
whom even the devil to fear begins," are a 
few of the choice epithets — all ended in 
failure, and the cause of English freedom was 
thereby saved. For John Pym, a courteous 
Somersetshire gentleman, and Member for 
Tavistock in Devon, was the mainstay of the 
barque of liberty in the stormy seas, the 
greatest tribune of his time, and the greatest 
statesman of his party. In years long gone 
by he had done yeoman's service in the 
House, and when the Short Parliament 
assembled he rose without dispute as a 
veteran chief above the bantlings that now 



took their untried seats upon the benches. 
His one passion was to re-establish those 
rights of Parliament that had been won in the 
days of the Plantagenets. In the eleven 
dreary years of t5Tanny, when the doors of 
Parliament were closed, when the civil and 
spiritual courts were filled with injustice and 
violence, when favour was shown to Papists 
and persecution dealt out to Puritans, he, 
like many others, had adopted the project of 
seeking another home in New England. He 
was something more than a man of eloquence, 
vigour, and daring ; as Mr. Green puts it, he 
was the embodiment of law. Before the 
elections to the Long Parliament, he and 
John Hampden rode over England, beating 
up the people to a sense of their rights and 
duties. The unselfish struggles of years 
impoverished him, and he died in debt. 
But no worthier man than the Member for 
Tavistock was ever laid to rest in the sacred 
precincts of Westminster Abbey. 

The Irish Massacre ; Mr. Oliver 
Cromwell speaks. 

Although the King's party had become 
more powerful by the secession to its side 
of men like Hyde and Falkland, (who may be 
called the moderate faction), who had formed 
a vigorous portion of the irresistible array of 
members that had condemned the ship tax, 
that had empowered the Usher of the Black 
Rod to march to the King's Bench and carry 
off to prison from his judicial seat one of the 
impeached judges who had given his opinion 
in favour of the impost, that had swept away 
as at a single breath the Star Chamber and 
other pestiferous cobwebs of tyranny, that 
had sent Laud to the Tower and Strafford to 
the scaffold, — the majority, though sadly re- 
duced, still remained with the great tribune, 
who knew well how to hold it together and 
lop off on all occasions every possible element 
of dissension. 

Such dexterity was shown when, in the 
midst of angry discussions on depriving the 
bishops of their votes, the startling news was 
received in the hushed House regarding the 
Irish rising and fearful massacre of Protestants 
in Ulster — what Carlyle has called " an Irish 
Catholic imitation of the late Scotch Pres- 
byterian achievements in the way of ' religious 
liberty' ; — one of the best models, and one 
of the worst imitations ever seen in this 
world." Some forty thousand English and 
Scottish colonists, it has been said, were 
murdered by the ignorant and oppressed 
race, and men and women were stripped and 
sent forth to wander naked over the friendless 
country in the cold winter nights. The 
narratives that flew through England about 
the extent and barbarous cruelties of this 
massacre weie of such a nature as might 
have driven Parliament to forget party and 



693 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



issue incautious orders for vengeance, placing 
a strong army under the King's will. It was 
said, among other wild rumours, that in a 
single month two hundred thousand men, 
women, and children were put to death with 
savage tortures " scarce to be equalled by any 
the most black and baleful story of any age ; " 
plunder and fire fell as in a single instant on 
the unsuspecting people; servants were struck 
down by murderous hands while following 
the plough ; children had their brams dashed 
out before the eyes of helpless mothers ; 
some were burned, others drowned for the 
pastime and delight of the barbarians, shot 
as they swam about or tried to land, buried 
alive up to the breast in the ground and thus 
left to perish in the agonies of starvation. 

Surely the hour of triumph for the King 
iiad come at last ! Would not all parties in 
the House bow before their common love of 
England, and place an army in the King's 
hands against the Popish rebels ? Pym was 
equal to the dread emergency. After a fierce 
debate he carried a resolution which traced 
the evil to its root in the King's advisers, and 
declared that if he did not dismiss them, the 
House, nevertheless continuing in the obedi- 
ence due by the laws of God and the Kingdom, 
would take such a course for the securing of 
Ireland as might likewise secure themselves ; 
and Mr. Oliver Cromwell, Member for the 
town of Cambridge, carried another very 
important motion, that they should desire 
the Lords to give power to the Liberal Earl of 
Essex to assemble, at all times, the trained 
bands of the kingdom to the south of the 
Trent, for its defence, till further orders were 
taken by the Houses. A doubt was expressed 
as to the right of Parliament to raise men 
without a warrant under the Great Seal ; but 
the Commons forthwith passed a declaration 
that an ordinance of both Houses was in 
itself sufficient for levying volunteers at beat 
of drum. Here we have the birth of the 
parliamentary army that was to do such 
wonders under this same country squire who 
sat for Cambridge. Once again the King of 
England had played into the hands of his 
mortal foes. Indirectly he was the cause of 
that horrid massacre. While in Scotland he 
had begun to plot with some Irish chiefs for 
the collection of an army that was to seize 
Dublin Castle in the King's name and make it 
a basis of operations against Westminster ; 
but this deep plot proved only a fatal plunge, 
for the scheme slipped out of his hands into 
those of Phehm O'Neil and other wild Irish 
patriots, with terrible issues that led the way 
to his final expulsion from the throne. The 
panic and horror then aroused really provoked 
the civil war. On the same day which begot 
the army of the Parliament and checkmated 
the policy of Charles, the first rough draft of 
Pym's Grand Remonstrance was submitted 

694 



to the House, read, and ordered for discussion 
on the following morning. This memorable 
day of resolutions was Monday the 8th of 
November, 1641. 

The story of the arrest of the Five Mem- 
bers has a sensational interest of its own, but 
it has a broad historical significance as being 
the last card in Charles's hand, as the last 
straw which broke the back of the refractory, 
sullen camel, Charles Stuart. It was his 
churlish and foolish answer to the great — 
great even in the sense of lengthy — document 
called the Grand Remonstrance. This huge,, 
and perhaps in part unfair, exposure of the 
King's sins over a period of fourteen years, 
was a perfect Puritan hydra, split up into a 
multitude of heads, and recalls at once the 
clear style and the quaint expression of the 
good old serious sermons that have, unfor- 
tunately perhaps, gone out of date now-a-days. 
In it, if we may so speak, the country pro- 
ceeded to wind up finally the hands of the 
royal clock that had been moving so strangely 
since King James crossed the Border with his 
Scottish crawlers into what he was pleased 
with full mouth to call, in sacred parlance, 
the land of promise ; to wind up that royal 
progress which had been going on so foolishly 
since a little boy of four, named Oliver 
Cromwell, by-and-by to be more famous 
than any king of his time, first cast his eyes 
on the ungainly, slobbering, red-haired son 
of Mary, Queen of Scots ; to wind up the mad. 
profligacy, insane personal insistence of 
kings, shameless expenditure, petty persecu- 
tion, and petticoat rule that had been running 
the rig since England came under the sway 
of the Stuarts, who claimed to be hedged 
round with divinity, to be God's vicegerents, 
and to be endowed with superior wisdom ; in 
short, to wind up the long course of lectures 
and bullying to which Parliament had been 
treated by Kings James and Charles. 

A Glance at the Old House of Com- 
mons ON the Twenty-second of 
November. 
On the morning of Monday, the 22nd of 
November, an eager multitude of at least 
three hundred men, wearing swords, steeple 
hats, and Spanish cloaks, had assembled on 
the amphitheatre of benches in the narrow, 
dim, and dingy vestibule of St. Stephen's 
Chapel, where the EngUsh House of Com- 
mons had met since the Reformation, when 
the Speaker, Mr. William Lenthal, not a very 
dignified sort of person, entered a little late 
— nine or ten was the usual hour of meeting in 
the good old times of early rising — and took 
his seat upon the chair at the eastern end of 
the room, in front of a large window that 
looked out upon the river, the ever-throbbing 
artery of England's commerce. The people's 
representatives have evidently some exciting 



THE ARREST OF THE FIVE MEMBERS. 



work on hand. It is now to be decided 
whether the House will adopt the Grand 
Remonstrance, that huge vote of want of 
confidence in the sovereign, which was laid 
upon the table at two o'clock on the previous 
Saturday. However dull reading it makes 
in our days, its every clause and word then 
thrilled the souls of the grave men of old 
England. There, close to the bar, sat the 
veteran Pym, who has come up determined 
in the bracing morning air from his Chelsea 
lodgings ; behind him sat the Member for 
Bucks, Mr. John Hampden, a thoroughbred 
gentleman of the fine old English type, with 
a face of wondrous calm resting on a soul of 
fire and a will of iron ; on the back benches 
might be seen Mr. Denzil Hollis, brother of 
the dead Lord Strafford's beloved wife Ara- 
bella, a resolute friend of freedom, who had 
been sent to prison twelve years before along 
with Sir John Eliot ; near him was seated a 
stalwart country squire of forty-two, the 
"rude, tempestuous" Mr. Oliver Cromwell. 
Opposite, on the left hand of the entrance, 
sat their great moderate opponents, a group 
hardly less famous and scarcely less excited 
on this momentous morning, — the tall and 
shapely Hyde, tiny Lucius Cary, Lord Falk- 
land, accomplished and sweet, though very 
far from possessing a dulcet voice, and the 
witty Sir John Culpeper, who had made a 
very remarkable speech in this same Parlia- 
ment some time before, likening the hideous 
network of monopolies that oppressed the 
country to the frogs of Egypt, " supping in 
our cup, dipping in our dish, and sitting by 
our fire." The Remonstrance was by no 
means smuggled through the House by a 
trick. The debates had already lasted seven 
days, and had been carried on steadily and 
vehemently from morning to night, the House 
being illuminated during those chill Novem- 
ber evenings by candle-light, " according to 
the ancient use of Parliaments." Yet even in 
those critical days the sound of the dinner 
bell at noon was a strong temptation to 
honourable members with hearty appetites. 
Mr. Speaker, himself provoked at the uncon- 
scionably long hours he was kept like a statue 
in his beat, on one occasion fairly lost all 
patience with this rude though pardonable 
stampede, and declared that members were 
"unworthy to sit in this great and wise 
assembly in a Parliament, that would so run 
forth for their dinners !" 

The Ghostly Finger of the Remon- 
strance. 
The professed aim of this huge document 
was to declare the root and growth of the 
mischiefs by which it had been attempted to 
hinder the struggle carried on by the Com- 
mons during the past twelve months for the 
restoration of the ancient honour, greatnes?, 



69s 



and security of the nation and the crown, and 
to foment jealousies between the King and 
Parliament ; the measures that had been 
taken to extirpate those designs, and the 
steps that were still necessary for the final 
removal of the mischievous obstacles. There 
were three classes of conspirators whose 
efforts had tended to undermine the founda- 
tions of the throne and the liberty and 
prosperity of the kingdom — the Jesuits, the 
bishops and ill-affected clergy, the officers of 
state who preferred their private ends to 
those of His Majesty and the commonwealth 
— all acting alike on the principle of exalting 
the royal prerogative against the authority of 
the people in Parliament, and degrading the 
true religion by seeking to set up an ecclesi- 
astical tyranny and sow dissensions between 
the common Protestants and the Puritans. 

This terrible indictment of a self-righteous 
sovereign, as it finally emerged, after a fierce 
contest, with the caustic additions of the 
impetuous, outspoken Strode, Member for 
Beeralston, was voted clause by clause in 
those dim November days. It brought up 
in strong relief the whole black range of 
iniquities, from some of which not one single 
man, perhaps, in all the House had escaped, 
through which some of them, like Hollis, 
had undergone imprisonment, and one ot 
their comrades, the dauntless Sir John Eliot, 
had perished — virtually been murdered — in 
the gloomy walls of the Tower. 

It pointed back, like the honest ghost in 
Hamlet, with a deep and serious tone that 
might well have harrowed up the soul of some 
of thoseyoung courtier Rosencrantzes, dressed 
with gay peaks and wigs and shining swords, 
who sat on the left hand near the entrance — 
to the days of the first Parliament of the 
reign, when " Baby Charles," just mounted 
on the throne with his friend "Steenie" 
beside him, tricked the Commons out of two 
subsidies and then sent them about their 
business ; to the shameful disasters of Roch- 
elle,when the honour of England was dragged 
in the mire ; to that pitiable expedition to 
Cadiz, when the soldiers got rascally drunk, 
and returned home, gaining no other laurel 
but that of the nursery rhyme — 

" There was a fleet that went to Spain ; 
When it got there, it came back again ; — 

to the costly and universally detested billeting 
of licentious soldiers ; to the treacherous 
attempt to introduce mercenary troops into 
the kingdom. 

Then the ominous finger traversed its 
dismal path to the short-lived Parliament of 
1626, which was dissolved to save Buckingham 
from the result of his impeachment — he was 
only reserved for Felton's dagger ; to the 
costly banquetings, such as that given by the 
gay Duke at an expenditure of ^4000— the 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



sweet water, which cost ^200, " descending 
into the room as a shower from heaven " — 
while vast sums of money were raised by- 
illegal demands for loans, in consequence of 
which many who refused to pay were thrown 
into prison, contracting sicknesses from which 
they never recovered. It then pointed to the 
forcible dissolution of the third Parliament, 
whose famous Petition of Right — demanding 
that the King should never levy taxes or forced 
loans without the nation's formal consent, 
billet soldiers in private houses, or imprison 
any freeman without reason given — had been 
reluctantly accepted by Charles, and had 
been welcomed in London with bells and 
bonfires. That Parliament of 1629, every one 
knew, closed in a wild tumult ; the Speaker 
had been held down in his chair, and Denzil 
HoUis, amid shouts of " Aye ! aye ! '' read 
aloud a copy of the stern resolutions, that 
every one was to be counted an enemy to the 
nation's liberties if he introduced innovations 
into religion, advised the levying of tonnage 
and poundage without a grant from Parlia- 
ment, or voluntarily paid those duties. The 
doors were then flung open, and for eleven 
years from that day no Parliament sat with- 
in the time-honoured walls of St, Stephen's. 
The ghostly finger did not omit to pause on 
the imprisonment of several members under 
the closest restraint, religious comfort and the 
liberty of reading and writing being denied 
them; one of them. Sir John Eliot, the un- 
bending champion of the doctrine that the 
control of the constitution lies in Parliament, 
being kept cooped up until he died, in spite 
of the many petitions sent in for his release 
or "refreshment," the petty-minded King 
even refusing his dead body the privilege of 
burial in his Cornish home. 

The Wrongs of Eleven Years. 
The finger moved on to the long and dark 
period of oppression, the eleven miserable 
years from 1629 to 1640, the nature of which 
was by no means badly portrayed by Alder- 
man Chambers, when he declared the English 
were more screwed up and wronged than the 
Turks — a few rash words that cost him dear, 
as he was fined in two thousand pounds, and 
kept for twelve years in prison, only leaving it 
a beggar. Those were the days when, to quote 
the words of Mr. Forster, there " passed over 
the land a net-work of tyranny so elaborate 
and comprehensive . that, excepting only its 
agents and projectors, not a single class of 
the community escaped it." Not only was 
there no Parliament summoned, but it was 
forbidden even to speak of such an obnoxious 
thing ; effete feudal exactions were dug up 
and galvanized into fresh life ; sums that often 
entailed ruin were dragged out by fines, by 
forest laws, by plunder of poor cottagers who 
had not the statutory four acres of ground 



attached to their dwellings, by appropriations 
of land on the decision of packed juries, by 
extensive alienation of the public commons. 
The too well-known imposts of tonnage and 
poundage and ship-money, largely destruc- 
tive of our growing commerce, were exacted 
in the teeth of the Petition of Right, the last 
of these burdens filling the prisons with re- 
cusants until the memorable test-case of the 
silent squire, John Hampden, was decided in 
1637 ; titles and legal posts were sold, taxes 
were laid on heavy coaches and other things 
of a still more inconceivable nature, mono- 
polies were sown broadcast, although they 
had been abolished in the reign of James, — 
on salt, starch, coals, pens, cards, dice, meat 
dressed in taverns, butter-casks, buttons, 
spectacles, rags, and even on the privilege of 
gathering rags. Two of these monopolies 
had a serious political character, — that of 
soap, granted to a Catholic corporation, who 
would appear to have manufactured such 
bad stuff that complaints arose against it 
as being a conglomeration of lime and tal- 
low, which burned the linen and scalded 
laundresses' fingers ; and that of gunpowder, 
the price of which was so extortionate that 
poor people could not buy it, and on that 
account the defensive power of the country 
was materially crimped. Justice was unknown, 
and as venal as in the days when Jugurtha 
trode the streets of ancient Rome ; the judges 
held their seats only as the slaves of the 
royal will, and in other case were promptly 
degraded. Then, what hideous enormities 
could not the finger of that Puritan remon- 
strance point to, when, in the thirty-seventh 
and other clauses, it turned the eyes of those, 
three hundred representatives of free England 
on the Star Chamber, the High Commission 
Court, the Bishops' Courts, and other like 
tribunals that flourished during the tyranny 
of Laud ! Gentlemen like Prynne, Bastwick, 
and Burton, who had used such pretty ex- 
pressions regarding the bishops as that they 
were devouring wolves and lords of Lucifer, 
limbs of the beast and factors of Antichrist, 
were imprisoned, pilloried in Palace Yard, 
and mutilated of their ears,— at Prynne's 
second turn only the stumps remained to be 
shorn, and " there was such a roaring " among 
the crowd " as if every one of them had at 
the same instant lost an ear." But, what 
was worse, the persecuting ecclesiastical 
courts struck at worthy ministers who 
failed to accept the Romish leanings and 
dictations of Laud, — who objected, for 
instance, to bow their head at the mention 
of the name of Jesus,— and seriously injured 
thousands of honest tradesmen (Walloons 
and others), who fled in consequence to 
Holland, and other lands of greater free- 
dom. A heavy blow was in this way 
dealt at the great woollen manufacture of 
696 



THE ARREST OF THE FIVE MEMBERS. 




Mr. Speaker refuses to tell the King where the Five Members have Gone, 



697 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the country. The Church was then filled with 
clergy whom Milton passionately attacked 
as " blind mouths," whose 

" Lean and flashy songs 
Grate on their scrannel pipes of wretched straw." 

The Puritans, it was resolved in the high tide 
of Laud's power, were to be rooted out of the 
country. But it is to this high-handed poHcy 
that America is indebted for the settlement 
of New England. 

Still that determined finger moves on, 
showing how the first utterances of the lusty 
lungs of the Short Parliament were stifled 
in the spring of 1640; how the pernicious 
advance towards Romish " idolatry " was 
maintained ; how in the face of the statutes of 
the realm Papists were permitted to celebrate 
the mass, while the Protestant absentee from 
the parish church, not wishing to bow before 
the altar, was hable to transportation after a 
second offence ; how the prisons were choked 
with persons who refused to pay the forced 
loans ; how the Scottish army drove the 
King to desperation, and he was at last com- 
pelled to pay heed to the petition of some of 
the chief nobles and summon together his 
last and greatest Parliament, that which was 
now about to spurn him from the throne and 
dig his grave. 

And then the finger pauses on the bright 
and solid record of the House that had 
assembled but one year before ; tells how 
in that brief period monopohes, ship-money, 
and the like evils, which had burdened the 
people with a weight of a million and a half 
yearly, had been swept away ; how the right 
of taxation was restored to the Commons ; 
how the chief of those evil counsellors — 
Strafford, Laud, Finch, and others — were 
sent to the scaffold, the Tower, and exile, 
where their machinations were for ever ended; 
how the juryless Star Chamber and other 
" forges of oppression, misery, and violence " 
were abolished, while the wrongs inflicted by 
church canons, by bishops and their courts, 
were rendered no longer possible. Yet 
during that short period Parhament had 
shown its entire good-will towards the King 
by granting subsidies that amounted to the 
solid sum of a million and a half. In further 
defence, the Remonstrance pointed to the 
two army plots, happily nipped in the bud, 
for the seizure of the popular leaders of the 
Commons ; declared that there was no inten- 
tion of destroying scholarship but "to reform 
and purge the Fountains of Learning, the 
two Universities, that the streams flowing 
from them may be clear and pure, and an 
honoivr and comfort to the whole land ;" 
that although the Lower House had passed a 
Bill excluding the bishops from temporal 
power, its only purpose was that they might 
apply themselves with meekness to their 



spiritual duties ; that it had no desire " to 
let loose the golden reins of discipline and 
government in the Church," but held by the 
necessity of a scriptural conformity, wishing 
to "unburden the consciences of men of 
needless and superstitious ceremonies," and 
to settle the government of the Church by a 
general synod of the "most grave, pious, 
learned, and judicious divines of this island, 
assisted with some from foreign parts, pro- 
fessing the same religion with us." 

The close of this memorable — if somewhat 
lengthy, and, it must be confessed, intolerant 
and not altogether just — Declaration an- 
nounced the safeguards the people should 
demand for their protection against those 
evils and oppressions : a watchful attitude 
towards the Catholicism of Rome, which was 
intolerant and destructive of all other religion ; 
security for the just administration of law in 
accordance with the Petition of Right ; and 
the right of holding the purse-strings tight 
against the sovereign, unless he appointed 
counsellors in whom Parliament could place 
confidence. 

The Great Debate ; A Narrow Vic- 
tory; Hands on the Swords; Crom- 
well's Resolution. 
The debate of Monday, the 22nd of 
November, was a pitched battle of demigods, 
in which every nerve was strained, every 
possible argument and touch of eloquence 
advanced by the copious Hyde, the impas- 
sioned, screaming httle Falkland, the con- 
ceited Dering, the rough and ready Culpeper, 
the ingenious and witty Waller, and others 
of less note, to throw out at its final stage 
this tremendous indictment of the career of 
Charles. It ought not to be made public, as 
it would tell against the peace of the land ; 
it reflected on the honour of Majesty, of 
which they should be chary ; to claim the 
right of approval of the royal counsellors 
was a ridiculous pretension ; the charge 
against Laud's party of being in league with 
Rome was unfounded, said the honest and 
broad-minded Falkland ; it might be de- 
fensible to hold up the glass unto His Majesty, 
but they should not remonstrate downward, 
tell stories to the people, and talk of the King 
as a third person ; great prizes were neces- 
sary in the Church, for if the great basin and 
ewer were taken out of the lottery there 
would be few adventurers for the small plate 
and spoons ; it was unconstitutional and 
dangerous to send the Declaration from the 
Commons alone, hopping on a single leg. 

But the gallant charge was shattered on 
the firm spears of the Opposition champions. 
That "fine old English gentleman, all of the 
olden time," Sir Benjamin Rudyard, in a 
speech of masterly eloquence, defended the 
publication of an apology against the slanders 



698 



THE ARREST OF THE FIVE MEMBERS. 



to which this Parliament had been subjected 
by papists, delinquents, and libertines, al- 
though he shrank from the statement of 
prospective legislation. Pym passed the pre- 
vious speakers in review with his usual com- 
pleteness and in steady sledge-hammer style. 
The honour of the King, he said, lay in the 
safety of the people : it was too late in the 
day to talk of concealment, after they had 
narrowly escaped great dangers, and plots 
had been brought home to the Court and 
Popish party. The gentlemanly, subtle, and 
persuasive Hampden delivered one of his 
clear, dispassionate speeches, and Denzil 
HoUis urged in stronger tone the necessity 
of control over the King's advisers, and the 
constitutional right of the Commons to issue 
declarations. 

After the desperate struggle had lasted 
from morning till a Httle past midnight, the 
main question was put, and in a pretty full 
House of three hundred and seven members, 
the Grand Remonstrance was carried by a 
majority of eleven votes. But the whole matter 
was not yet settled, A lawyer, Mr. Peard, rose 
and moved the printing of the Declaration. 
This proposal was met with fierce opposition 
by the minority. Amid a scene of confusion 
honourable members exclaimed that they pro- 
tested, a privilege which the leaders of the 
majority contested ; and at last, when, about 
the hour of one, Mr. Geoffrey Palmer moved 
that the Clerk should now enter the names 
of " all " whose claim to protest would have 
to be determined on another day, the tumult 
reached a height of frenzy almost unex- 
ampled in the peaceful annals of St. Stephen's. 
From every throat in the opposing party 
there came the shout of "All! all !" around 
the chamber. "Some waved their hats over 
their heads, and others took their swords in 
their scabbards out of their belts, and held 
them by the pummels in their hands, setting 
the lower part on the ground ; so, as if God 
had not prevented it, there was very great 
danger that mischief might have been done." 
The terrific storm was quelled by the tact of 
the calm Hampden. A decision was come 
to that the Remonstrance should not be 
printed without the particular order of the 
House ; and the members, fatigued by a long 
sitting of sixteen hours, walked out towards 
their separate lodgings as the bells of St. 
Margaret's were chiming the hour of two on 
that November morning. To some the 
issue of that day's struggle was a matter of 
life and death. Many of the members went 
out into the chill night with grateful heart. 
One of these was Oliver Cromwell, who 
gently declared to an opponent as they 
walked along, that had the result been 
different, he and many of his friends would 
have sold all their goods that morning and 
never have looked on England more. 



Beginning of the Tumults; A Mon- 
ster Petition ; The Remonstrance 
sent to the Printer. 

On the following Thursday, the King ar- 
rived in London from his Scottish trip, was re- 
ceived by the populace with shouts of welcome, 
and was entertained in the city at a banquet 
of unusual magnificence. If some hoped 
that this might cozen Charles out of his ill- 
tempered opposition to the cause of freedom, 
it only served to delude him into the mis- 
chievous opinion that the Puritanic citizens 
were sorry for their past ways and would 
now bend cheerfully before the royal prero- 
gative. In his delight he raised the mayor 
to the rank of baronetcy. 

On Saturday afternoon, another keen debate 
in the House of Commons decided on sending 
the Remonstrance to him along with a peti- 
tion, and on Tuesday a committee of twelve 
members set out for Hampton Court with 
the two stiff documents. A ready and 
gracious reception was accorded them. The 
King even ventured on a joke, and conde- 
scended to utter a trifling curse. He pro- 
mised as early a reply as possible, and giving 
them his royal hand to kiss, dismissed them 
with the request that they should immediately 
deliver a message to the House that the 
Declaration might not be published until his 
answer was received. 

But long before any formal answer was 
volunteered, the hands of the popular party 
were forced by the King's own menaces and 
displays of unconstitutional violence. He 
had already, with sinister purpose, removed 
the honest commander of the Tower ; he 
had dismissed the city guard that had pro- 
tected the Commons for some time, and had 
appointed another under Lord Dorset. The 
earl's tenure was short-lived. On the very 
day of his appointment, he ordered the guard, 
to fire on the citizens, who had shown some 
signs of tumult at the removal of Balfour, 
and on the very next morning he was dis- 
missed by Parliament. The citizens con- 
tinued to indulge in demonstrations, and 
cries of "No Bishops ! No Bishops!" were 
heard in Westminster from armed com- 
panies, much to the dismay of the royalists. 
The drill of the popular party in the House 
was splendid. The slightest whisper of the 
f je was reported at headquarters. Dr. Chil- 
lingworth, a famous divine of small stature, 
had dropped some incautious words about 
several members being guilty .of treason, and 
that they would be accused in a day or two : 
he was instantly summoned before the bar 
of the House. Four officers who had been 
convicted of complicity in the second Army 
Plot were expelled from their seats in the 
Commons. When the members assembled 
on the next morning, they found a guard of 



699 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



two hundred halberdiers set upon the House. 
This was declared a breach of privilege ; the 
force was at once discharged, and the under- 
sheriff who had given the order was com- 
mitted to the great state prison that still 
frowns over the Thames near London Bridge. 
The alleged object of this siege was to pre- 
vent the tumultuous march of thousands of 
citizens who were to present a petition against 
the bishops on the following day. The huge 
petition, with its fifteen thousand signatures — 
t*-/enty-four yards long, and twenty-seven 
inches broad, the greatest the world had yet 
seen-^made its appearance duly, but instead 
of the gigantic and alarming host, it was con- 
veyed by twelve peaceful city gentlemen in 
coaches, who received the thanks and the fair 
promises of the House from the lips of Mr. 
Speaker. At last, amid a terrible uproar, it 
was decided on the 15th of December that an 
appeal should be made to the people by print- 
ing the Grand Remonstrance and the Peti- 
tion, and then that "fatal" Puritan document 
went forth, as an enemy has described it, to 
■"poison the heart of the people." 

lunsford charges the crowds; the 
Whitehall Guard. 

A week after this decision, a fast was held 
in London and at the Court. The King, with 
his usual perversity, celebrated the occasion 
by the threatening and discreditable step of 
appointing Colonel Thomas Lunsford to suc- 
ceed Sir William Balfour, a worthy Scotsman, 
as lieutenant of the Tower. This Polyphe- 
mus, the debased and dissolute scion of an 
old Sussex stock, had no other recommen- 
dations than his total want of character and 
his readiness to carry out the basest purpose 
of the King. What that purpose was will 
shortly transpire. 

The Commons heartily condemned him. 
The alarming news of his appointment 
spread through the city ; and on the 27th 
of December, thousands of unarmed holi- 
dayers — chiefly apprentices, sailors, water- 
men, and the "baser sort of citizens" — 
in the idleness and excitement of the Christ- 
mas festivities, swarmed around the Parlia- 
ment, filling Westminster Hall and the two 
Palace Yards by which the Houses were 
approached. No one was suffered to pass 
through the avenue between the living 
masses without their approval, manifested 
by such shouts as "A good Lord!" "A 
good man \" The weather was intensely 
cold and stormy, so that the tendency to 
active exercise must have been increased, 
and it is just possible that the grimy book- 
sellers, the sprightly seamstresses, and others 
•who carried on business in the hall and near 
the gate, thought it prudent to close their 
stalls, and abandon sorrowfully whatever 
chance they had of driving a brisk trade. 



Had not the obnoxious Lunsford appeared 
on the scene, possibly the matter might have 
ended with such little rude interferences, 
with the harmless, though unpleasant salu- 
tation of the ecclesiastical peers with shouts 
of " No Bishops!" or with such objection- 
able horseplay as surrounding and tearing 
the sacred gown of the Archbishop of York, 
who had taken the undignified step of laying 
hands on a loud-voiced boy. The crowds 
possibly were not aware that Lunsford had 
already been dismissed by the King with the 
honour of knighthood and a solid pension of 
;^5oo ; but in any case they were not likely 
to let him pass without insult. The dissolute 
officer and a dozen of his friends drew their 
swords and charged on the unarmed people, 
chased them round the hall, dashed through 
the crowds in Palace Yard and King Street, 
and then made their way triumphantly to- 
wards Whitehall Palace. Several persons 
were wounded, and one eminent citizen, Sir 
Richard Wiseman, was slain. Hundreds 
of infuriated apprentices, when Lunsford's 
dastardly assault became known through 
the city, rushed with swords and staves 
towards Westminster. A wild uproar pre- 
vailed in that district and the city. The 
mayor and sheriff rode about all night in 
order to allay the tumults ; the gates were 
shut and watches set ; and in the morning 
trainbands were sent to Whitehall. Rioting, 
however, of a similar nature occurred at 
Westminster on the following day. 

Conspicuous in the tumults of that Monday 
was Captain Hyde, an officer of the disbanded 
army of the north, to whom has been attri- 
buted the equivocal honour of originating 
the word " roundhead " as a nickname for the 
close-cropped Puritans. Drawing his sword 
in the midst of a few more " gentlemen " at 
the time the archbishop was surrounded, he 
exclaimed that he would cut the throats of 
those roundhead dogs that bawled against 
bishops. 

But a far more serious trespass on the free- 
dom of Parliament was already showing itself 
at Whitehall. The King, under pretence 
that the persons of himself, the Queen, and 
their children were in danger (in fact, the 
idea was widely spread in London that the 
impeachment of Henrietta should be pro- 
ceeded with as the main abettor of the 
Catholics and of the opposition to Parlia- 
ment, and Pym and his associates were con- 
ferring on the matter), thought he had good 
reason "to accept the dutiful tender of the 
services of any of our loving subjects;" in 
other words, delaying his answer to the 
nation's will so clearly expressed in the 
Remonstrance, he was gathering around him 
a strong company of trainbands and swagger- 
ing officers of the disbanded army, and was 
feasting and carousing them in a guard-house 



700 



THE ARREST OF THE FIVE MEMBERS. 



erected at the very gate of the palace. He 
had secretly attempted to bribe Pym over 
into his service as Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer, and had failed. With his lofty 
ideas of the royal prerogative, there was no 
course left open to him but that of unconsti- 
tutional violence, a weapon that had hitherto 
in almost every instance snapped like a reed 
in his timid hands and was now destined 
to turn on himself with fatal sharpness. 
Already wise men feared that under the 
intense strain on both sides a civil war was 
brooding of which none might know the 
end and consequences, and throughout the 
metropolis the talk was "of nothing but 
drawing of swords and a war between the 
Protestants and Papists." 

The first brush with this " perpetual guard," 
the nucleus of the royal army, took place at 
the palace gate on Wednesday the 29th of 
December, when the city wore an aspect of 
greater peace through the efforts of the 
popular leaders to prevent the irritating 
presence of crowds such as had gathered 
during the two preceding days. Fifteen or 
sixteen officers of the Whitehall guard 
attacked a body of citizens who were return- 
ing from the House, where it seems they had 
gone with a petition, and wounded forty or 
fifty of them with cuts and slashes. The 
" sectaries and desperate varlets " threatened 
to return and take vengeance for an outrage 
perpetrated under the King's very eyes. It 
was dreaded at Whitehall that ten thousand 
citizens would muster at the palace on the 
next day ; the number of soldiers was 
increased ; five hundred volunteers from the 
Inns of Court tendered their services, and 
were permitted to kiss the hands of the 
Queen and Prince. The shops were shut all 
over the city, and the streets teemed with 
angry, armed men. Blood and war were 
words now freely bandied about. 

The Bishops committed to the Tower; 
Close of the Old Year. 

Cautiously yet doggedly the brave men of 
the Commons took their accustomed seats 
in St. Stephen's in those last electric days 
of the year 1641, listening to reports of 
the tumults • and of strange words that had 
dropped from priests about fifteen thousand 
Frenchmen coming across the Channel soon, 
and about the necessity of hanging half-a- 
dozen Parliament men ; listening also to the 
vehement language of Mr. Cromwell, who 
found himself in his true element as he spoke 
of officering the army, especially m Ireland, 
with men in whom they could place confi- 
dence. On Thursday morning a message 
from the Upper House called them to a 
conference on a momentous matter, nothing 
less than a protest by the bishops against all 
votes taken during the three preceding days 



as null and void, because they had been 
compelled to absent themselves owing to 
the obstruction and menaces of the crowds. 
This stroke was probably designed to afford 
Charles a plausible ground for sweeping 
away every vestige of the work of freedom. 
It insinuated that the Parliament was not a 
free one, and offered a pretext for forcing a 
dissolution. 

The step taken by the Commons against 
the foolish Bishops was swift and bold. In 
half-an-hour an impeachment was sent up 
to the Lords, and by eight o'clock that night 
ten of the bishops were safely escorted to 
the grim gateway of the Tower amid the 
frost and snow, while the two others were 
impounded, owing to their extreme age, in a 
house near Charing Cross ; and the two 
benches on which the sacred peers had sat 
were piled up as lumber, never again for 
many long years to be used for the special 
accommodation of " lord bishops." 

The insolent dignitaries having been 
quickly disposed of, to the evident delight 
of most members, Pym rose with unusual 
gravity and moved that the door should be 
shut. The House was startled into a fear of 
some mysterious danger impending. He 
announced that there was a plot for destroy- 
ing the House of Commons on that very day, 
and urged that a request should be sent to 
the city for the despatch of the trainbands 
to protect it. This motion seems to have 
fallen through ; but on the next day, Denzil 
Hollis presented himself at Whitehall, in the 
name of the House, and verbally desired the 
appointment of a guard from the city under 
the Earl of Essex. The King, with his usual 
habit of irritating delay, called for a written 
message. This was instantly despatched. 
His Majesty was in no hurry to reply ; the 
Commons immediately empowered three of 
its members to establish a guard, and twenty 
halberts were brought into the House in case 
of some sudden surprise. Thus ominously 
closed the old year in the midst of excite- 
ment and suspicion. In the new year, 
which shall triumph — King Charles and his 
royal prerogative, or King Pym and the 
liberties of the people ? 

Impeachment of Pym and Other 
Members. 

Shortly after the Lords had assembled on 
the morning of Monday, the 3rd of January, 
1642, Sir Edward Herbert, the Attorney- 
General, appeared at the clerk's table with a 
message from His Majesty. When read aloud, 
the noble lords were appalled at its contents, 
which ran as follows : — 

"Articles of High Treason and other high 
misdemeanours against the Lord Kimbolton, 
Mr. John Pym, JV^r. John Hampden, Mr. 



701 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Denzil HoUis, Sir Arthur Haslerig, and Mr. 
William Strode. 

" I. That they have traitorously endea- 
voured to subvert the fundamental laws and 
government of the Kingdom of England, to 
deprive the King of his royal power, and to 
place in subjects an arbitrary and tyrannical 
power over the lives, liberties, and estates of 
His Majesty's loving people. 

"2. That they have traitorously endea- 
voured, by many foul aspersions upon His 
Majesty and his government, to alienate the 
affections of his people and to make His 
Majesty odious unto them. 

" 3. That they have endeavoured to draw 
His Majesty's late army to disobedience to 
His Majesty's commands, and to side with 
them in their traitorous designs. 

"4. That they have traitorously invited 
and encouraged a foreign power [Scotland] 
to invade His Majesty's kingdom of England. 

"5. That they have traitorously endea- 
voured to subvert the rights and very being 
of Parliament. 

"6. That for the completing of their 
traitorous designs, they have endeavoured, as 
far as in them lay, by force and terror to 
compel the Parliament to join with them in 
their traitorous designs, and to that end have 
actually raised and countenanced tumults 
against the King and Parliament. 

" 7. That they have traitorously conspired 
to levy, and actually have levied, war against 
the King." 

Lord Kimbolton, the peer included in this 
impeachment, rose with perfect coolness from 
the side of Lord Digby (probably a main 
instigator of the King's perilous venture), 
without the slightest trace of tremor in his 
voice, denied the accusation, and boldly 
challenged a full inquiry. The lords kept 
themselves on the level of a dignified caution. 
Paying no heed to the King's demand for 
the surrender of the accused, they charged 
some of the members to produce precedents 
as to the regularity of such an accusation, 
and at once sent a message to the Commons 
for the purpose of a conference, at the same 
time offering to join the Lower House in a 
petition to the King to appoint a guard under 
an officer of their own choice. 

Meanwhile the members of the Commons 
were not sitting idle or benumbed. They 
had received a royal message refusing their 
request for a guard under the command of 
Essex, Charles promising on the word of a 
king that he would protect every one of 
them from violence with as much care as his 
own children ; and Pym, pointing out to his 
agitated hearers the threatening implied in the 
groups of military outside, had succeeded in 
urging the House to request the authorities of 
the metropolis to send a guard to Westminster 



to see to the defence of the streets and walls. 
He and Hollis were summoned to the door, 
and learned from their servants that their 
chambers and trunks, as also those of 
Hampden, had been sealed up by a royal 
warrant. On the announcement of the news, 
a perfect chorus of members declared the 
outrage to be a serious breach of privilege. 
At every step in this critical struggle we meet 
with the assertion of the great principle that 
no action could be taken against a member 
without the assent of the House. But the 
present seizure of property was of a danger- 
ously sweeping character : it would have 
been a violation of the simplest rights of the 
meanest subject of the realm. The most 
ordinary reader will rise from a study of this 
period with a profound respect for the 
cautious, patient, and constitutional spirit of 
the popular heroes, even more than for their 
ability, eloquence, and bravery. It was not 
merely the persons and the rights of Pym, 
Hollis, and Hampden, of which the English 
Parliament thought when they passed with 
loud cheers the declaration of privilege and 
of the right of resistance — they thought, they 
voted, and they cheered for the broad rights 
of the entire English nation. 

An announcement, by no means unexpected, 
is made that Mr. Francis, King's Sergeant- 
at-arms, is at the door with a message to 
the Speaker. He is allowed to cross the 
threshold after laying his mace aside. There 
is a deep silence. In His Majesty's name he 
requests the Speaker to deliver to him, under 
arrest for high treason, Mr. Denzil Hollis, and 
other four members. Mr, Francis is calmly 
enjoined to wait the pleasure of the House 
outside. Four members, two of whom are 
Privy Councillors, are sent to Whitehall to 
inform His Majesty that a message of such 
high gravity to the privileges of the Com- 
mons would receive serious and speedy 
consideration, and that in the meantime the 
five members would be ready to answer 
any legal accusation. The Serjeant of the 
House is ordered to break open the seals of 
the arrested property and to arrest the King's 
agents. Finally Mr. Francis is relieved from 
his tedious post at the door. The House 
adjourns for the day, and printed reports of 
its stout behaviour are rapidly spread over 
the city. 

At an audience given that evening by the 
King to the deputation from the Commons, 
His Majesty stated that he would send his 
reply the first thingin the morning. That night 
he also despatched copies of the articles of 
treason to the four Inns of Court, with orders 
to attend at Whitehall in the morning ; and 
sent a messenger to the Lord Mayor, who 
was to take especial care that none of the 
trained bands were raised to guard the 
Commons, but was to call them out if neces- 
702 



THE ARREST OF THE FIVE MEMBERS. 



sary to shoot rioters with bullets or otherwise, 
and "destroy such of them as persist in 
their tumultuous ways and disorders." The 
deputies of the Commons, however, had 
forestalled him ; the clocks of Whitehall had 
been going slow, and his Lordship hadjetired 
to rest when John Latche reached his desti- 
nation. The Mayor promised, iTowever, to 
open the letter in the morning in the pre- 
sence of the sheriffs. 

The King enters the House of Com- 
mons ; The Birds flown, and Mr. 
Speaker refuses to tell whither 

THEY have gone. 

Charles had determined to make the final 
plunge next morning (4th January), by march- 
ing to the House of Commons with his guard 
of desperadoes and there entrapping the 
leaders. His heart failed him in the morning; 
but when the dark eyes of the Queen flashed 
on him, and she exclaimed, " Get along, 
poltroon ! Go, pull these rogues out by the 
ears, or never look upon my face again ! " 
his fears and scruples were overcome. He 
promised that if one hour elapsed without 
her hearing ill news of him, she would see 
him, when he returned, master of his kingdom. 
She waited in terrible suspense. The time 
mentioned by the King had probably passed 
by, when her bosom friend, Lady Carlisle, 
entered. " Rejoice," exclaimed the gushing 
Henrietta to Venus of the fair ivory face and 
soft, dark eyes, " for I hope that the King is 
now master in his States, and that Pym and 
his confederates are in custody." Within an 
hour this rash communication was imparted 
to Pym, for it was no secret that the noble 
dame was on intimate terms with the gallant 
old leader of the popular party. To the end 
of her days, Henrietta bitterly lamented her 
malheureuse indiscretion, and attributed her 
husband's ruin to the foolish disclosure of the 
meditated blow. At any rate, Pym and his 
associates were forewarned and forearmed. 

The great tribune never acquitted himself 
with such effect as an adroit orator as when 
he rose in the House that morning wiih the 
articles of treason in his hand, and turned 
the edge of each keenly on the heart that had 
aimed them ; each step he made was greeted 
with approval, andwhenhe closed the defence, 
which he had converted with consummate 
skill into an indictment, loud shouts of " Well 
moved ! " fell upon his ear. The great con- 
stitutional statesman paused only for an 
instant, and stepping forward again towards 
the table, he inquired of the Speaker whether 
it was not a breach of privilege to exhibit 
articles of treason by the King's !iand ? and 
— a still more ominous question — whether it 
was not also a grave breach of the privileges 
of Parliament for an armed guard to beset 
the doors of the House during such accusa- 



tion of any member ? It was then resolved 
that a conference should be held with the 
other House for the discovery of the authors 
and publishers of the "scandalous paper" 
(the articles of treason), and to consider the 
subject of the palace guard : three members 
were despatched to lay before the city council 
the dangers by which Parliament was envi- 
roned, and a deputation was sent for infor- 
mation as to the alleged summons issued to 
the Inns of Court on the previous night. 

After the dinner-hour had passed and the 
House had re-assembled, the news of the 
intended arrest was openly communicated. 
In the midst of a hurried discussion as to 
whether the five members should await the 
King's arrival, a certain French captain 
named Langres, who had clambered over 
the roofs of some neighbouring buildings, 
arrived breathless at the door and asked for 
Nathaniel Fiennes, Member for Banbury. 
A few words passed between the two gentle- 
men, and in a trice the House, which was 
already worked up to a pitch of terrible 
excitement, was informed by the Speaker 
that His Majesty was on his way from the 
palace with a large body of armed men. 
There was not a moment to be lost in 
debate. It was at once decided that the 
five members should withdraw. Strode 
exclaimed that he would stay and seal his 
innocence with his blood, and had to be 
dragged out into the barge that was waiting 
at Westminster Stairs. " Away we went. 
The King immediately came in, and was in 
the House before we got to the water." 

The Speaker was sitting in silent dignity, 
with the mace before him, when the door 
opened and King Charles stepped into the 
House of Commons, " where never king was 
(as they say) but once King Henry the 
Eighth." The notorious Captain Hyde took 
his station in the open doorway, holding up 
his sheathed sword, while a force of several 
hundreds — including "a great number of- 
officers of the late army, and men desperate 
of purpose and in fortune, armed some of 
them with halberds and swords, others with 
swords and pistols" — occupied the lobby and 
the floor of Westminster Hall. The whole 
House rose and uncovered at the entrance of 
the King, who walked forward with his eye 
fixed on the spot where the greatest of the 
impeached commoners was accustomed to 
sit. Bowing as he went along, he approached 
the Speaker, saying, " Mr, Speaker, I must 
for a time make bold with your chair." 

"Gentlemen," said the King, "I am 
sorry for this occasion of coming unto you. 
Yesterday I sent a sergeant-at-arms upon a 
very important occasion to apprehend some 
that by my command were accused of high 
treason ; whereunto I did expect obedience 
and not a message," 



703 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



After a few more words, in which he 
declared there was no such thing as privilege 
in cases of treason, he looked round the 
House and said, " I do not see any of them; 
I think I should know them." 

When he asked, "Is Mr. Pym here ? " the 
Speaker, who was by no means a man of 
invincible courage, rose for once to the true 
dignity of his office, and replied amid deep 
silence : " I have neither eyes to see nor 
tongue to speak in this place, but as the 
House is pleased to direct me, whose servant 
I am here ; and I humbly beg Your Majesty's 
pardon that I cannot give any other answer 
than this to what Your Majesty is pleased to 
demand of me." 

" Well," said the baffled and angry King, 
stammering badly, after he had "looked round 
about the House a pretty while to see if he 
could espy any of them," " since I see all my 
birds are flown, I do expect from you that 
you will send them unto me as soon as they 
return hither. But I assure you, on the word 
of a king, I never did intend any force, but 
shall proceed against them in a legal and 
fair way, for I never meant any other. . . . 
I will trouble you no more, but tell you I do 
expect, as soon as they come to the House, 
you will send them to me ; otherwise I must 
take my own course to find them." 

As the King passed out, the House that 
had hitherto been hushed in sullen silence 
hurled after him the words, " Privilege ! 
Privilege!" and the doors of St. Stephen's 
were closed on him and his desperadoes, 
who seem to have anticipated a feast of 
blood. " Zounds ! there are none of them 
here ! " one of those worthy guards was 
heard to exclaim, " and we are never the better 
for our coming ! " Discretion had in this 
instance proved the better part of valour, and 
there can be little doubt that if the five 
members — or any one of them, say the 
impetuous Strode — had remained, and their 
comrades stepped forward in their defence, 



history might have had to tell the story of a 
fearful massacre instead of the prudent 
flight and triumphant return of its five 
members. 

Pages more, and pages, too, of deepest 
interest, might be occupied with the story ot 
the week of panic that followed in the city — 
of the adjournment of the House for a single 
week, and the meetings of its committee in 
the Guildhall and the Grocers' Hall, where 
brave words were uttered and prudent 
measures taken — of the King's visit to the 
city, when he invited himself to a grand 
banquet, whence he was pursued to the 
palace gate by the cries of thousands, "Par- 
liament ! Privileges of Parliament ! '' — how 
sober Captain Skippon was created Major- 
General of the London Militia, how four 
thousand gentlemen and yeomen from Bucks 
rode into the city to stand up for brave John 
Hampden and live and die with the Parlia- 
ment, and how even the "water rats" sent up 
a petition to the Committee to be allowed to 
defend the return of the members to old St. 
Stephen's honoured walls, which never held so 
deep a place in the nation's heart as at that 
time. About the hour that the Committee 
closed its last day's proceedings in the 
Grocers' Hall, the King, seeing how thor- 
oughly he was deserted, how pitiful a show 
he made in a city where a hundred thousand 
men were ready to watch his every step 
where thousands of Hampden's gallant yeo- 
men rode defiant past his very gate, threw 
himself into his coach, as told at the opening- 
of our little story ; shortly afterwards sent 
his scheming wife across to Holland with the 
jewels in order to raise materiel for a con- 
flict ; tossed back churlishly the last rem- 
nant of loyalty that the people hugged in 
their stern British bosoms, and took the 
final and fatal step of setting up his standard 
— the standard of a traitor — at Nottingham^ 
on the 22nd day of August, 1642. 

M. M. 







'04 




Robespierre, wounded cn the qth of Thermidor. 

THE QTH OF THERMIDOR: 

THE STORY OF THE END OF THE REIGN OF TERROR. 



' But all was false and hollow ; though his tongue 
Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear 
The better reason to perplex and dash 
Matures! counsels." — Milton's Paradise L si. 



Marat and Charlotte Corday-The Murder of Marat-The Eflfects of Marat's Death-The Law of the S^>spected-The Fate of 
the Captive Oueen— Progress of the " Terror "—How the Convention earned on the War- Death to the i raitors i 
''Woe^o the Cities of th! Vanquished !"-The Republic on the Battle-field-The Fall of the Hebertists-Danton and 
his Followers ; Their Struggle and their Extinction— The Darkest Period before the Dawn— 1 he 9th of Ihermidor 
—The End of the Terror and of the Terrorists. 

virate of the Mountain was triumphant ; but 
before the day when the famous twenty-two 
traversed Paris in the fatal tumbrils that 
went but one way and carried no return 
passengers, the most ruthless of the three 

zz 



Marat and Charlotte Corday. 

T has been told how on that 31st of 
May, 1793, when the Girondists were 
proscribed, the blood-stained trium- 




705 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



had been smitten by the hand of sudden 
vengeance, — a vengeance all the more re- 
markable in that the squalid, hideous, pitiless 
miscreant, whom the seething flood of revo- 
lution had flung up into a high place, whence 
he dominated and sickened the souls of men, 
was struck down by the feeble hand of a 
girl ; even as that Zastern tyrant who, after 
being an object of terror to the undaunted 
Romans themselves, had his skull ignomini- 
ously battered in with the brick flung by the 
old woman from the wall of Argos. 

At that time there lived in modest obscurity, 
almost in poverty, in the town of Caen in 
Normandy, a granddaughter of the great 
tragic poet, Pierre Corneille. Her name was 
Charlotte de Corday d'Armont. Her father 
was a provincial noble of long descent ; but, 
as with the majority of the rural noblesse, 
his means were not proportionate to his 
rank ; and after the death of his wife, he 
was glad, being left with five children, to 
procure admission for Charlotte, the second 
of his daughters, in the Abbaye aux Dames, 
a conventual establishment, where she earned 
a high reputation for piety, and was remark- 
able for a dreamy, speculative tendency of 
mind, through which she seemed to live 
rather in a phantom world of her own, 
than in the cares and interests of actual 
daily life. 

She had returned to her quiet home on the 
suppression of the convents in 1792, with a 
soul filled with vague aspirations for the 
happiness of her country, and a mind con- 
fused by the turgid philosophy of the period. 
The story of the persecution endured by the 
Girondists at the hands of their victorious 
opponents of the Mountain, had roused a 
deep indignation in her heart. The pro- 
scriptions, the arbitrary imprisonments, the 
horrible September massacres, and the con-, 
tinual and sinister activity of "that sharp 
female recently born, and called la Guillo- 
tine" seemed to her to presage the rapid fall 
of the country she loved so well. Various of 
the leading Girondists, who had taken refuge 
at Caen from the persecution, were moreover 
her friends. Marat appeared to her as the 
odious personification of the tyranny that 
was raging against the best patriots, and the 
most zealous and honest public servants. 
And she resolved that the dagger of Har- 
modius, wielded by a female hand, should 
pierce the bosom of the tyrant who profaned 
the name of Liberty. She would sacrifice 
herself for the good of her country ; and 
would account her own life well lost if she 
paid it as the price for the death of the I 
bloodthirsty tyrant, the ruthless persecutor 
and common enemy of all. Danton and j 
Robespierre appeared in her eyes as secondary j 
personages, unworthy of her vengeance, as ' 
lot having the power for evil which Marat's > 

706 



boundless influence over the people gave to 
that sanguinary persecutor. She determined 
to proceed to Paris with the means of pro- 
curing an introduction to Marat ; and for 
this purpose came several times to the official 
residence where the Girondist deputies were 
accustomed to assemble, and to receive those 
citizens who had business with them. She 
had two interviews with the young and 
gallant-looking Barbaroux, to the amusement 
of Pethion, who, with a smile, expressed his 
surprise at " the fair aristocrat who came to 
see the Republicans." The young girl blushed 
with indignation. "You judge me without 
knowing me. Citizen Pethion," she replied ; 
" one day you will know what I am." 

Under the pretext that she was going to 
solicit the favour of the Government on behalf 
of a friend, the daughter of an emigrant, she 
procured from Barbaroux a letter of intro- 
duction to Duperret, a Girondist deputy, who 
had not quitted the capital ; and furnished 
with this, and with a passport for Argenton, 
she made her way to Paris. Her aunt seeing 
her in tears before her departure, asked the 
cause ; and received the reply, " I weep for 
the misfortunes of my country, for those of 
my parents, and for yours ; so long as Marat 
lives, no one's life will be safe for a single 
day." As a further proof of the determination 
with which the young girl's heart was filled, 
her aunt afterwards spoke to having found 
an open Bible on Charlotte's bed, after her 
niece's departure, open at the book of Judith, 
in the Apocrypha, with the passage under- i| 
lined that tells how Judith went forth from Ij 
the city endowed with marvellous beauty 
which the Lord had given her to deliver 
Israel. On the nth of July she arrived in 
Paris. The next day she carried her letter 
of introduction to Duperret, whom she mys- 
teriously counselled to quit the Convention 
of Paris, where he could be of no further 
service, and to join his colleagues at Caen 
without loss of time. She purchased a dagger- 
knife for three francs. After an ineffectual 
attempt to procure an interview with Marat, 
she obtained admittance by means of a letter, 
in which she told him that she brought im- 
portant news from Caen which it behoved 
him to learn without delay. 

The all-powerful leader of the people lived 
in a state of ostentatious poverty in a shabby 
and almost unfurnished set of rooms in what 
was then the Rue des Cordeliers. He was 
at the time sick of a low fever, but con- 
tinued to write and harangue against his 
enemies with ceaseless activity. He received 
his visitor seated in a long slipper-bath, across 
which a plank had been laid to serve as a 
writing-table ; and was at that moment 
writing a requisition to the Committee of 
Public Safety for the proscription of the 
remaining members of the Bourbon family 



THE NINTH OF THERMIDOR. 



in France. He was covered up to the 
shoulders in a soiled sheet that left only his 
head and neck and one of his arms at liberty 
as he wrote. Squalid Marat questioned his 
visitor concerning the Girondist deputies 
who had taken refuge at Caen, and noted 
dbwn their names as she mentioned them. 
" Cest bien^'' said Marat ; " within a week 
they shall all go to the guillotine." 

The words were scarcely out of his mouth 
when Charlotte Corday, snatching the dagger 
from her bosom, plunged it with one sudcTen 
downward blow into the demagogue's heart. 
With a single frenzied cry for help, Marat 
fell back in his bath a dead man. The 
housekeeper and servant of Marat came 
running in at the noise, and raised an alarm. 
At their cries the people of the house came 
running in, soon followed by a crowd from 
the street ; and amid an indescribable 
tumult, Charlotte Corday was secured by a 
party of soldiers, who could hardly protect 
her from the fury of the populace, raging to 
tear her limb from limb, and carried her olf" to 
the prison of the Abbaye. She replied with 
perfect calmness to the questions concerning 
her crime and its motive. " I saw civil war 
about to tear France," she said ; " convinced 
that Marat was the principal cause of the 
perils and calamities of the country, I set 
the sacrifice of my life against his to save 
my native land." Pinned to her dress was 
an address to the French friends of the laws 
and of peace. When the president of the 
revolutionary tribunal, Montane, came to 
interrogate her next day, he was so touched 
by her youth, beauty, and courage that he 
made an attempt to save her life by attribut- 
ing to insanity the crime she had committed; 
but she gloried in her work and persistently 
frustrated his efforts. Transported to the Con- 
ciergerie, she wrote a letter to Barboroux, — 
a strangely graphic production, describing all 
the circumstances of her crime and her arrest 
with a philosophic calmness, as if she were 
speaking not of herself but of some stranger. 
I'o her father she also wrote a kindly, affec- 
tionate letter, asking him to forget her, or 
rather to rejoice in her fate, and quoting the 
line of her grandfather, Corneille : "Z^? a-iiiie 
fait la honte, et non pas PecJiafaiuiP 

At her trial she maintained the same appear- 
ance of inliexible determination. "Since when 
had you formed this design 1 " was one of the 
questions asked her ; to which she replied, 
" Since the 31st of May, when the deputies 
of the people were arrested here. I have 
killed a man to save a hundred thousand. 
I was a republican long before the revolu- 
tion." 

In the short interval between her condem- 
nation and the departure of the tumbril for 
the place of execution, she preserved her 
serenity unaltered. Her portrait was hastily 



taken by an artist named Haner, whom she 
rewarded by cutting off for him with the 
executioner's scissors a lock of her long hair. 
She passed to her death as to a triumph, sitting 
with head erect in the rumbling death- cart, 
utterly indifferent to the angry shouts and 
execrations of the populace furious at the loss 
of the friend of the people." Robespierre 
and Camille Desmoulins had stationed them- 
selves on the way to see her pass by. 

" Such was the end of Marat," says Lamar- 
tine ; " such was the end of Charlotte Corday. 
In the presence of murder, History dares not 
praise; in the presence of heroism. History 
dares not condemn. The appreciation of 
such an act places before the mind the 
terrible alternative to misjudge virtue or to 
praise assassination." When Vergniaud in 
his prison heard of Charlotte Corday's crime, 
condemnation, and death, he said : " She 
kills us, but she teaches us how to die." 

The Effects of the Murder of 
Marat. 

Robespierre and Danton were not ill 
pleased to be rid of their formidable colleague, 
whose influence upon the fiercest of the 
Jacobins had always been a menace to them. 
They gladly conciliated public opinion among 
the " Sansculottes " by decreeing a magnificent 
pubhc funeral to the dead man, at which the 
most extravagant and blasphemous panegyrics 
were pronounced in favour of the dead 
monster. His heart was deposited in the 
club of the Cordeliers, where an altar was 
voted to him. "Precious rehcs of a god !" 
cried an impassionate orator at the foot of 
the altar, " shall we be faithless to thy manes ? 
Thou callst upon us to avenge thee, and thy 
murderers still breathe!" and pilgrimages and 
processions were instituted to the tomb of 
Marat. His name was in every mouth, and 
young girls dressed in white chanted funeral 
hymns around the catafalques in funeral 
processions in his honour in various parts of 
France. 

The effect of the murder of Marat was the 
calling forth of a tremendous vengeance 
from the Jacobin party. A fury of hatred 
and suspicion appeared to seize the whole 
nation ; no man was sure of his life ; for 
suspicion pointed to the ardent republican as 
to the aristocrat and the royalist ; the artisan 
was denounced equally with the ci devaiitj — it 
was the full development of the Reign of 
Terror. A great and fatal madness seemed to 
have seized upon the minds of men; " the 
time was out of joint ;" and the clang of the 
sharp blade of the guillotine, ever rising in 
its groove to descend on the neck of fresh 
victims, was to set it right. 

Of the fate of the Girondist deputies in 
Paris, the twenty-two v/ho were despatched 
together in the death-carts to the place of 



707 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



execution, we have already spoken else- 
where. The fate of the other chiefs of that 
faction, the deputies who had taken refuge 
at Caen, was lamentable in the extreme. 
They were compelled to fly for their lives, — ■ 
the bold Barbaroux, Guadet, Salles, Louvet, 
Valadi, Brizot, Pethion, once the idolized of 
Paris mobs, and the rest of them. They 
had to wander as outlaws through the 
country districts, in the attempt, vain in 
most cases, to get out of France and await 
better days elsewhere. They had to pass 
long days and nights, thirty-three hours at 
a stretch on one occasion, hidden in 
marshes, or in the bleak, rain-saturated 
fields, famishing, faint, tormented, and some 
of them with the pangs of sickness, and not 
daring to knock at any man's door and crave 
the shelter that the lowest beggar might 
have claimed in right of his hunger and 
destitution. Some, like Guadet, Salles, and 
Valadi, were taken and guillotined at Bor- 
deaux and elsewhere ; Louvet, after "hair- 
breadth escapes that would fill three roman- 
ces," contrives to elude spies and pursuers, 
and to escape into Switzerland. Barbaroux, 
worn out by months of hardship and con- 
tinual harassment, at length mistakes an 
approaching crowd of peasants gathered on 
a holiday for a horde of Jacobins approach- 
ing to capture him, and puts an end to his 
life with a pistol. Stern Roland also, driven 
to despair when he hears that his heroic wife 
has been guillotined in Paris, perishes by 
his own hand. Pethion and Brizot died 
miserably of famine, their dead bodies being 
found, gnawed by dogs, in their last place of 
refuge. The saying of Vergniaud that the 
Revolution, like the fabled Saturn, was 
devouring its children, proved itself true. 

" Cry Havoc, and Let slip the Dogs 
OF War." 

The people were exasperated at the loss of 
their squalid idol Marat ; the general anger 
was raised to boiling point by the news from 
the frontier concerning the war. The lines 
in the Marseillaise, in which the Frenchman 
is desired to hearken to fierce invading 
soldiery yelling in his fields, was likely to 
become dismally significant. For on the 
26th of July, the Duke of York succeeded in 
taking Valenciennes, and quickly proceeded 
to invest Dunkirk ; at Weissembourg, des- 
tined in future days to be memorable in a 
new struggle between Frenchmen and Ger- 
mans, the Austrians forced the lines of 
defence, and are actually marching into 
French territory. If ever France and the 
Republic were in danger, they are so now ; 
and no sacrifice must be shunned by good pa- 
triots to meet the threatened peril. To the 
Committee of Public Weal (Sabit Public) 
founded some six months before, unlimited' 



powers were given, at the proposal of Danton; 
a larger Committee, that of the Public Safety 
{Siirete Generale), was at work as its subordi- 
nate; and the forty-four thousand JacobinClubs 
throughout France support the victorious 
faction of the Mountain ; the sectionaries 
being now paid by law, the sum of foriy 
sous a day, for their services at the meetings. 
Then the action of the revolutionary tribunals 
became more stern, swift, and pitiless than 
ever; the full violence of the Reign of Terror 
raged throughout France. Then was passed 
that " Law of the Suspected," according to 
which proof was no longer required, but 
mere suspicion was enough to deprive any 
man, woman, or child of liberty and life ; for 
on the mere denunciation of a person as 
suspected, without any shadow of evidence, 
he was immediately consigned to prison, 
which in most cases he only left to pass in 
swift succession through the stages of judg- 
ment, condemnation, and execution. 

The system of government by the party in 
power is indeed " writ large," that all who 
run may read,— to bring down swift retribu- 
tion on the head of every plotter at home, 
and thus silence every opposing voice in the 
dumb terror of submission; to oppose the in- 
vasion from abroad to the last man and the 
last cartridge; for which purpose a " levy in 
mass '' is ordered of all the combatant popu- 
lation. It is publicly declared that France 
is in danger, and that she has risen against 
tyrants; and woe to the general who shall 
now attempt to play the game of Dumouriez, 
and draw upon himself the wrath of that ter- 
rible Committee of Public Safety ! Several 
incur suspicion, among them brave Custine, 
formerly so successful against his country's 
enemies, the idol of his soldiers. A Com- 
missioner appeared in his camp to arrest 
him, and convey him to Paris for trial. The 
soldiers murmur, and are inclined to resist 
any attempt to carry their general away from 
them; conscious in their hearts, probably, of 
the utter hopelessness of the acquittal of any 
prisoner once brought forward for trial. 
But the Commissioner is a bold, dauntless 
man, suited for those iron times; he has 
come for Custine, and Custine he must have. 
"Wilt thou answer for his innocerice with thy 
head ? " he demands of a remonstrating 
sergeant. " If your general is guiltless, he 
will be set at liberty ; if guilty, he will pay 
the forfeit — and woe to traitors and con- 
spirators ! " To Paris accordingly was brave 
Custine hurried off. At his trial he defended 
himself with an energy and eloquence rare 
even in those fiery days ; so completely did 
he vindicate himself from every charge but 
that of ill-success, that even before such 
judges and such a tribunal it was thought an 
acquittal must follow ; and the prisoner him- 
self looked confidently for the verdict. It 



708 



THE K11N2H OF THERMIDOR. 



was Guilty ; and the sentence the usual 
one of death, to be inflicted within twenty- 
four hours ; and Custine, brave soldier 
though he was, sunk down on his knees, 
overwhelmed by the sudden surprise, and by 
the revulsion from hope to despair; remain- 
ing speechless and motionless tor two hours; 
then indeed dying with a sufficiency of calm 
dignity, but with a bitter feeling in his heart 
of the injustice and ingratitude that requited 
with the felon's doom such services as he 
had ren- 
dered to the 
Republic. 

Towns 
there were 
also, im- 
p o r t an t 
places such 
as Lyons, 
Bordeaux, 
Toulon,and 
others, in- 
clined to 
favour the 
Girondists, 
andeventhe 
Royalists. 
Against 
Lyons, 
Dubois- 
Cranc^ the 
Montagard 
was des- 
patched 
with orders 
to bombard 
the place, — 
a command 
which he 
carried out 
with u n- 
sparing se- 
verity. After 
a long and 
vigorous 
resistance, 
and the en- 
during of 
all the 
severest 
h a r d sh i ps 

of war, the place surrendered, and the order 
went forth that the disobedient city was to be 
razed to the ground, and its very name was 
to disappear from the Hst of the towns of 
France. But not even the ruthlessness of a 
revolutionary government can wipe out of 
existence such a city as Lyons, and the atten- 
tion of the Committee was diverted to other 
objects in the enormous swiftness with which 
events moved onwards in those weeks of 
blood and crime. 




Chaklotte Corday. 



The Fate of the Captive Queen. 

With an Austrian army knocking at its 
gates, and even bursting through the barriers 
of its frontier land, it was natural that the 
anger of a people roused to vindictive fury 
should turn once more to that doleful prison 
of the Temple, where languished the dis- 
crowned, widowed Oueen, the " Austrian " 
whose name had been associated from the 
first with every burning thought of wrong and 

vengeance. 
" Never 

surely, in 
an age that 
boasted of 
civilization, 
and in a 
country 
where bells 
hadknolled 
to church, 
had a queen 
been sub- 
jected to 
such a fate 
as had be- 
fallen the 
most un- 
happy 
daughter of 
the haugh- 
tyEmpress- 
queen Ma- 
riaTheresa. 
Surely the 
vanity of 
human 
wishes and 
the frailty 
of human 
greatness 
had never 
been more 
impressive- 
1 y i 1 1 u s- 
trated than 
in the his- 
t o r y of 
Marie An- 
toinette. 
Burke, the 
great orator, in his place in the House of Com- 
mons, described how in earlier days he had 
seen her shining like a bright particular star 
amid all the splendour of the French Court, 
when it seemed as though a thousand blades 
would leap from their scabbards to avenge 
the shghtest insult offered to her. Now she 
was sitting in a dungeon, a desolate captive, 
the " Widow Capet," exposed to outrage from 
the brutality of municipal guards, and the 
vulgarest of coarse pai ve?m officials. She had 
seen her husband, whose chivalrous respect 



709 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



for " the Queen " was one of the best traits in 
his amiable though weak nature, torn from 
her, to be carried off to the scaffold. At dead 
of night her persecutors had appeared, to drag 
from her arms her only boy, the unhappy 
little Dauphin, whom the mockery of fate has 
chronicled as Louis XVII. in the chronicle of 
the French Kings, and whose last days of 
royalty were passed under the tyranny of the 
brutal cobbler Sin^^jj^ and whom merciful 
Death at last set free from bodily and mental 
misery. She had now for consolation in her 
dreary captivity only the affection of her 
daughter, the Princess Marie, destined to be 
the only one among the group of royal captives 
in the Temple who was to survive those days 
of horror, and the piety of the excellent 
Madame Elisabeth, the sister of the dead 
King, who bore her sufferings with the con- 
stancy and resignation of a martyr. To any 
ordinary view, it might appear that the Queen, 
in the depths of her misfortune, had sunk 
below the fiery horizon of politics, and might 
be left unmolested in her wretchedness. But 
it was declared that there had been plots for 
her liberation, and on the subject of conspiracy 
and plotting the French were at that time 
stark mad. Besides, the exhibition of the 
ex-Queen, the " Austrian," brought to the bar 
of the revolutionary tribunal, would be sweet 
in the eyes of the nation, and an acceptable 
offering from the Government to the sovereign 
people, in the Year 3 of the Republic of hberty, 
equality, fraternity, and death. It would be 
a living proof that the justice of the incorrup- 
tible rulers, like Death itself, knocked equally 
at the doors of kings and peasants. Accord- 
ingly it was resolved that the " Widow 
Capet " should be brought to her trial. The 
parting from her daughter and her sister-in- 
law was as the bitterness of death to the 
unhappy Queen. She solemnly embraced and 
blessed the princess, and commended both 
her children to the care and affection of 
Madame Elisabeth, and bade her fellow- 
captives a last farewell. Then she quietly 
turned away to accompany the emissaries 
who had come to convey her to that anti- 
chamber of death, the Conciergerie. In 
passing out she struck her forehead violently 
against the stone above the portal. One of 
the guards, more humane than the rest, asked 
if she had hurt herself. She replied that no- 
thing in the world could hurt her now. 

The public accuser, Fouquier Tinville, con- 
ducted the prosecution against her. In 
general her attitude was that of weary indif- 
ference, as of one who has to pass through 
a harassing set of' forms, and wishes the 
infliction were over. Once only she flashed 
out in indignant scorn, when she appealed to 
all the mothers present in the court against a 
horrible accusation of profligacy brought 
against her by Fouquier Tinville. She had 



been immured in a cell in the Conciergerie 
from the 21st of August, and it was now the 
middle of October. Those weeks of solitary 
imprisonment had told upon the captive. 
She was only thirty-seven years of age, but 
she looked an old, gray, faded woman. But she 
met her accusers and the howling crowd who 
thirsted for her blood with all the dignity of 
a queen. When accused of having abused 
the weakness of the King, she quietly replied 
that she had not considered his character as 
weak, that she was his wife and had made it 
her pleasure as it was her duty, to obey him 
in all things." The genius of Delaroche has 
portrayed for the world the aspect of the gray, 
discrowned queen passing along from the 
court to the prison after her condemnation ; 
the woeful eyes, dim with much weeping, 
staring straight out before her, but the haughty 
mouth still compressed into an expression of 
ineffable scorn for the howling viragoes who 
insult her on her way. It was the 15th of 
October, at four o'clock in the morning, that 
she was brought from the hall of judgment to 
the gloomy apartment where the condemned 
awaited the arrival of the executioner. The 
last day of her life was dawning ; when she 
sat down to write a letter full of blessings and 
thanks to her sister-in-law, a gleam of the 
queenly pride of her nature flashed up even in 
these the last words she was to write on earth. 
She had the greatest abhorrence of the priests 
who had taken the oath to the republic. "As 
my actions are not free," she writes, " they 
will perhaps send me a priest. But I protest 
here that I shall not say a word to him, and 
shall treat him as an entirely strange being." 

After finishing this letter, the Queen slept 
for a few hours. She then changed the black 
gown she had worn until then for a white 
robe. Her cap was white also, but with a 
black riband, in token of the mourning she 
wore for her husband. At eleven o'clock the 
guards and executioners appeared. The 
Queen herself cut off her hair, and quietly 
submitted to have her hands bound, and with 
a firm step walked between the hedges of 
bayonets towards the portal of the prison, to 
start on that last dreary death-ride. She 
recoiled for a moment when she caught sight 
of the vile tumbril waiting for her ; she had 
expected at least to be conveyed in a carriage 
to the scaffold, as her husband had been ; but 
" equality " was one of the watchwords of the 
time ; and the terrorists could gain popularity 
from the fact of making no difference between 
the Queen of France and the humblest prisoner 
convicted of conspiring against the Republic 
one and indivisible. 

The first part of the death-journey was 
through one of the lowest quarters of Paris, 
and the mob had turned out in its thousands, 
including a large number of the vilest and 
most degraded women, to scoff and jeer at 



710 



THE NINTH OF THERMIDOR. 



the death-doomed victim, who had once been 
the proudest of queens. The vilest execration, 
the most horrible gutter epithets, were show- 
ered upon the prisoner, whose cheeks were 
purple with shame, and who seemed anxious 
to hide her head from the sight of the horrible 
furies yelling and blaspheming about her. 
As the tumbril jolted slowly along over the 
rough stone pavements, the Queen, with her 
bound hands, tottered, and could with diffi- 
culty keep her balance. The crowd noticed 
it, and yelled with delight, shouting, " These 
are not thy cushions of Trianon ! " But after 
a time the course lay through a quieter 
quarter ; the yells ceased, and the Queen 
could wend to her death with head erect and 
unquailing courage. As the procession 
•passed through the Rue St. Honore she was 
noticed to look fixedly at the upper windows 
of a house, and then to bov.'^ her head. In an 
upper chamber of that house a priest of her 
own religion was concealed, waiting to give her 
the last blessing as she passed. Unable with 
her bound hands to make the sign of the cross, 
she moved her head slowly forward, and from 
side to side, as a sign of faith. After that 
the only token of emotion she is said to have 
given was when the death-cart passed near 
the entrance of the Tuileries, where she had 
ruled with such supreme and brilliant sway. 
A few tears dropped from the heavy eyes as 
she looked her last at the " theatre of her 
greatness and of her fall ." Presently the 
cart stopped at the foot of the scaffold. The 
Queen mounted to the platform with a hrm, 
majestic step. Treading inadvertently on 
the executioner's foot, she asked his pardon 
as calmly and grandly as she would have 
addressed a courtier at Versailles. She did 
not, like the King, address any words to the 
bystanders from the scaffold. When her 
lifeless head was shown to the populace, a 
frantic shout of " Vive la Repiiblique! " arose. 
Carlyle has described, in one of the most 
eloquent passages he ever wrote, that terrible 
ride of the discrowned Queen. " Is there a 
man's heart," he asks, " that thinks without 
pity of those long months and years of slow 
wasting ignominy.'' . . . Look there, O man 
born of woman ! The bloom on that fair 
face is wasted, the hair is gray with care ; 
the brightness of those eyes is quenched, their 
lids hang drooping ; the face is stony pale, 
as of one living in death. Mean weeds, which 
her own hand has mended, attire the Queen 
of the world. The death hurdle where thou 
sittest pale and motionless, which only curses 
environ, has to stop ; a people drunk with 
vengeance will drink it again in full draught, 
looking at thee there. Far as the eye reaches 
a multitudinous sea of m.aniac heads, the air 
deaf with their triumph-yell. . . . O think 
not of these ; think of Him whom thou wor- 
shippest,the Crucified— who, also treading the 



winepress alone, fronted sorrow still deeper, 
and triumphed over it, and made it holy, and 
built of it a ' sanctuary of sorrow ' for thee 
and all the wretched." 

Progress of the Terror ; How the 
■ Convention carried on the War, 
The execution of the Queen and the pro- 
scription and death of the Girondist chiefs, 
mark an epoch in the downward course of 
the Revolution. For now there is no sem- 
blance of pity, no sense of shame, no recoiling 
before the horrible; allbutone idea seems to be 
abandoned. Like Shakespeare's guilty thane 
the Republic had " in blood stepped in so far, 
returning were as tedious as go o'er." The 
Law of the Suspected rendered every man's 
life so utterly insecure, and threw the shadow 
of the guillotine so gloomily across every 
hearth, that men went mad with a kind of 
furious fever, denouncing their neighbours, 
and sometimes even themselves, in what ap- 
peared to be mere impulses of mad excitement. 
To be apparently in the possession of means, 
and to employ those means in purchasing the 
luxuries and conveniences of life, was to be at 
once suspected ; for were not the armies of 
the nation suffering, marching with never a 
shoe to their feet, enduring want and hunger 
and cold in the face of the enemy at the 
frontier.'' And what was the duty of a good 
patriot if not to devote his means, his time, 
and all his energies to the relief and succour 
of those heroic troops '^. Accordingly, wealth 
and competence abandoned the use of all 
superfluities until such time as they should be 
once more safe, and put down its carriages 
and lacqueys, — by the way, there were no 
lacqueys left, but only helps, — and trudged 
on toot, and put on coarse attire, the carmag- 
nole and the red cap, and strove thus to tide in 
safety over the period of peril. For the sharp 
female '' La Guillotine " is more hungry than 
ever; and the batches of victims became larger 
day by day: their passive acquiescence in the 
present state of things will no longer serve ; 
there must be active promotion of the Repub- 
lic one and indivisible ; and as the perils 
thicken from foreign armies beyond the fron- 
tier, and surviving Girondist partisans, and 
worse still, from concealed or open royalist 
partisans and would-be restorers of the old 
state of things, when the inhabitants of France 
were divided into tyrants and slaves, " What 
hast thou done that thou wouldst be hanged 
for, if the counter-revolution triumphed ? " 
has been sternly promulgated by authority 
as the test by which a true patriot was to be 
tried. 

I'he revolution had now reached the stage 
when her children were her daily food ; and 
thus not only Madame Roland the Girondist 
was executed, with many more who had been 
enthusiastic partizans of liberty and progress, 



711 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



but not even the Jacobinism of the Duke of 
Orleans, Philippe Egalite, could save him in 
the day when " high-sighted tyranny," as re- 
presented by the most ruthless form of mob 
law, "ranged on, and each man fell by 
lottery." And thus, on the 6th of November, 
1793, Orleans, who had voted for the death 
of his cousin the King, and had outhcroded 



with the traitor Dumouriez months before,was 
making his way to Switzerland, there to earn 
his living as best he might by teaching 
mathematics, and destined, more than a 
generation later, to sit on the throne as Louis 
Phihppe, King of the French, the chief of the 
most unreal of constitutional monarchies. 
A very different victim was immolated at 




Danton going to the Guillotine. 



Herod in his assumption of republicanism, 
was obliged to mount those fatal steps, 
dying with a grim cynical composure, and 
a shrug of utter disdain for the sovereign 
people, urging the executioner to despatch, 
and reminding that functionary, who wished 
to remove his boots, that they "would come 
off more ea^/ily afierwards.^^ Meanwhile, 
his son, the Dake de Chartres, who had fl^d 



the shrine of St. Guillotine only a few days 
later, in the person of Bailly, once the Pre- 
sident of the National Assembly and Mayor 
of Paris, — illustrious astronomer, moderate 
politician, and the most honest among the 
advocates for improvement and reform, but 
doomed to death, as Carlyle forcibly expresses 
it, for leaving his astronomy to meedle with 
revolution. The increasing ferocity and 



712 



THE NINTH OF THERMIDOR. 



utterly pitiless temper of the Paris mob, 
growing more bloodthirsty day by day, was 
nowhere more clearly seen than in the cruel 
circumstances of the execution ofthe innocent 
old man. They flirted in his face the red 
flag as they dragged him to execution ; they 
prolonged his agony through hour after hour 
of the cold, bleak November day, dragging 



ing spectator. "Yes, my friend," was the 
undaunted reply, " but it is with cold ! " And 
thus, with the heroic courage which was a 
characteristic of all ranks during that strange 
period, he died. 

Another phase of the revolutionary mad- 
ness was shown in the furious outbreak of 
anger and contempt against all that had till 




Charlotte Cokday stabs Marat. 



him first to the Champ de Mars, and then 
setting up the guillotine in a distant spot on 
the borders ofthe Seine, onthe pretext that 
the place where the altar of Liberty had stood 
would be desecrated by the death of a traitor. 
Meekly and submissively the old man bore 
every indignity, accepting with heroic calm- 
ness all the ignominy of that dark hour. 
" You're trembling, Bailly," shouted an insu't- 



then excited reverence and respect among 
men, and chiefly a;4'a:nsc religion. The royal- 
ism ofthe priests had much to do with this. 
The churches were now desecrated, their 
treasures plundered, the leaden statues, roof 
coverings, and decorations carried off to be 
used for the casting of bullets. The worship of 
God is considered a delusion, a relic of the 
priestly tvrannv that has been swept away. 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Henceforth Liberty is to be worshipped, and 
Reason ; and in the year 1793, accordingly 
an actress, dressed in a bhie robe, and be- 
dizened that she may allegorically represent 
Reason, is paraded about Paris to personify 
the idea penetrating into the National Conven- 
tion itself Away, too, with the old reckoning 
of time, the old calendar, the record of 
slavery and superstition. The French nation, 
regenerated by Liberty, should have a new 
reckoning, the world starting fresh, as it 
were, from the founding of the Republic one 
and indivisible, which was to be the year 
07ie, — to be to the French what the building 
of the city was to the Roman, the birth of the 
Saviour to the Christian, the Megira to the 
Mahometan, a starting-point from which time 
should be computed, — Han I. de Republiqiie. 
And the old division into months and weeks 
again was to vanish away, the months being 
superseded by twelve periods of thirty days 
each, such as Frimaire, the cold or frost time; 
Ventose, the windy ; Thermido}% the heat time ; 
Bt'umaire, the foggy; Pliiviose, the rainy 
time; Fructidor,thQ fruit season, etc., etc.; 
the five days of the year not provided for 
by this arrangement being considered as holi- 
days, with an additional one for leap-year. 
For the weeks were to be substituted periods 
of ten days, so as to include exactly three in 
each of the new months — the tenth day, or 
Decadi., being kept as a holiday. 

Thus wild excitement and change at home, 
a frenzy pervaded by the guillotine, kept up 
the Reign of Terror ; but abroad there was 
war and danger and threatening of failure — 
indeed, reality of failure in some cases, for 
which the generals of the armies were made, 
like Custine, to pay with their heads ; and 
among those who thus perished was a 
General Beauharnais, who left behind him a 
widow, Josephine, immured in a Paris prison, 
who very narrowly escaped the fate of fur- 
nishing an item in the "supply" provided 
daily for the guillotine, which represented 
"with its rapid beat the whole machine of 
government. Commissioners from the Con- 
vention and from the terrible Committee of 
Public Safely were despatched to the armies 
and to the communities of various towns, 
with authority of oyer and terminer with a 
vengeance, — unhmited authority of life and 
death. These men, formidable in their 
official plumed hats and tricolored scarves, 
were sent on missions throughout the country 
to collect what was necessary for the armies, 
or to see that it was collected, to stamp out 
treason, and to take cognisance of all luke- 
warmness and disaffection. Thus St. Just 
and Lebon came to Strasbourg to exhort the 
citizens to do their duty to the army. Ten 
thousand pairs of shoes were required im- 
mediately ; let all good citizens strip off their 
shoes and send them to the army. A thousand 



beds, too, are required ; let those thousand 
beds be despatched within twenty-four hours. 
Good citizens were to spare neither house 
nor field, life nor limb, in the strife against 
the enemies of the Republic in the days when 
it became a crime " to have done nothing to 
further its interests." 

Death to Traitors ! Woe to the 

Cities of the Vanquished ! Toulon, 

Nantes. 

The enemies of France, England foremost 
among them, were vigorously prosecuting the 
war against the Convention ; receiving much 
aid and comfort from the disaffection in the 
country itself, where Girondists and Royalists 
abounded in certain districts, kept only in 
partial subjection by the terror and the ever- 
present guillotine. Toulon had declared 
against the Republic, and admitted into its 
harbour a British fleet ; therefore the fiat 
went forth that Toulon was to be besieged, 
and swept away from the face of the earth. 
The duty of besieging the royalist town was 
entrusted to stern old General Dugommier, a 
tried veteran, who would not flmch ; and 
commanding in the Artillery was a taciturn 
young Corsican, Colonel Bonaparte, shortly 
destined to do some very notable things, — a 
young Hannibal, vigilant, frugal, and abste- 
mious, able, like the great Carthaginian, to do 
with a little sleep snatched among the soldiers 
by the watch-fires of the camp. This young 
Bonaparte it was who suggested to Dugom- 
mier the plan of capturing the city by con- 
centrating the attack upon one vulnerable 
point, the possession of which would place 
the ships of the English under fire ; which 
being done, Lord Hood's fleet was fain to 
sail away out of the harbour, after taking on 
board such Royalists as chose to withdraw 
themselves in this fashion from the vengeance 
.certain to descend on the city so soon as the 
victors made their entry into its streets. 

A great and signal triumph for the Republic 
was the capture of this great arsenal city, with 
its docks and storehouses and ships of war ; 
and signal was the vengeance taken by the 
victors, by means of the guillotine and whole- 
sale fusillading of prisoners ; but the threat 
of razing Toulon with the ground could not 
be carried out. Prominent among the horrors 
of that wicked frenzied time stands forth the 
fate of Nantes, the great city in the west. 
Thither was despatched as a representative. 
Carrier, exceptionally ruthless even among 
the emissaries of that merciless government. 
The proconsul at once commenced holding 
an assize of blood ; the ordinary process of 
death by the guillotine was too slow for 
Carrier and his myrmidons ; some method of 
more wholesale slaughter must be discovered, 
and the presence of the glorious river, the 
I Loire, furnished the means required. Large 
714 



THE NINTH OF THERMIDOR. 



barges were filled with prisoners, who had 
been condemned to be transported {deporta- 
tioii). The hatches were secured over the 
prisoners, and the barges towed out into mid 
stream. Then holes were broken, from with- 
out, in the sides of the barges, so that the 
whole freight sank together, and the '■^noyade," 
or wholesale drowning, gave a respite to the 
over- worked guillotine. The ferocious banter 
of the ruffianly perpetrators designated these 
wholesale drownings as "vertical transporta- 
tions." A horrible ingenuity in torture was 
displayed in the murders done by Carrier 
and his subordinates. Perhaps the worst was 
that fiendish device of tying men and women 
together, and thus launchmg them into the 
waters of the Loire — republican marriages, 
these atrocities were called ; while a fusillade 
of prisoners, with which the day's proceedings 
closed, was termed, in ferocious jest, " Citizen 
Carrier's evening prayer." At a later period, 
when called to account, under a subsequent 
Government, for these atrocious proceedings, 
Carrier, who proved a thorough cur, attempted 
to make out, as indeed might have been the 
case, that things not sanctioned by himself 
had been done in his name, and that the 
reports of what had actually been done were 
exaggerated ; but abundance of evidence 
exists to utterly condemn him as a monster 
in the eyes of mankind. But the main ob- 
ject was gained. " Royalism is dead," says 
Carlyle, " sunk, as they say, m the mud of 
the Loire. Republicanism dominates without 
and within ;" though not without a fierce and 
deadly struggle in both cases. 

The Republic on the Battle-fields. 
The headings and drownings, the fusillades 
of Lyons, the wholesale drownings at Nantes, 
and the horrors enacted everywhere through- 
out the length and breadth of the country 
were the shame of the Revolution ; the con- 
duct of the nation in the fierce war for the 
existence of the Republic formed its glory. 
Never had a war been thus carried on. One 
thing appears certain, as an unchanging truth 
amid the shifting scenes and changes of that 
tremendous time, — the determination of the 
people to maintain the Republic. As aguiding 
central power, combining into united action 
the scattered armies that had been bravely 
but almost hopelessly striving to hold their 
own against the invaders of the country, 
towered the military genius of Carnot, regu- 
lating and arranging, indefatigably urging the 
generals, by the commissioners despatched 
to their camps, to "do their duty." Of him 
it may justly be said, as Addison wrote of 
Marlborough, that he "inspired repulsed 
battalions to engage. And taught the doubtful 
battle where to rage." The levies efi masse 
had produced a splendid number of soldiers; 
rough indeed, and probably very imperfect 



in their drill, and dressed and accoutred in a 
manner that would have made a Prussian 
Serjeant's soul to be heavy within him, but 
full of ardour and zeal, and as hard as the 
muskets they carried. France was turned 
into a huge arsenal," — everywhere there was 
hammering of gunlocks andforging of cannon 
and manufacturing of gunpowder. With the 
generals, too, the alternative of victory or 
death became more than ever a grim reality. 
Thus Dampierre, the successor of Dumouriez 
in the army of the Netherlands against the 
Austrians, had been ordered by the Conven- 
tion to attack the Austrian army that lay 
between Maubeuge and Saint Amand. The 
task was simply a hopeless one, as Dampierre 
knew well ; but there was nothing for it but 
to obey. After being driven back five times 
with great slaughter, the general was seen by 
his son, who acted as his aide-de-camp, to 
place himself on horseback at the head of a 
few picked men, to advance against a redoubt. 
The young man ventured to remonstrate 
against the father's thus sacrificing himself, 
declaring that death would be here equally 
certain and useless. "I know that, my friend," 
answered the old general, " but I would 
rather die on the field of honour than under 
the axe of the guillotine." A few moments 
later he was lying, mortally wounded by a 
cannon ball, upon a heap of slain. 

Everywhere the gaunt, hungry, ragged, 
indomitable battalions of the French hurled 
back the-enemy across the frontier; in many 
cases pursuing them hotly, and pouring on- 
ward in a resistless tide. Thus brave Du- 
gommier, of Toulon celebrity, carried the war 
into Spain, and there perished gloriously, 
after gaining such successes as assui'ed the 
French from molestation from that quarter 
for a long time. In these wonderful armies, 
too, Serjeants who proved themselves pos- 
sessed of extraordinary talent, developed in 
a rapid and bewildering way into generals; 
such as Serjeant Hoche, who became the 
leader of an army, and did some remarkable 
things on the Rhine and elsewhere ; Serjeant 
Pichegru, once a teacher of Mathematics in 
the military school of Brienne, where one 
Napoleon Bonaparte had been his pupil, and 
who now showed how mathematics .could be 
appHed to war; Serjeant Bernadotte, destined 
before his career was ended to be a king ; 
Serjeant Junot, who had attracted the approv- 
ing notice of the Artillery officer Bonaparte 
before Toulon ; and various others. France 
was also fortunate in her opponents, who, 
with the exception of England, were but 
half hearted in the cause. Austria and 
Prussia watched each other with mutual 
jealousy. Russia and ^Sweden were not 
disposed to take any very active measures. 
And thus against the fiery energy and un- 
ceasing activity of Carnot was set a dilatori- 



715 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



ness that was of infinite service to him. The 
new tactics, moreover, fairly bewildered the 
commanders of the old school, whose 
hesitation gave just the respite required by 
the new levies of the French to learn the 
rudiments of an art quickly acquired by a 
military people. Thoroughly roused, the 
French marched forth, with the motto, " The 
French people risen against tyrants " on 
their banner. " From the central Carnot in 
Sahtt Public to the outmost drummer on the 
frontiers," says Carlyle, " men strove for their 
Republic. . . . Majesty of Prussia, as Majesty 
of Spain, will by-and-by acknowledge his 
sins and the Republic ; and make a peace of 
Bale." 

Presently there comes news to Paris which 
causes much shouting and jubilation. " The 
army of the north does not cease to merit 
well of its country," runs the despatch. A 
great victory has been gained. The German 
general, Walmoden, is utterly discomfited, 
and the Duke of York, son of George the 
Third, has been obliged to raise the siege of 
Dunkirk suddenly, after losing many valuable 
lives, and burning much expensive powder. 
About which time also, M. le Marquis, who 
is now to be met in Newgate Street, with a 
rough deal on his shoulder, adze and jack- 
plane under arm, — he has taken to the 
ioiner trade, it being necessary to live, — begins 
"to have an idea that this pestilent revolution 
will take more trouble to put down, and may 
n its desperate effrontery last longer than he 
had at first supposed, and that in some way 
the results of the coalition are not altogether 
satisfactory ; and that it may even be 
necessary for Madame la Marquise to turn 
that exquisite taste she is acknowledged to 
possess in matters of dress to a means of 
living by becoming a modest e, which, as Mr. 
Samuel Pepys says of his various embarrass- 
ments, " does trouble him in his mind." For 
through all his bewilderment he sees, that be 
the frenzy in France never so wild the 
RepubUc is growing stronger day by day. 

The Fall of the Hebertists. 

And now, in the tremendous frenzy that 
had seized upon the minds of men, impelling 
them forward in the headlong, rushing flood 
of revolution, as if carried along by a mighty 
tide, without any volition of their own, or 
even the power to guide their course, as the 
waters bore them onward, the Convention 
itself, now that the opposition of the Gironde 
had been overcome with such blood-stained 
triumph, was a scene of suspicion and dis- 
trust, even in the dominant Mountain itself, 
which was split up into factions, which 
quickly became so hostile that they were 
ready to tear one another to pieces. Among 
these factions there were three chief divisions. 



First and foremost, most noisy and blatant 
of all, shrieking defiance, and breathing out 
threatenings and slaughters against all who 
were not "thorough," to the extent of wishing, 
like Nero, that their enemies had but one 
neck, and might therefore be exterminated at 
a blow, stood the Madmen's faction, the 
Enrages, supported by the frantic Cordelier 
club, with its tremendous influence over the 
mob of Paris and its ramifications through- 
out the country. The leaders of this party 
were Hebert, Momoro, Anacharsis Clootz, and 
Ronsin Chaumette, the chief promoter of the 
infamous Law of the Suspected, and others ; 
followed by a gang ready to go to any 
length in hanging, shooting, and drowning, 
identifying the successful march of the 
Revolution with the activity of the guillotine, 
and urged on by Hubert, their chief, to ever 
wilder deeds of violence ; bent on intensifying 
the Terror, and mainly desirous that more 
and more heads might fall every day, as a 
sweet sacrifice to the genius of Liberty. 

Thus, in his infamous paper, the Pere 
Duchesne, and in frantic speeches spoken in 
the Cordelier club, Hebert poured forth a 
fiery flood of rabid denunciation, declaring 
that he had "held his tongue and his heart 
these two months at sight of Moderates, 
Crypto Aristocrats, Canvilles, Scelerats in 
the Convention itself, but could not do it any 
longer ; would, if remedy were not, invoke 
the sacred right of Insurrection." Opposed 
to these stood the faction of Danton and 
Camille Desmoulins, men who could hardly 
be accused of lukewarmness in the cause of 
the Revolution, as evidenced by their action 
on the loth of August and the days of Sep- 
teinber, 1793, but who began to grow weary 
of bloodshed and horror. Between the two 
stood Robespierre the incorruptible, with his 
sinister face and sea-green complexion, his 
indomitable perseverance and enormous am- 
bition, distrusting both alike, and cherishing 
his own wild scheme of building up a regene- 
rate republic when all opposition should 
have been quelled, and the hostile factions 
should have been compelled to submit to 
him. Among his chief supporters was 
St. Just. 

Suddenly, on the 15th of March, a blow 
was struck by Robespierre which made the 
ears of even the most advanced revolutionists 
to tingle. Hebert and his chief associates 
were arrested and thrown into the prison of 
the Luxembourg, their arrival there being 
bailed with jeering surprise and delight by 
numerous denizens of that abode of woe, 
whom they had sent thither, and whom they 
were thus at a moment's notice sent to join. 
The accusation against them was that they 
were concealed traitors, who by their actions 
were playing into the hands of the enemies of 
the Republic, especially of the English Minister 
16 



THE NINTH OF THERMIDOR. 



Pitt, "the enemy of the human race," by making 
the Government odious, and discrediting the 
Revolution itself by their crimes ; that their 
plundering of the churches, their worship of 
the Goddess of Reason, and other similar 
proceedings, had had this end in view, whereat 
tlie Cordelier club stood aghast with sudden 
dismay. According to the fashion of those 



vendors, the "grand choler of the Pere 
Duchesne." And thus had the Revolution 
devoured another company of its children, 
for no less than nineteen Hebertists made 
the fatal journey on the 24th of March, 1794. 
As Carlyle wisely observes, in writing of 
these tilings, "All anarchy is not only de- 
structive, but self-destructive." 




ROBESMERRE IN THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY. 



headlong times, judgment quickly followed 
arrest; and within a few days Hebert and 
his associates mounted the steps of the 
guillotine; the mob, thirsty for blood, and 
caring little who were the victims so long as 
the daily spectacle of murder was exhibited, 
surrounded the death-carts gleefully as the 
Enrages went to their doom, and jeeringly 
calling out, after the manner of newspaper 



Danton and his Followers ; Their 
Struggle and their Extinction. 
The blow that had fallen upon Hubert 
and his faction was so tremendous, so un- 
expected, and so rapid,— only nine days 
intervening between the arrest of the chiefs 
of the Madmen's faction and their execution, 
— that a general panic was spread throughout 



717 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



the capital. Men began to look on one 
another in blank dismay, ready to ask, with 
Mark Antony in Shakespeai-e's play, " Who 
next must be let blood, who else is rank ? " 
Whom would Robespierre the incorruptible 
think it necessary to sacrifice next for the 
safety of the Republic ? 

One thing appeared clear to many who 
watched the signs of those troublous days 
with a sagacity sharpened by the sense of 
their own peril, namely, that there was not 
room for Robespierre and Danton in the 
same Government ; and that the natural 
antagonism between the great, loud-voiced, 
fiery revolutionist, the man of action, advo- 
cating audacity and the bold confronting of 
peril, the man of the Revolution, and the 
" poor, spasmodic, incorruptible pedant, with' 
a logic formula instead of a heart, the "wind- 
bag" of the Revolution, could not continue. 
But bound as Robespierre was to Danton, 
who had been long his friend, and frequently 
his defender, it seemed impossible that in- 
gratitude should go so far as to make him 
compass his colleague's ruin. Moreover, 
Danton had been such a towering figure 
during the whole period of storm and stress, 
had been so identified with popular struggles 
and popular triumphs, that it seemed as 
though policy, if no higher feeling, would 
induce the Incorruptible to remain on good 
terms with such a man ; and so thought 
Danton himself. 

For his own part, he was wearied and dis- 
gusted by the brawling in the Convention 
and the ruthless system of legahsed murder 
and massacre. He had, moreover, married 
a young wife; and withdrawing himself for a 
time from public affairs, was enjoying what 
domestichappiness and rest could be snatched 
at such a time in his native place, Arcis, 
from whence he was summoned in hot haste 
by his friends, Camille Desmoulins, Philip- 
peaux, and others of their faction, who under- 
stood the full significance of late events, and 
saw that in the presence of a man who could 
annihilate Hubert and his faction, no man was 
safe. Accordingly Danton raised the voice of 
remonstrance in the Convention against the 
indiscriminate course of proceedmg lately 
adopted, declaring that while the enemies of 
theRepublicought to be punished, the innocent 
should not be confounded with the guilty. 
With unparalleled shamelessness, Robespierre 
declared there was no proof that a single 
innocent person had perished. "What do 
you think of that, Fabricius.^" exclaimed 
Danton, with grim irony, to one of his friends. 
A hollow reconciliation, patched up for the 
moment between him and Robespierre, re- 
tarded the course of events only for a few 
days. Several of his friends, seeing what 
was impending, urged him to fly ; his wife 
added her solicitation to theirs : but the giant 



was not to be moved. Even when told by 
one who had the best sources of information 
that the warrant for his arrest had been 
made out, he only replied : " They would not 
dai'e ; " and retired to bed as usual, to be 
aroused at midnight by functionaries who 
carried him off to prison. 

Thus, again, the gloomy Luxembourg gaol 
receives a strange group of captives, to 
occupy the places so lately vacated by He- 
bert and his ruffianly gang. Even in the 
Convention some feeble efforts are made 
fur Danton, Legendre proposing that he 
should be heard at the bar, as a preliminary 
to, perhaps a substitute for, indictment ; but 
Robespierre would not allow it. Danton 
must submit to the usual mode of procedure. 
With the " Incorruptible," no distinction can 
be made between persons. The great Re- 
volutionist himself seems to have been be- 
wildered with the suddenness of the fate that 
had fallen upon him ; and declared in the 
prison that everything would be left in a 
horrible confusion, for that not one of the 
men then dominant knew anything about 
government : prophetically also he asserted 
that in his fall he should drag down Robes- 
pierre. " Better to be a poor fisherman than 
to meddle in the government of men," he 
bitterly exclaimed. Before his judges he bore 
himself with proud, disdainful resolution ; 
answered to the formal question respecting 
his name, that it was Danton, tolerably well 
known in the Revolution ; indignantly de- 
nounced the indictment against him, which 
accused him of having hung back on the 
loth of August, as a mass of lies ; protested 
against being ranked with peculators and 
cheats ; covered the supporters of Robespierre 
with withering scorn, and raised such a feel- 
ing in his favour that he stood a good chance 
of triumphant acquittal ; which consummation 
was only prevented by a law passed in hot 
haste by the Committee of Public Safety, 
decreeing that whoever insulted justice should 
have his mouth closed, and declaring that 
Danton and his colleagues stood in that pre- 
dicament. For Camille Desmoulins there 
was less chance. He had in his newspaper, 
the Vieux Cordeliers, denounced with pungent 
wit and burning satire the bloodthirsty 
absurdities of those new Cordeliers, Hebert 
and the rest, who had done their best to 
make Paris a shambles, and to spread mas- 
sacre throughout France. The power of 
Robespierre reduced all remonstrance and 
all compunction for the time to terrified 
silence ; and the sentence of death was 
passed upon Danton, Camille, Herault de 
Sdchelles, and the rest, to be carried out that 
same day. 

Danton preserved his undaunted bearing 
and his fierce scorn to the last. " Never mind 
that vile rabble," he said in the death-cart 



718 



THE NINTH OF THERMIDOR. 



to Camille Desmoulins, who was disturbed 
by the shouts of the howhng mob. " Show 
my head to the people," was his injunction 
to Lamson the executioner, " Elle est vaut 
la peine!"— ''li's worth the trouble:" a 
great, bold, fiery man, indomitable, ostenta- 
tious, devoted to the cause of liberty, whose 
triumph he fancied himself strong enough 
to ensure : blackened by crimes, and with 
much to answer for, but sincere and thorough- 
going, and not without warm affections. 
" He saved France from Brunswick," says 
the great historian of the Revolution ; " he 
walked straight his own wild road, whither 
it led him." That the invasion which set 
out to crush the Revolution and restore 
feudal slavery in France was ignominiously 
beatea back, and that Frenchmen did not 
continue through successive generations to 
be serfs, " Taillable et corveable a tnerci" as 
the old law form expressed it, taxable and 
burdenable, at the mercy of the privileged 
classes, is due in a great measure to the in- 
domitable resolution of the farmer's son of 
Arcis-sur-Aube. 

The Darkest Period before the 
Dawn. 

And now all cringed and cowered before 
the sea-green man, beloved of the Jacobin 
club and the howling mob, the idol of the 
hour, Maximilian Robespierre, President of 
the Convention, dominating France for the 
hour from that bad eminence. " He that 
stands upon a shppery place makes nice of 
no vile hold to stay him up," says subtle Pan- 
dulph in Shakespeare's King JoJui. "The 
vile hold" of Robespierre was in the Jacobin 
faction; but it was at best a "slippery place" 
upon which he stood, for he had wit enough 
to see the necessity of steering clear of the 
mere atheistical anarchy of Hebertism on the 
one hand, and of avoiding the imputation of 
moderatism, which would have lost him his 
Jacobin following, on the other. Conse- 
quently two things must be done at the 
same time. The batches of prisoners for 
the guillotine must be regularly supplied day 
by clay, for the Sansculottes hungered for 
their daily feast of blood ; on the other hand, 
something must be substituted for the atheism 
pure and simple, the deadly poison of the 
" Goddess of Reason " worship, whose mad 
mummery had been lately enacted. 

Accordingly, the tumbrils were kept well 
filled, and made their dreary journey 
every day, except the Decadi, to the scaffold. 
In those last months of the Reign of Terror, 
men scarcely turned their heads to mark who 
were the occupants. The most illustrious, 
the high born and the beautiful, sat side by 
side with the poorest and the most degraded 
in those leveUing vehicles, — the young and 
the old,— decrepit old people, long past three 



score and ten, wended along the same dark 
road with young girls and children,— the 
King's sister, Madame Elisabeth, almost un- 
noticed, went to her death, — and Lavoisier, 
the man of science, and poor old Monsieur de 
Gombreuil, once saved by the devotion of his 
daughter from the September massacres, — 
and brave old Malesherbes, who had defended 
the King on his trial, and the wives of Danton 
and Camille Desmoulins, — for the guillotine 
is omnivorous, and devours all with a horrible 
impartiality. The official lists for Paris give 
the following numbers of persons guillotined 
in Paris in each month of 1794, up to the end 
of July, when the Terror ceased :— January, 
83 ; February, 75 ; March (including Hubert 
and his accomplices), 123; April, 263; May, 
324; June, 672; and July, 835. On some 
days forty, fifty, even sixty victims were 
executed. When Tonquier Tinville, the Pub- 
lic Prosecutor, was at a loss for a pretext for 
new arrests, the magic word " conspiracy " 
always sufficed to procure the requisite num- 
ber of convictions. The very name of a plot 
was enough to ensure the verdict of guilty 
from the juries ; and thus, in many cases, 
persons who had never met in their lives 
were accused of conspiring together. A few 
among the convictions will show the various 
causes which brought men, women, and chil- 
dren to the scaffold during the Terror. On 
June 23rd, 1794, were executed together 
twenty-two women of the poorer class, for 
having in various ways forwarded the designs 
of the fanatics, aristocrats, priests, and the 
other agents of England. On the 6th of Sep- 
tember, a journeyman tailor, Jean Baptiste 
Henry, a lad eighteen years old, was executed 
for sawing down a tree of liberty. Further 
convictions, followed by execution, are those 
of— Bernard Augustus d'Absac, aged 17, ex- 
noble, late Captain in the nth Regiment, and 
formerly in the sea service, convicted of having 
betrayed several towns and several ships into 
the hands of the enemy; Henrietta Frances 
de Marboeuf, aged 55, widow of the ci-devant 
Marquis de Marboeuf, residing at No. 47, 
Rue St. Honore, in Paris, convicted of 
having hoped for the arrival of the Austrians 
and Prussians, and of keeping provisions for 
them ; Jacques de Beaume, a Dutch mer- 
chant, convicted of being the author and 
accomplice of a plot, which existed in the 
month of June 1790, tending to encourage 
our external and internal enemies, by nego- 
tiating, by way of loan, certain bonds of 
^100 each, bearing interest at 5 per cent, 
of George, Prince of Wales, Frederick, Duke 
of York, and William Henry, Duke of 
Clarence; James Duchesne, aged 60, for- 
merly a servant, since a broker ; John Sau- 
vage, aged 34, gunsmith ; Frances Loizelier, 
aged 47, milliner ; Melanie Cunosse, aged 
21, milliner; Mary Magdalen ViroUe, aged 
19 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



25, female hairdresser, convicted of having-, in 
the city of Paris, where they resided, tittered 
criesj Genevieve Gonvon. aged seve7ity-seve?i, 
sempstress, convicted of having been the 
author or accomphce of several conspiracies 
formed since the beginning of the Revolution 
by the enemies of the people and of liberty, 
tending to create civil war, to paralyse the 
public, and to annihilate the existing govern- 
ment ; Francis Bertrand, aged ^j, tinman 
and publican at Leure, in the Department of 
the Cote d' Or, convicted of having furnished 
to the defenders of the country some wine 
injurious to the health of citizens; Mary 
Angelica Plaisant, sempstress, at Donai, con- 
victed of having exclaimed that she was an 
aristocrat, and cried, " A fig for the nation." 
These are samples of the various offences 
that brought men and women to the guillo- 
tine in the Reign of Terror. 

The 9TH of Thermidor ; The End of the 
Terror and of the Terrorists. 
But Paris began to tire of all this blood- 
shed ; and very significant tokens appeared 
of disgust and displeasure at the daily passage 
of the death-carls through the streets. The 
guillotine itself was removed from its origi- 
nal place in the Place du Caroussel, had 
thence been shifted to the Place Louis XV. 
at the time of the King's execution, where it 
had executed 1256 persons, and was now re- 
moved to the other end of Paris, near the ruins 
of the Bastille ; for the householders in the 
streets through which the death- carts passed 
daily, complained that the ghastly spectacle 
drove people away ; and showed their sense 
of the proceeding by shutting up their shops. 
For six weeks the guillotine was accordingly 
at work— in very full work — near the site of 
the Bastille, and during that time it disposed 
of no fewer than 1403 persons ; for the 
Terror raged most furiously during the last 
days of its existence. 

I3ut at last the hour of deliverance was to 
come. Robespierre, who had made a bid for 
popularity by instituting a grand Revolu- 
tionary allegiance feast on the 8th of June, at 
which he, as a kind of high priest, publicly 



put a torch to two figures of canvas and wood 
representing Atheism and Discord, and a 
figure was made to rise by machinery from 
beneath a platform, representing Wisdom. 
But people were beginning to laugh grimly 
at the farce, and Robespierre himself was 
secretly jeered at for having listened to, and 
it is said been influenced by, the ravings of 
Catherine Theot, a mad old woman of the 
Joanna Southcote type. Moreover, among 
the five thousand prisoners in the twelve 
houses of arrest in Paris, there was a certain 
female of great beauty, named Cabarus, well 
beloved of Deputy Tallier, who exhorted her 
friend to make an effort to save her life. 
More significant than all, accident brought to 
the knowledge of those whom it most con- 
cerned a list of many names of members of 
the Convention who were to follow Hubert 
and Danton on the dark journey. There was 
no time to be lost. A great conspiracy was 
organized in the Convention itself for put- 
ting down the tyrant and his party. Robes- 
pierre, ind.gnant and astonished at the 
sudden accusation of tyranny brought 
against him, attempted in vain, on the 9th 
of Thermidor, to obtain a hearing. He was 
shouted down ; and v/hen at last his voice 
failed him, was told it was the blood of 
Danton that suffocated him. He was de- 
clared accused, but still hoped for rescue from 
the mob and from Henriot, the commandant 
of the municipal guards. But the drunken 
Henriot deceived him, and bungled the busi- 
ness of rescue. In the excitement of the 
scene he received a pistol shot in the face, 
or, as some accounts report, he shot himself. 
The wound, however, was not mortal ; it 
broke his jaw, and in this state he was con- 
veyed to tne Convention. This was on 9th. 
Next day, the loth of Thermidor, the 28th 
of July, Robespierre and his accomplices 
travelled in the fatal tumbril to the guillo- 
tine, which had in the previous night been 
brought back to its old position in the Place 
Louis XV. ; and as the heads of the blood- 
thirsty chiefs fell beneath the fatal knife, 
men breathed more freely, and saw that the 
Reign of Terror had finished. 




720 




HOLYROOD PALACE, 



RIZZIO AND DARNLEY 

THE STORY OF A DARK REVENGE. 

' I was the queen o' bonnie France, 
Where happy I ha'e been ; 
Fu' lightly rose I in the morn. 

As blithe lay down at e'en : 
And I'm the sovereign of Scotland, 
And mony a traitor there. 



— BuRNSt 



Return of Queen Mary from France— Weakness of the Scottish Sovereigns— Her First Mass— Sketch of Darnley's Earlv 
J<'^® ""ll f^^'^^f-rP^ ^'^'^^ Jlf Hand at Wemyss Castle-Unpopularity of the Marriage-Flight of Murray and 
Other Nobles -The Career and Cha.racter of Rizzio— The Parties engaged in Plotting— The Judas Kiss— Murder of 
Rizzio— After the Murder— Darnley s Betrayal of the Bond— A Strange Supper and Talk— Midnight Flight of the 
Royal Couple -Darnley's Brutality— Queen's Contempt for Him— Rise of Bothwell— Some of His Adventures- 
Mary's Visit to the Hermitage— Getting Rid of Darnley— The Croaking of the Raven— Darnley's Murder— The 
Queen's Complicity— Bothwell's Sham Acquittal and Marriage with the Queen— His Flight from Scotland and 
Death in Draxholm Castle. — His Fate. 



Queen Mary's Return to Scotland. 



HE marriage of Mary, Queen of Scots, 
to the Dauphin — the Dolphin of old 
Scottish writing's — was celebrated 
with great splendour in France in the spring 
of 1558 ; in the summer of the following year, 
her husband ascended the French throne; and 
in December 1560, at the age of eighteen, she 
became a widow, and was perhaps the most 
fascinating woman in Europe. The career 
before her, however, was of a very different 
nature from that in which she had hitherto 
moved. The fair claimant of three crowns — 
France, Scotland, and England — was now 



reduced to the miserable heritage of her 
paternal ancestors among a poor and rude 
people, whose most potent leaders were here- 
tics, and had fought boldly and successfully 
against her Catholic mother and the French 
soldiers. The schooling she had received at 
the French Court was the worst possible for 
the government of such a country. Patriotism 
she could not be expected to have ; indeed, 
at the time of her marriage she had signed 
away the thistle of Scotland to be a mere fief 
and appendage of the French lilies. She had 
learned from her mother's friends, the Guises, 
to look upon herself as a champion of the old 

721 AAA 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



faith, while the country of her fathers was a 
hot-bed of heresy. Her relation to the chief 
men of Scotland may be understood from the 
fact that her half-brother, the Earl of Moray, 
had received the censure of herself and her 
husband in 15 59 for his ingratitude, while her 
outspoken uncle, the Duke of Guise, had 
thought the best way to "amend the garboils " 
was to apprehend and put to death the Earl 
of Argyll and the " Bastard of Scotland." 
The spiritual governor of the country was 
John Knox, with a Genevan creed and a 
saturnine soul as hard as steel ; and there was 
at least a score of warlike and high-mettled 
chiefs, each filled with an unscrupulous 
passion for his own aggrandisement. The 
sovereign was actually weaker than any one 
of them. There was no permanent royal 
guard, while each of these feudal lords had a 
little army of dependents at his own beck. 

Such was the condition of the country, such 
were the fierce fires she was thrown into 
after her husband's death. The story of her 
voyage to Scotland, sorrowful like her coming 
destiny, has been gracefully expressed in a 
well-known poem by the late Mr. Glassford 
Bell. 

''It was a barque that slowly held its way, 
And o'er its lee the coast of France in the hght of 

evening lay ; 
And on its deck a lady sat, who gazed with tearful 

eyes 
Upon the fast-receding hills that dim and distant 

rise. 
No marvel that the lady wept — there was no land on 

earth 
She loved like that dear land, although she owed it 

not her birth : 
It was her mother's land ; the land of childhood and 

of friends ; 
It was the land where she had found for all her griefs 

amends ; 
The land where her dead husband slept ; the land 

where she had known 
The tranquil convent's hushed repose, and the splen- 
dours of a throne : 
No marvel that the lady wept, it was the land of 

France, 
The chosen home of chivalry, the garden of romance ! 
The past was bright, like those dear hills so far 

behind her barque ; 
The future, like the gathering night, was ominous 

and dark ! — 
One gaze again — one long, last gaze ; ' Adieu, fair 

France, to thee ! ' 
The breeze comes forth — she is alone en the uncon- 

scious sea ! " 

Her First Mass in Scotland. 

As our purpose is to confine ourselves, so far 
as is consistent with clearness of exposition, 
to the story of the Rizzio and Darnley tragedies, 
the early period of Mary's residence in Scot- 
land must be passed over very briefly. The 
aspect of nature at the time of her arrival, with 
two galleys, in Leith harbour, on the morning 
of Tuesday, the 19th of August, 1561, seemed 
to forbode an evil destiny. " The very face 



of heaven," said the great Scottish reformer, 
who was not altogether devoid of superstition, 
"the time of her arrival, did manifestly speak 
what comfort was brought unto this country 
with her ; to wit, sorrow, dolour, darkness, 
and all impiety ; for in the memory of man, 
that day of the year, was never seen a more 
dolorous face of the heaven than was at her 
arrival, which two days after did so continue ; 
for besides the surface wet and corruption of 
the air, the mist was so thick and so dark 
that scarce might any man espy another the 
length of two pair of butts." The religious 
trouble asserted itself very emphatically on the 
first Sunday after her arrival in the country. 
As a faithful Catholic, she had " that idol the 
Mass"- — to use the words of Knox — celebrated 
in the royal chapel. Cries were raised by the 
stern Master of Lindsay and other gentlemen 
that "the idolater priest should die the death" 
according to God's law ; a priest who carried 
in the candle was attacked, and only reached 
his chamber through the protection of the 
Earl of Moray and his brother. In the after- 
noon, immense crowds ot furious citizens 
flocked towards the Abbey of Holyrood, the 
scene of the disturbance. On the following 
day, a proclamation was issued by the Privy 
Council, stating that Her Majesty would not 
interfere with the religion of the country as 
it had been established before her arrival, 
and commanding all the lieges that none of 
them, under pain of death, should molest or 
deride her domestics or the French strangers 
who had accompanied her. A singular scene 
took place when this sensible edict was pro- 
claimed at the Edinburgh market-cross. In 
presence of the heralds and people, the Earl 
of Arran, the most powerful of the Scottish 
nobles, entered a protest against it, quoting 
the words of Scripture that " the idolater 
shall die the death." No wonder, as Knox 
puts it in his History, " this baldness did some- 
what exasperate the Queen." 

Darnley's Character and Courtship. 

Here we shall not go into details of the 
m.any proposals of marriage that were at 
various times on the carpet for the handsome, 
subtle, and brilliant young widow, Spain, 
France, Denmark each supplying one or more 
candidates. Of course the interest and policy 
of Queen Elizabeth were decidedly averse 
from any marital alliance of her sister of 
Scotland with any strong Catholic prince, as 
the existence of English Protestantism, as 
well as that of Scotland, would be seriously 
imperilled. The Queen of England, with an 
insolence at which Mary was startled into 
righteous womanly indignation, actually 
suggested her own favourite subject, the Earl 
of Leicester, as a husband for the dazzhng 
widow of a French monarch ; but the person 
whose hand Mary Stuart was ultimately des- 



RIZZIO AND DARNLEY. 



tined to accept was her own boyish relative, 
Henry Stuart, son of the Earl of Lennox, but 
better known to history by his courtesy title 
of Lord Darnley. He stood in a very close 
kinship to the wearers of both the crowns of 
England and Scotland. He first saw the 
light on the 7th of December, 1545, so that 
he was three years younger than Mary. His 
mother was Lady Margaret Douglas, daughter 
of that Margaret Tudor who was the sister 
of King Henry VHI. and the wife and widow 
of King James IV. of Scotland. In very 
early years he had acquired some pleasant 
superficial accomplishments ; he had learned 
to play upon the lute and dance, and, curious 
to say, his priestly tutor, like that of the 
Maiden Queen, had taught him the secret 
of fine penmanship. In childhood this English 
boy gave sorr»e signs of turning out " a witty, 
virtuous, and an active, well-learned gentle- 
man ; " he was precocious enough to have 
penned a treatise, under the name of Utopia 
Nova, in his ninth year, although it is to be 
feared that his production — gone, alas! into 
Time's big waste-basket — would never rival 
the work of the wise and witty Sir Thomas 
More ; he has even been credited with poetical 
aspiration, and with having composed a ballad 
to his mistress's eye-brow. 

It is a common error to suppose that 
Mary and he were totally unacquainted until 
within a few weeks before she married 
him. It was not quite a sudden love-match. 
When a beardless boy of fourteen, he 
appeared at the French Court shortly after 
the coronation of Francis II., Queen Mary's 
first husband. The young couple gave him 
a warm welcome at Chambord, where they 
kept their Christmas festival, and they sent 
him home with a goodly gift of a thousand 
crowns, not at all a bad present for the son 
of an earl in reduced circumstances. He 
carried letters of condolence from his mother 
to Queen Mary after the French King's death 
in December 1560. Even before the Queen's 
return to Scotland, .the Countess of Lennox 
had mooted the subject of their marriage ; 
and immediately after she reached the mist- 
veiled shores of Scotland, Darnley's tutor was 
despatched to her by the Countess with a 
direct proposal. Although the young widow 
of the King of France aimed at something 
infinitely higher than the hand of the boy 
she had patronised at Chambord as a poor 
relative, the probability of their marriage was 
a current rumour up till the time when, in the 
early days of 1565, he obtained license from 
Queen Elizabeth to join his father in Scotland. 
He was admitted to kiss the hand of Mary in 
the splendid, cliff-perched fortalice of Wemyss 
Castle on the north side of the Firth of Forth, 
on the 1 6th of February. The Queen's visit 
is still commemorated by a carved likeness of 
her head upon the ancient mansion. " Her 



M^'esty," says Sir James Melville, "took very 
well with him, and said that he was the pro- 
perest and best-proportioned long man that 
ever she had seen ; for he was of a high 
stature, long and small, even and straight." 
The Queen, however, had bigger game in 
view, and refused the ring he offered. He had 
an active and useful friend in an Italian well- 
known to fame, whose terrible fate was to be 
closely linked by-and-by with the name of 
Darnley. This person was David Rizzio, 
familiarly styled Davie by his Scottish con- 
temporaries. She " took ay the better liking 
to Darnley and at length determined to 
marry him." He was the very opposite in 
appearance to Bothwell, her third husband. 
The latter was ugly, it is said, with something 
of an ape's face. The beardless son of 
Lennox, on the other hand, had a lady's 
features. It was to no purpose that her 
uncle, the Cardinal of Lorraine, warned her 
against the foolish alliance. It was to no 
purpose that Queen Elizabeth grumbled at 
the theft of a subject from England, and 
pretended to be extremely angry. Within a 
month from the time the young heir of the 
ancient and royal house of Lennox kissed her 
hand in Wemyss Castle, on the Fifeshire 
coast, Mary had informed Elizabeth of her 
intention. He was made a knight ; lands 
and honours were showered on him. The 
title of Duke of Albany was the; big plum 
reserved to grace the bridal ceremony. The 
young couple — he in his twentieth, she in 
her twenty-third, year — were married, ac- 
cording to the rites of the Romish Church, 
on the 29th of July, 1565, in Holyrood 
Chapel, with great pomp,' and in the presence 
of many of the nobles. The Queen, says 
Knox's History, was all clothed in mourning, 
according to the French custom. " During 
the space of three or four days, there was 
nothing but balling and dancing and ban- 
queting." 

The marriage was unpopular in Scotland, 
for Darnley was a Catholic — though a very 
bad one, and even went to the Reformed 
service in St. Giles's Church, so as to gain 
the favour of the strong Protestant party, 
although the caustic words of Knox galled 
him severely when that preacher alluded con- 
temptuously to " boys and women " being 
placed by God at the head of the State to 
plague and scourge the people for their 
offences and ingratitude. At the same time 
the rude insolence of the boy towards the 
nobles — shown, for instance, before marriage, 
when he struck at Ruthven with a dagger 
because that lord had brought him unpleasant 
news — acted against him. Moray (the Queen's 
half-brother) and some others rose in arms ; 
but, to quote the language of the late Earl of 
Crawford, "after dodging up and down the 
country in such a manner that the insurrection 



723 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



was ever afterwards called in derision the 
Runabout Raid, they were obliged to disband 
their forces and retreat into England." Darn- 
ley's head was simply turned by his elevation. 
The Queen had promised in a rash moment, 
before the discovery of his weakness, that he 
should have the crown-matrimonial ; in other 
words, that, issue faihng by the Oueen, Darn- 
ley's children by any subsequent marriage 
should have a right to the throne. He kept 
up incessant jars with her about the non- 
fulfilment of this promise. It soon became 
known that he was vicious and a drunkard. 
The gentle expostulation of Mary at a bur- 
gess's house in Edinburgh, where he was 
imbibing freely, led to a scene, and the Queen 
left the place in tears. " It is greatly to be 
feared," wrote the English ambassador weeks 
before the marriage, " that he can have no 
long life amongst this people." 

The Rise of David Rizzio. 
When the Savoy ambassador came to 
Scotland in December 165 1, to congratulate 
the charming young widow on her return to 
her native land, there was in his suite a young 
Piedmontese named David Rizzio, then about 
twenty-seven years of age. Doubtless the 
musician's son hoped to push his fortune in 
that far-off country. A picture of him in 1564 
shows him playing on an instrument. He was 
dark of complexion and had a low forehead, 
was full-eyed, with just a trifle of mustachio 
and beard. The face is of a low-cast Semitic 
type. We have seen the identical fellow of 
him turning a hand-organ for coppers in the 
streets of London. That such a mere "minion 
of fortune" should be chosen by Mary to chase 
away the loneliness of her midnight hours 
over a pack of cards or with a harp, to con- 
duct her foreign intrigues against the Protes- 
tants, almost goes to hint at a stratum of bad 
taste in her nature, or perhaps a blundering 
lack of perception. He had skill in music, 
and was acquainted with several European 
tongues, so that he at once found favour in the 
eyes of the handsome Queen. Immediately 
after his arrival at the Court he was appointed 
tobe a"chalmer-cheild,"or valet-de-chambre, 
at a yearly salary of threescore fifteen pounds. 
When he landed, his pockets would seem to 
have been rather empty, as a sum of fifty 
pounds, or two-thirds of his first year's salary, 
was advanced to him at the beginning of 
January. A single box of modest dimensions 
was sufficient to contain his whole worldly 
goods. His salary rose to eighty pounds in 
1564. In December of that year, when Raulet 
went abroad on an embassay, Rizzio stepped 
mto that person's place as French Secretary. 
From that time royal gifts of dress, furniture, 
and funds were lavished by the Scottish 
Lamia on her favourite and confidant, and 
his power, pomp, and pride soon swelled into 



full blossom. He helped on the marriage 
with Darnley — partly, perhaps, from a selfish 
eagerness to cater to Mary's silly taste for the 
handsome, overgrown boy ; partly, perhaps, 
from the thought that her Catholic policy 
would be furthered by the selection of a facile, 
Popish husband. He and young Darnley 
were almost " chums," and he was entrusted 
by the royal couple with the entire riianage- 
ment of their household. He began to treat 
the nobles scornfully, and it was feared by 
them that his influence with Mary was great 
enough to persuade her to proceed in the ap- 
proaching parliament against Moray and the 
other exiled lords. His stud was the envy of 
the nobilit}\ "Great men made in court unto 
him, and their suits were the better heard." 
His equipage and train surpassed the King's. 
He sat near the Queen at public banquets, — 
"sometimes more privately," it was hinted, 
"than became a man of his condition." The 
child yet unborn was already branded as the 
fruit of their intrigue ; and it was from this 
suspicion that the taunt arose in later years 
that King James was called the Scottish 
Solomon because he was the son of David 
who played upon the harp. Mary found 
excuse in the ceaseless debaucheries of Darn- 
ley for having a duplicate of his seal made 
and placing it in Rizzio's hands. A friendly 
voice advised him to make his fortune and 
clear out of Scotland. He laughed with 
scorn at the suggestion, and remarked that 
the Scots were too timorous to touch him. 
It was even stated that he was to sit as Chan- 
cellor in the next parliament. All this, with 
the suspicion that he was the mainspring of 
a movement to restore Popery, won for him 
a wholesale hatred, and his ruin was talked 
of long before he perished by the hands of 
assassms. On the i8th of February, 1566, 
the English ambassador declared : " I know 
that if that take effect which is intended, 
David, with the consent of the King, shall have 
his throat cut within these ten days." Eight 
days previously, Darnley had started a pro- 
posal to Ruthven on the matter; and it is just 
possible that the foolish boy had blabbed the 
secret as he went about whining like a school- 
boy over the Queen's unkindness, and her 
delay in giving him the crown-matrimonial. 
Meanwhile Rizzio was heard to boast that the 
bastard Moray should never live in Scotland 
in his time. 

The Murder of Rizzio. 
At last Darnley opened his heart to Ruthven, 
one of the most determined of the Protestant 
nobles, who had been lying ill for months in 
his house in the Bow, in Edinburgh. Young 
George Douglas passed like a shuttlecock day 
after day between the two parties. The faith- 
less character of Darnley was only too well 
known, but he swore on the Book that he 



724 



RIZZIO AND DARN LEY. 



cou:d be trusted this time. Ruthven, Morton, 
Lindsay, and the other conspirators had quite 
another aim than the prince in agreeing to 
put Rizzio out of the way : they stipulated 
" that the lords banished for the Word of God 
might return to their country and estates," 
and that "they should have their religion 
freely established, conform to Christ's Book 
and to the articles subscribed by the King to 
the lords." Darnley bargained for the 
pleasure of having the Italian seized at the 
supper table, that the Oueen and her alleged 
paramour might be taunted face to face with 
their guilt ; the others were determined to 
strike him down as a " known minion of the 
Pope." The ruthless spirit of the plotters is 
shown by Ruthven's narrative, written shortly 
after the murder, and while the author was 
approaching death. It is a calm, cold-blooded 
story, without a single trace of 
penitence, without one sigh of 
gentle regret. It winds up with 
the pious wish for Mary : " The 
Eternal God, who hath the rule 
of all princes in His hand, send 
His Holy Spirit that she may 
rule and govern with clemency 
and mercy ! " 

The words of the old historian 
of Edinburgh, written a hundred 
years ago, are still applicable 
to the condition of Holyrood 
palace : — " In the second floor 
are Queen Mary's apartments, in 
one of which her own bed still 
remains. It is of crimson da- 
mask, bordered with green silk 
tassels and fringes, and is now 
almost in tatters. . . . Close to 
the floor of this room, a piece 
of wainscot, about a yard square, 
hangs upon hinges, and opens a 
passage to a trap-stair which 
connects with the apartment be- 
neath." The boudoir or cabinet of the 
Queen, leading off from the bedchamber, 
was a very small place, being only some 
twelve feet square. 

At seven o'clock on Saturday evening, the 
9th of March, 1566, the Queen sat in this 
last-mentioned room on a low couch. The 
party around the little supper-table seems to 
have been a most informal one. There was 
the Countess of Argyll at the one end of the 
table, and at the other sat David Rizzio, with 
his cap on, and wearing a night-^own of 
damask, furred, a satin doublet, and hose of 
russet velvet. Arthur Erskine, Captain of 
the Queen's Guard, and others of the palace 
domestics were also present ; Darnley, who 
had supped early, so as to have his hands clear 
for business, entered the group and placed 
himself amorously beside his bei U-iful spouse, 
giving her a "Judas-kiss" she never forgot 




MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS 



or forgave. At the same time, just before 
the closing of the gates, a body of one 
hundred and fifty men, comprising the Earl 
of Morton, Lord Lindsay, and Lord Ruthven, 
marched into the palace court and took the 
keys from the porter. Ruthven, a man of 
forty-six, with face looking pale and ghastly 
from "an inflammation of the liver and a 
consumption of the kidneys " that had kept 
him constantly in bed for three months, 
passed up from the King's chamber by the 
private staircase into the Queen's bedroom, 
and thence into the cabinetr There sat the 
boy-husband, chatting affectionately with the 
delicate Queen, and with his arm round her 
waist. 

The grim guise in which Ruthven entered 
was more suggestive of a raid against the 
Highland savages, or against such notorious 
Border thieves as the Armstrongs 
and Elliots, than of an evening 
visit to a delicate and courtly 
Queen. Something like a feeling 
of uncanniness must have run 
through the merry party as they 
caught the first ghmpse of that 
haggard visage and helmet- 
covered head ; and the first 
words he uttered with sepulchral 
voice were in keeping with the 
terrifying aspect : " Let it please 
Your Majesty that yonder man 
David come forth of your privy- 
chamber, where he hath been 
over long ! " Rizzio saw his 
doom plainly written on the stern 
features of the Scottish baron. 
As in a nightmare, he heard his 
royal mistress launch out her 
cutting sarcasm in his defence, 
and order Ruthven to leave her 
presence on pain of treason ; he 
listened tremulously to the 
accusation that he had taken 
bribes ; that he had committed foul dis- 
honour against Darnley; that he had sought 
to prevent the Queen from carrying out her 
promise of the crown-matrimonial ; that he 
brought about the banishment of the chief 
nobles so that he might himself get rank 
among the nobility. Darnley stood quite 
stunned, while Ruthven thus addressed him 
— " Take the Queen your wife and sovereign 
to you,"and at the same time made an attempt 
to seize Rizzio. Queen Mary was standing m 
the recess of a window, and the terror-struck 
Italian, who had mocked at the bravery of 
Scotsmen shortly before, now cowered behind 
his royal mistress, holding by the folds of her 
gown, and clutching his drawn dagger in un- 
conscious desperation. 

Some of the domestics tried to seize Ruth- 
ven, but he shook them off and kept them at 
bay with his naked dagger. Some of the 



7-5 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



conspirators, who had followed Ruthven into 
the bedchamber by the private staircase, 
rushed upon the scene, tilting over the table 
in the unseemly scuffle, and making sad 
havoc among the royal viands. One of the 
candles that threw a dim flicker of light over 
the boudoir was luckily captured by the 
Countess of Argyll. The King loosed Rizzio's 
hand from the Queen's dress, and the con- 
spirators laid hold on him, while the fanatic 
earl gallantly seized the Oueen and placed 
her in her husband's arms, assuring her of 
her own safety, as they were only acting 
under her husband's orders, and would sooner 
spend their own heart's blood than that she 
should suffer harm. Rizzio was dragged out 
of the cabinet, appealing to the Queen with 
piercing shrieks and cries for mercy : " Gius- 
tizia, Giustizia ! Sauve ma vie ; Madame, 
sauve ma vie ! " Ruthven gave orders to his 
followers to take him down the private 
passage into the King's chamber, and then 
returned to the boudoir, possibly to keep 
guard on Darnley, lest he should babble to 
Delilah. It seems to have been intended by 
the determined leaders to try Rizzio that 
night in the palace, and hang him on the 
morrow : cords, indeed, had been brought as 
if for that purpose. But when the Italian 
was hurled out into the larger company of 
Morton, which had ascended to the ante- 
chamber, he was met by an explosion of fury. 
The " shameless butcher," George Douglas, a 
bastard son of the Earl of Angus, struck him 
in the side with the King's dagger, and the 
savage work of assassination was completed 
with over fifty blows from swords and hangers. 
A large, dark ineffaceable stain at the outer 
door of the ante-chamber is still believed in 
popular conviction to mark the spot where 
the furious assassins threw themselves 
upon their victim. A portrait of Darnley, 
removed from Hampton Court in 1864, now 
looks down upon the scene of the tragedy : 
it is the feeble face of an overgrown and 
overweening boy, who seems more suited for 
the cane of a severe grammar-master than 
for a crown-matrimonial or association with 
a band of Scottish ghouls. When the body 
had lain weltering in blood for some time, 
Darnley, after parting from his wife for the 
night, ordered it to be thrust out of the 
palace ; and the mangled corpse was tossed 
down-stairs into the porter's lodge. There 
the assistant porter laid it out on a box, and 
proceeded to strip off the hacked and stained 
raiment, remarking, " Upon this chest was 
his bed when he entered into this place, and 
now here he lieth again, — a very ingrate and 
misknowing knave ! " It is worth mentioning 
that Darnley's own dagger had been leit 
sticking in the body of Rizzio after the murder 
was completed, as if to fix the main responsi- 
bility for the deed upon the young King, and 



prevent his cowardly nature from retreat and 
betrayal of his associates. 

After the Murder. 
There is no space to introduce discussion 
as to particular acts of cruelty, and so forth, 
but we must make a brief remark on the 
allegation by the Queen that "some held 
pistols to Her Majesty, some stroke whiniards 
so near her that she felt the coldness of the 
steel." Ruthven declares before God that this 
"was never meant nor done." Mary's charge, 
however, is corroborated by one of Darnley's 
attendants, Anthony Standen, who seems 
afterwards to have held a pension of five 
shillings a day from Queen Mary up to the 
time of her execution. This person, who 
in old age was imprisoned in the Tower as 
a plotting Papist, was one of the spectators 
of the murder, and declares in a petition he 
addressed to King James that in the "bloody 
tumult and press," one of Ruthven's followers 
offered to fix his poniard in the Queen's left 
side, but that he (Standen) turned aside the 
dagger and wrested it from the traitor ; thus, 
he alleges, saving two lives together, — a sei-vice 
which their Majesties esteemed accordingly. 
Another interesting question is the guilt of 
John Knox. The greatest Scottish teacher 
of his age justified political assassination, 
and he has left on record his approval of the 
deed. The murder of "that great abuser 
of this commonwealth, that poltroon and vile 
knave Davie," is lauded in the most un- 
equivocal terms as a "just act, and most 
worthy of all praise." 

During the enacting of the tragedy in the 
ante-chamber, Ruthven and Darnley were 
back in the Queen's cabinet, and a pretty 
httle dialogue went on, full of mutual recrimi- 
nation. Darnley's charges need not be 
quoted, as they will readily suggest them- 
selves. Ruthven, sadly tired, called for a 
cup of wine. Mary railed at him fiercely 
after he had refreshed himself, and threatened 
him, should anything happen to her or her un- 
born infant, with the vengeance of the King ot 
Spain, the Emperor, the King of France, her 
uncles, and the Pope. The earl replied with 
grim humour that these great folks would 
not trouble themselves to " meddle with such 
a poor man as he was." During this lively 
altercation some servants reported a disturb- 
ance below with Morton. Ruthven went 
down, supported under the arm ; and after a 
convivial glass in Bothwell's lodgings, paid a 
visit to those of Athole, who was also resident 
in the palace at that time. He then returned 
to the Queen's cabinet with the news that 
they were all merry, and no harm done, and 
told her that Rizzio was in her husband's 
chamber. The provost of the city and a 
crowd appeared before the palace, but the 
Queen was prevented from speaking to them 
726 



RIZZIO AND DARN LEY. 



from her window, and Ruthven declared that 
all was well. Bothwell and Huntly, in spite 
of the convivial meeting with Ruthven, thought 
it prudent to escape that night by a low 
window of the palace. 

Preparations for Flight of Mary and 
Darnley ; A Supper of Rope.* 
After Darnley and Ruthven had left the 
Queen, tired and indignant, to pace her 
chamber during the weary night hours, the 
former showed a disposition to back from the 
precipice. The cool and resolute Protestants 
told him it was too late ; his part was in the 
forefront ; and if he were so chicken-hearted 
as to refuse to carry out their project to its 
end, they would support each other to the 
utmost and spare no man. Alone in the 
group of murderers, the frightened lad sent 
for his father, who joined the conclave. It 
was decided that on the following day 
(Sunday) Darnley should issue a proclama- 
tion dissolving the parliament that was to 
meet on Monday. It was also proposed — 
was it? — that the Queen should be removed 
to the castle of Stirling, where, Lord Lindsay 
remarked, she would have no lack of amuse- 
ment in rocking her baby and singing it asleep, 
shooting in the garden with her bow, and 
doing whatever she liked with herself. But 
some, it was hinted, might take to arms in 
opposition. His remedy was a simple one : 
" We will cut her into gobbets and throw her 
to them from the top of the terrace." Lord 
Lindsay of the Byres, who is charged in Nau's 
story with these unamiable suggestions, was 
perhaps capable of uttering them and even 
carrying them out ; his character and appear- 
ance will be familiar to most readers from 
the description of him in Sir Walter Scott's 
admirable novel, " The Abbot." The blunt 
but honest peer is there depicted as being 
strong-limbed, with bushy, grizzled eyebrows, 
dark fiery eyes, scar-seamed face, and harsh, 
haughty tone. Men like the spectral Ruthven 
and the herculean Lindsay were not likely to 
flinch from any measure they took on hand, 
and there is no wonder that the hare-brained 
and hare-hearted son of Lennox shook in the 
presence of these dreadful Scotsmen. To 
this day the Lindsays have maintained the 
Titanic bodily vastness of the old stock ; and 
the father of the present chief, who success- 
fully claimed the old peerage five years ago, 

* To a large extent this portion of the story is 
based on a French document in the British Museum, 
hitherto unpublished, to which attention was first pro- 
perly called in the Month for 1879. This abstract we 
have used along with the original. This narrative by- 
Mary's secretary, Nau, is fresh at least, although in 
parts incredible ; it was possibly derived from Mary's 
own lips. It sets forth ad nauseam the brutalities 
of Darnley towards his wife which led to his detes- 
tation by the whole body of the nobles, and finally to 
his murder. 



Major-General Sir Henry Lindsay, has been 
described to us as " one of those nobles of 
nature, whom many will remember as being 
almost of gigantic size." 

Darnley, now forced into the position of 
figure-head of a revolution, was frightened 
by the strange side-whisperings of the nobles, 
and was warned with open threats against 
talking with the Queen except in the presence 
of the lords. When he retired, a guard was 
placed outside of his chamber instead of his 
cwn attendants. The boy felt terribly alone 
curing the night watches. In his feverish 
imbecility he crept up the private stair, like a 
child afraid of ghosts, and finding the door of 
his wife's bedchamber locked, he called on 
her to open it as he had something important 
for their mutual safety to communicate to 
her. His prayer was refused, and the Queen 
spent the whole night in lamentation with her 
domestics. " Ah, my Mary ! " said Darnley 
on Sunday morning when he was admitted 
to a secret interview, and threw himself on 
his knees, "I must now confess, though too 
late, the wrong I have done you, for which I 
can make no amends but seek your forgive- 
ness and plead my youth and lack of judg- 
ment." He beseeched the Queen to have 
pity on him, on their unborn child, and on 
herself The silly traitor, now that his own 
immediatepassion for vengeance was satisfied, 
actually handed to her the secret articles 
agreed on between him and the conspirators, 
remarking that he was a dead man if it were 
ever discovered that he had done so. " Since 
you have set us on this precipice," she said, 
"strive to get us off it." He assured her 
that he would be wise in future, and would 
never rest till he had avenged her on these 
inalheureux traistres — these wretched traitors 
— when once they had escaped from their 
hands. Flight was agreed on ; but on her 
" conscience " — she could never tell a lie, 
she said — she objected to his offer of a com- 
promise between her and the conspirators. 

These men, however, kept a strict watch. 
On that Sunday she partook of no food till 
four in the afternoon, and even this was 
closely examined by the stubborn Lord 
Lindsay before it reached her. 

Passing over the dissolution of parliament, 
and the appearance of Moray and the other 
banished lords at the Tolbooth on Monday 
to answer before the parliament which had 
been dissolved by the proclamation of the 
previous day, — a strange freak of diplomacy, 
— we shall allude to a curious story, scarcely 
credible on the face of it, but told with 
complete gravity in Nau's narrative. The 
old lady of the story — who does not even 
appear as a character in Swinburne's drama 
of Bothwell — was the Dowager-Countess of 
Huntly, wife of the " fat lurdane " who had 
been slain by the Queen's forces, and in her 



727 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



presence, on the field of Corrichie — a piece of 
wild and lonely moorland in Aberdeenshire we 
have visited years ago — and was also mother of 
Edom of Gordon, of that young candidate for 
Mary's hand who had been ex. cuted before 
the Queen's own eyes at the cros j of Aberdeen, 
and of Bothwell's own wife, whose nuptials 
had been celebrated with great pomp only a 
few days before. Bothwell and Huntly, as 
we have seen, had made their escape on the 
night of the murder, and the mother of the 
latter of these two nobles, being permitted to 
wait upon the Queen, brought in a rope- 
ladder between two plates — a peculiar kind 
of supper, reminding us of the cask of butter 
sent into Edinburgh Castle eighty years later, 
by which James Grant (the bandit known as 
An Tuim) descended the precipitous wall and 
rock of that grim fortress. 

The old dame dehvered a message from 
her son the Earl, Moray's mortal enemy, and 
the other nobles who had taken flight, 
stating that they would be ready to receive 
her if she could find means of descending by 
a window. This " confab " — for so we must 
term it — was carried on while the Queen sat on 
a chaise percee. Mary succeeded also in re- 
plying by letter that the plan of Bothwell and 
Huntly was impracticable owing to the close 
guard kept overhead and in front of the 
window, but requesting them to meet her the 
next night in a village near Seton, the palace 
of one of her most faithful adherents, on the 
route to the famous rock-perched castle of 
Dunbar, which was in future days to be even 
more closely and romantically associated with 
her name. Lindsay became suspicious of 
the colloquy, and entered the room, ordered 
Lady Huntly out, searched her, and sent her 
off for good. The old countess, however, had 
succeeded in concealing the Queen's letter 
next her body. 

On the same day (Monday), the lords of 
the Lennox faction presented themselves in 
the ante-chamber, all on bended knees, the 
Earl of Morton, who was spokesman of the 
party, kneeling on the very spot that was 
still red with the blood of Davie. This inter- 
viewwas intended to win the Queen completely 
over into the hands of the Protestant lords. 
" True," said Morton, "they had violated their 
duty as subjects ; but the like had happened 
pretty often before, and the loss of a single 
foreigner was not to be set against the rum 
of many lords and gentlemen, her subjects, 
who might one day render good, great, and 
signal service." The Earl, of Moray also' 
begged his sister's pardon for returning with- 
out her leave from exile, swearing by his God 
that he knew nothing of the murder till after 
his return, and begged her clemency for those 
who were guilty. Mary had always an un- 
limited amount of the bitterest sarcasm at 
her tongue's end, and she did not spare her 

728 



petitioners on this occasion. The nobles 
and others had given her frequent oppor- 
tunities for practising the virtue of mercy. 
" I owe justice," she said, "to everyone, and 
I cannot deny it to those who shall ask it in 
the name of the man who has been murdered. 
Whatever his rank may have been, the honour 
to which he had attained a-s my servant should 
have protected him from any outrage, 
especially in my own presence." The as- 
surance given by Mary of a full and ready 
pardon was not satisfactory; and as the nobles 
continued to press the necessity of her signing 
a bond of indemnity, she cried out as if smit 
with sudden pain. The delicate barricade 
behind which the Queen thus suddenly 
and adroitly sheltered herself was suspected 
by the lords. They quizzed the nurse 
ija sage fe mine), whom they had themselves 
appointed ; but she assured them that the 
Queen was really in the perilous condition to 
which she had confessed. They were therefore 
forced to defer their conference with her till 
the morrow : and by that time the royal bird 
had flown, in company with her timorous and 
treacherous husband. 

The Midnight Flight From Holy- 
rood ; Rizzio's Ghost ; Brutality of 
Darnley. 

The plan having been arranged by Mary, 
she and Darnley descended the wall of 
Holyrood, beside his bedroom, shortly after 
midnight on Tuesday, the .T2th of March, 
and thence made their way to the office of the 
butlers and cupbearers, all or most of whom 
were French, and might be trusted. A low, 
narrow door, fortunately with a broken lock 
and open to any one, led from this into the 
chapel burying-ground. Near this door were 
stationed Sir John Stewart of Traquair, 
Captain of the Quten's Guard, William his 
brother, Arthur Erskine, the esquire of the 
Queen stables, along with Anthony Standen; 
Erskine stood ready with a strong, tall 
gelding, with a pillion for the Queen to ride 
behind him, and there were two or three 
other horses for the King and his attendants. 
On their way through the cemetery, Mary 
and Darnley passed close by the fresh-made 
grave of Rizzio, the exact locality of which 
Darnley knew, although the Queen did not. 
He sighed audibly, as if he had seen the 
ghost of the murdered Italian, and the Queen 
mquired the cause of his lamentation. 
" Madam," said her timid husband, "we 
have just passed the grave of poor David. 
I have lost in him a good and faithful servant, 
and I shall never look upon his like again. 
There will not be a day in my life when 
I shall not regret him." This indulgence 
in lamentation, however pleasing it might be 
to Mary's feelings, was rather inopportune. 



RIZZIO AND DARN LEY. 




7-9 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



as there was danger lest the enemy should 
be wakened up. This story, however like 
the character of Darnley, can scarcely be 
true, for the body of Rizzio does not ap- 
pear tb have been removed to the chapel 
ground for some time after the flight ; and it 
is just probable that this romantic tale was 
invented by Mary during the long, weary, 
and miserable years of her imprisonment in 
England. 

As soon as the little band had got clear of 
the town, Darnley put his horse into a gallop, 
and continued at "that pace until they neared 
Seton, where a band of soldiers had been 
posted by the loyal' nobles. Darnley was 
scared by the sight, which grew in the mirage 
of his timorous nature into a host of those 
horrible enemies with whom he had recently 
made an unfortunate aUiance. He spurred 
his horse into a furious gallop, and flogged 
the Queen's also, exclaiming (the reader of 
Swinburne's Boihwell will not fail to observe 
Darnley 's constant habit of swearing), " Get 
on ! Get on ! God's blood, they'll murder us, 
both you and me, if they catch us ! " In her 
delicate condition the Queen asked him to 
have a little mercy, for she would rather run 
the greatest personal danger than risk the 
life of her unborn child. The brute turned 
on her in a passion, and bestowed on her one 
of his customary oaths and a sentence that 
can scarcely be termed decent. 

The heartless fellow, when his suffering 
wife told him she could not gallop longer, 
and advised him to go ahead himself and 
look to his own safety, actually took her at 
her word, and pushed on towards the castle 
of Dunbar. She was joined on the way by 
Bothwell and other chiefs, and reached Dun- 
bar in safety. They denounced Darnley as a 
fickle fool, and some of them even refused to 
speak to the man who was a brute towards 
his wife and a traitor alike to both political 
parties. They declared that he had no title 
to their obedience as king, and in future his 
orders and promises would be thrown away 
on them. 

The story of the midnight ride has been 
told smartly and briefly enough by Hill Bur- 
ton: — "The Queen seated on a crupper behind 
Erskine,they all rode straight to Seton House, 
where the Lord Seton gave them an escort 
on to Dunbar. The governor of that strong 
fortress was amazed, early on Tuesday morn- 
ing, by the arrival of his King and Queen, 
hungry and clamorous for fresh eggs for 
breakfast." But as we have now followed 
it, as probably told by Mary in England, a 
ghastly light is thrown on Darnley's character, 
while an intense pathos gathers round the 
lovely Queen. We seem to look down into 
the heart of the domestic tragedy that was 
ripening rapidly towards Darnley's fearful 
doom. 



DARNLEY Utterly Deserted. 

At Dunbar a proclamation was issued for 
the immediate gathering of an army ; and 
those who were connected with the Rizzio 
plot fled with precipitation across the Border, 
or at least to a safe distance. Only a few of 
the leeser actors in the tragedy suffered the 
last penalty of the law. On the 19th of 
March, the Queen arrived once more in Edin- 
burgh, in conipany with the Hamiltons, 
Huntly, and other nobles, Bothwell having 
behind his back a force of two thousand 
horsemen. On the next day a document of 
a shamelessly astounding nature was posted 
up in Edinburgh — nothing less than a denial 
by the King of any connection with the murder. 
The star of Darnley had fallen completely 
so far as the leaders were concerned; and 
the only way in which he could manifest his 
power was by trying to influence the Queen 
lay tricks of sottish brutality. 

He was eager for the dismissal of the astute 
Maitland of Lethington, and charged him 
with being a principal in the Rizzio conspiracy; 
but in the turmoil the Queen felt the need of 
the sagacity and experience of that mysterious 
and wily Protestant statesman ; and in the 
whole group that surrounded her he seems to 
have been the only man whose real ability 
exerted something like a spell over her own 
intellect. Darnley was passionately indignant 
at her refusal to accept his nominee as Secre- 
tary of State, and sent avalet-de-chambre one 
evening to inform her that she would find 
his two pistols, loaded and primed, lying at 
the back of his bed. The Queen at once met 
his mad threat by paying him a long visit in 
his own room, and succeeded in carrying off 
the weapons. On the next day she exposed 
the matter before the Council. It was neces- 
sary, in the momentous peril of motherhood, 
that the enmity of the chief members of the 
twoparties — such as Lethington and Bothwell, 
against the former of whom there were dark 
whispers of his having instigated a plot for 
the latter's assassination — should as far a^ 
possible be swept away, knowing the risk of 
her offspring becoming a bone of contention 
among the lords if she were carried off. She 
showed her final contempt for Darnley by 
attempting a reconciliation of the two parties 
in April, so as to ensure the safe guardianship 
of her offspring. While the Queen, a little 
later, was passing through a mother's period 
of excitement and agony in Edinburgh castle, 
the infant's father was leading a life of stillen 
dissipation, reeling from his cups and debau- 
cheries to the castle gates at all hours of the 
night, talking wildly among his drunken 
associates of killing Moray, or of shipping 
himself off to France, and spending a jolly 
life on his wife's dowry. The threat of deser- 
tion, if carried out, would have provoked a 



730 



RIZZIO AND DARNLEY. 



wide European scandal, especially as Darn- 
ley's tongue had a foolish habit of wagging 
on his woes in a.11 sorts of company. The 
Queen called a meeting of the lords, and, 
in answer to her appeal, the churlish King 
allowed, somewhat sulkily, that she had given 
him no ground for such a step. He then 
walked out of the presence-chamber, bidding 
farewell to the matrimonial court, and re- 
marking to the Queen herself, " Adieu, 
madam : you shall not see my face for a 
long space," 

Another amiable scene may be mentioned. 
Towards the close of August, Mary went 
to the Borders, and while there, Darnley 
requested her to go out to a stag hunt. The 
Queen suggested in a whisper that galloping 
would be dangerous in her present condition; 
whereupon he answered indecently, in the 
hearing of the company, receiving in return 
a sharp reproof from the Laird of Traquair 
for using language that did not become a 
Christian. 

The impotent and ambitious debauchee, 
thus scouted on every hand, was driven to 
desperation. Possessing some dangerous 
acquaintance with Mary's diplomatic relations 
to France and Rome, he endeavoured to stir 
up a spirit of opposition to her in those 
courts, alleging that she had abandoned the 
restoration of the Catholic faith. The result 
of this stupid and offensive dabbling may be 
given in the words of Knox's "History:" — 
"The King being now contemned of all men 
because the Queen cared not for him, he went 
sometime to the Lennox to his father, and 
sometime to Stirling, whither the prince was 
carried a little before. Always he was des- 
titute of such things as were necessary for 
him, having scarcely six horses in train. 
And being thus desolate and half desperate, 
he sought means to go out of the country : 
and about the same time, by the advice of 
foolish cagots, he wrote to the Pope, etc. (as 
above). By some knave, this poor prince 
was betrayed, and the Queen got a copy of 
these letters into her hands, and therefore 
threatened him sore ; and there was never 
after that any appearance of love betwixt 
them." 

Character and Rise of Bothwell; 
Queen Mary's Ride to the Hermitage, 

The wretched, foolish Darnley having been 
cast aside as a child's toy when it is found to 
contain only sawdust, Mary drifted into the 
hands of Patrick Hepburn, Earl of Both- 
well, the most powerful noble in the south of 
Scotland after the Earl of Arran. Born in 
1535, he was now turned thirty, and was 
the Queen's senior by seven years. His life 
had been one of adventure, gallantry, war- 
fare, with a strong dash of unscrupulous 
scoundrelism. In his early years abroad, he 



had espoused and cruelly deserted, in a 
strange land, a Norwegian lady named Anna 
Throndson, the daughter of an admiral of 
Christian III. of Denmark. Whence re- 
turned home, more than one fair dame had 
fallen a victim to the wiles of the dashing, 
ill-featured chevalier. Among these reputed 
frail ones was the heroine of the Lay of the 
Last Minstrel, Dame Janet Betoun, a rela- 
tive of the famous cardinal of that surname. 
Divorced from her second husband, she had 
taken to herself a third and last, that Sir 
Walter Scott who was murdered in Edin- 
burgh streets in 1552. She was a perfect 
Amazon, and on one occasion led two hundred 
armed men of the Scott clan to a border 
conflict. She had the reputation of a witch, 
and was openly accused of having produced 
the peculiar attention of Queen Mary to 
Bothwell by the use of the black art. His 
name was a byword for low profligacy in 
the Scottish capital; but he had tried to con- 
vince Knox of his repentance, and had gone 
to sermon on Sunday, although in this case 
" God had another work to work than the 
eyes of man could espy," Accused of a plot 
to seize the Queen in 1562,- — possibly his 
accuser was as insane as the great Reformer 
suggested, — he was imprisoned, but succeeded 
in making his escape to France, where he 
obtained the dignity of Captain of the Scots 
Guard. Finally, when his arch-enemy, the 
pious Moray, had fled into England after 
Darnley's marriage, he returned to his native 
country, and was received with honour. 

Only a fortnight before Rizzio's murder, he 
married by dispensation Lady Jane Gordon, 
a member of the powerful Catholic house of 
Huntly, and a daughter of the old dame 
whose services were so strangely utilised two 
days after the murder. The alliance was 
accompanied with festivities and tournaments 
for five days ; and into these the Queen 
entered with special zest. At last he had 
come to the front as Mary's most prominent 
defender. One episode that took place to- 
wards the close of 1 566, and has been exag- 
1 gerated and distorted into a serious calumny, 
I demands a little notice out of sheer justice 
to the Queen, As Warden of the Marches, 
Bothwell was hunting down some of the 
Border freebooters for trial at the circuit 
court at Jedburgh, where Mary arrived with 
her oflicers of state on the 9th of October. 
On the very day on which the Queen left 
Edinburgh, Little Jock EUiot, one of the most 
notorious thieves in Liddesdale, was seized 
by the earl ; the marauder, however, succeeded 
in slipping from horseback and made to run 
off. In the attempt to recapture his prey, 
Bothwell tumbled down a ditch, and received 
three serious wounds — one of them, it is worth 
bearing in mind, was in the hand — from the 
freebooter, after having shot him in the body 



731 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



vvilh a pistol. George Buchanan, in his elo- 
quent and skilful indictment known as the 
" Detection,'"' a work that spread all over 
Europe, and formed the popular hideous im- 
pression of Mary's wickedness, raised on this 
matter an unjust slander against her honour. 
"When," he says, "news hereof was brought 
to Borthwick to the Queen, she flingeth away 
in haste like a mad woman, by great journeys 
in post in the sharp time of winter, first to 
Melrose, and then to Jedworth.* There, 
though she heard sure news of his life, yet 
her affection, impatient of delay, could not 
temper itself, but needs she must bewray her 
outrageous lust, and, in an inconvenient time 
of the year, despising all discommodities of 
the way and weather and all danger of thieves, 
she betook herself headlong to her journey 
with such a company as no man of any honest 
degree would have adventured his life and his 
goods among them." The fact is, however, 
that Mary exhibited no such mad hurry. She 
actually remained at Jedburgh till the i6th 
of October, when the press of business was 
over, before she set off on her white 
palfrey for Hermitage Castle, where the 
warden lay sorely wounded. Going and 
coming, it was a ride of sixty miles across 
the moors ; but Mary was an accomplished 
horse-woman, and her figure, dashing along 
mounted on her steed, was familiar in those 
days over the length and breadth of Scotland. 
The people of the district of that eventful 
and almost fatal ride still give the name of the 
Queen's Mire to a morass in which her 
palfrey was bogged. Far from giving way 
to " outrageous lust," she even transacted 
state business at the Hermitage. On her 
return to Jedburgh, she fell into a sickness of 
the most severe t) pe, and for ten days the 
physicians regarded her case as hopeless. 
In a touching document brought to light in 
1881, entitled "The Declaration of the 
Will," etc., she most unmistakably points to 
Darnley's cruelty as the cause of her sickness. 
Her careless and selfish and dissolute hus- 
band did not arrive from Glasgow until she 
had become convalescent. It is not im- 
possible that not only her physical system, 
but her mind itself, became temporarily 
deranged. She was often heard to murmur, 
" I could wish to be dead." Just after this 
period of severe anguish, the following 
ominous words were penned by Mary's 
secretary, Lethington : " It is a heartbreak 
to her to think that he should be her husband, 
and how to be free of him she has no outgait 
[escape]." 

The pitiable isolation into which Darnley 
had sunk, his lamentable estrangement from 
his wife and the nation's leaders, is most 
completely unveiled by the fact that he was 
not even present at the baptism of his own 
* This is the old form of the name Jedburgh. 



child. Prince James, in December 1566. On 
the evening when that ceremony was per- 
formed in the Chapel Royal at Stirhng with 
great pomp, and the little Solomon underwent 
the initial rite of the Christian Church by 
water from a rich gold font presented by the 
Maiden Queen, the father of the babe was 
actually residing in Stirling Castle. He was 
even not tempted by the gorgeous banquet 
that followed in the great hall, but remained 
sulkinar in his chamber, and, without saying 
good-night, he stole away from the aching 
scene of the festivities to his father's residence 
in Glasgow. The presiding genius at the 
Stirling ceremonies was the chivalrous, 
courtly, and ambitious Bothwell. 

Getting rid of Darnley. 

So the lords met and talked the matter 
over. There was but one thing that stood 
in the way of a divorce in the Queen's mind 
— how it would affect the legitimacy of her 
infant son. They assured her that parlia- 
ment would make the matter right on this 
point. What regard Mary now had for 
Darnley was only due to the circumstance 
that he was the father of her child. Instead 
of a divorce so shocking to a mother's feelings, 
would not it be better that he should be got 
rid of in a way that would at least bury any 
doubt as to the legality of the marriage and 
the legitimacy of the little Prince James ? 

It almost seemed as if Providence itself 
were anxious to cut the Gordian knot. In 
the midst of all this plotting, the scapegrace 
was struck down with some foul disease, which 
has commonly been called small-pox, and 
was removed to his father's house in Glas- 
gow, near the old cathedral. Several times 
during his illness he requested to see the 
Queen, and, according to the narrative of 
Nau, "although she was ill, having injured 
her bosom by a fall from her horse at Seton, 
she went, sat with him, and tended him on 
his return to Edinburgh. During the journey, 
a raven accompanied them from Glasgow to 
Edinburgh, where it remained. It perched 
on the King's lodging, and sometimes on the 
Castle. On the day before his death it sat 
and croaked for a very long time upon the 
house." Something else than the croak of a 
raven had to do with the removal of Darnley 
to Edinburgh and the hideous extinction of 
his life. In the interview with her husband, 
the Queen pressed on him to agree to his 
removal to Craigmillar Castle, close by Edin- 
burgh, when he had made some progress to- 
wards recovery, and take the bath there. 
Darnley would seem to have had a strange 
premonition of his doom ; still, he declared 
to a faithful attendant, " he would go with 
her, and put himself in her hands, though she 
should cut his throat." 

The old castle of the Prestons was not, 



732 



RIZZIO AND DARN LEY. 



after all, the final destination of the fated 
man. He was escorted by Mary to the 
Kirk-of-Field, a place abutting on the city 
wall, situated on the spot where the Univer- 
sity now stands. Nau insists that this was 
not the Queen's choice, but that she was 
in favour of his being taken to Craigmillar, 
and that he was not settled in Holyrood 
because of the danger of the young prince 
being infected. Buchanan, on the other 
hand, attempts to make out a horrid charge 
against Mary and the lodgings of Darnley: — 
" Is it among dead men's graves to seek the 
preserving of life ? For hard by there were 
the ruins of two kirks ; on the east side a 
monastery of Dominic friars ; on the west, a 
kirk of Our Lady, which, for the desolateness 
of the place, is called the Kirk-in-the-Field ; 
on the south side the town wall, and in the 
same, for commodious passage every way, is 
a postern door ; on the north side are a few 
beggars' cottages, then ready to fall, which 
sometime served for stews for certain priests 
and monks, the name of which place does 
plainly disclose the form and nature thereof, 
for it is commonly called the Thief Row." 
Nothing can really be charged against Queen 
Mary, on any authority that is beyond ques- 
tion, of actual foreknowledge of the crime 
about to be perpetrated in this retired spot — 
for such it then was, although it now lies in 
the very heart of the city. We know that 
when he was in Glasgow, she sent her own 
physician to attend him, wrote many friendly 
letters to him there, and when he was removed 
to the squalid district in Edinburgh, she often 
sat with him in his room like an affectionate 
wife, walked in the neighbouring garden, or 
brought her choir to him to elevate his 
spirits. The lodgings provided for him were 
elegantly if hastily furnished. " In a chamber 
on the ground floor," says Joseph Robertson, 
" directly under the King's chamber, there 
was a Httle bed of yellow and green damask, 
with a furred coverlet, in which the Queen 
slept on the nights of Wednesday and Friday." 
There was therefore every appearance of be- 
coming wifely attention and of returning love ; 
and if we may take Nau's word for it, the 
Queen was frequently blamed by the lead- 
ing nobles of the country for coming to an 
understanding with him. But, on the other 
hand, as we have seen, she was perfectly 
well aware that the national leaders were 
desirous of removing Darnley as a complete 
nuisance from the scene of pohtical action. 
It is impossible to say who were all the 
persons involved in the plot against the life 
of the foolish young King, but it must be 
accepted as a fact that a bond was prepared 
by which the chief parties bound themselves 
to free the Queen from the bondage and 
misery to which she had been reduced by 
her husband's conduct ; and it must also be 



accepted as a fact that the most active person 
in carrying out the plot was Hepburn of 
Bothwell. We have not the slightest faith 
in the theory that, in associating with and 
marrying Bothwell, Mary was stricken blind 
by a woman's mad love, and believed in his 
innocence in the teeth of all public accusa- 
tion. 

The Gunpowder Plot at Kirk- 
of-Field. 

On Saturday the 8th of February, Darnley 
received warning of his danger from Lord 
Robert Stuart, a younger brother of the more 
famous Earl of Moray ; and the patient sent 
information to the Queen, who in her turn 
wrote to Stuart, who was her half-brother, 
on the matter. The latter gentleman went 
to Darnley's residence in the Kirk-of-Field, 
and had an altercation with him, denying 
vehemently that he had ever given any such 
intimation to the King. That Mary should 
in any case have been content to leave her 
husband unprotected by a guard, or to have 
remained away from him after this terrible 
revelation, is an argument against her inno- 
cence which the keenest of her advocates and 
admirers will have considerable difficulty in 
dealing with. 

It was clear now to the plotters that the 
bird must be disposed of at once, in case the 
roused suspicion should lead to his taking 
immediate flight beyond their power ; and at 
a final consultation on Sunday in Bothwell's 
rooms, it was arranged that on that very 
night the powder which had been brought 
up from Dunbar Castle, of which arsenal he 
was governor, and stored in his rooms at 
Holyrood Palace, should be used to blow up 
the house in which the doomed man lay. 
There were two festivals on that Sunday 
evening, — one to be given on the departure 
of the Savoy ambassador, and another an 
the wedding of the Queen's French servant, 
Sebastian Pagez, to Lhristily Hogg. At the 
former the Queen and Bothwell were both 
present ; and as it grew dark, the latter left 
the banquet to meet his assistants, who were 
four small Scottish lairds, his own three 
servants, and his own minion Nicholas Hu- 
bert, commonly called French Paris, whom 
he had brought from France and placed in 
Her Majesty's service. 

At ten o'clock two horses, in two succes- 
sive loads, carried the powder along the out- 
side of the city wall to the gate at the Kirk- 
of-Field ; it was then taken in bags into the 
Queen's chamber, which lay right under that 
of her husband. Before or while this tedious 
process was going on, evidently under Both- 
well's own superintendence, the Queen arrived 
at the solitary house with several of the nobles, 
and, without visiting her own room, either in 
going up or down past it, went into Darnley' 



733 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



apartment, where she seems to have remained 
for a considerable time. • Darnley's guests 
were playing dice upstairs, and Bothwell, 
after having seen a large portion of the 
powder quietly deposited, went up to join 
the group, returning with the Queen to Holy- 
rood about eleven o'clock. After leaving the 
feast at midnight, he repaired to his own 
rooms, doffed his court attire for a coarser 
doublet and a dark trooper's cloak, and then 
set forth with his three minions and French 
Paris towards the scene of the coming tragedy. 
As the Canongate Port was closed, they were 
challenged by the keeper, who admitted the 
party without scruple on receiving the reply 
that they were friends of the Earl of Both- 
well. The thick match leading to the gun- 
powder was lighted by Hay of Talla, a wild 
district on the borders, and Bothwell's own 
relative, John Hepburn of Bolton. It burned 
so slowly that the earl grew impatient, and 
was thinking of approaching to see what was 
the matter, when a loud explosion shook the 
earth, and roused every citizen in Edinburgh 
from his peaceful slumber. 

It was now between three and four o'clock 
on Monday morning. The murderers tried to 
escape over the city wall near Leith Wynd, at 
a considerable distance from the scene of the 
tragedy, but the injury " Little Jock Elliot" 
had done to his hand in the previous October 
•was still sufficient to prevent Bothwell's escape 
in this manner, and he was forced to seek exit 
at the Port by which he had entered. Half- 
an-hour later he was roused from bed by a 
messenger. He called out treason, donned 
the silver-embroidered court dress he had 
laid aside at midnight, and, along with his 
brother-in-law Huntly, sought an audience 
of the Queen, so as to inform her of some acci- 
dent that had just occurred at the Kirk-of- 
Field, and had caused a general consternation 
jn the city. Between eight and nine in the 
morning he returned to her with the infor- 
mation that she was a widow ; and as he left 
her presence, he told a courtier that the Queen 
was " sorrowful and quiet." Such had been 
the force of the explosion that the whole 
lodging was shattered down till not one stone 
remained above another, "but all either cari'ied 
far away, or dung in dross to the very ground- 
stone." There were five servants in attend- 
ance at the time of the explosion, all of whom 
were hurt or killed, while the body of Darnley 
was found under a tree outside the garden 
wall. He wore his linen only, had neither 
scorch nor bruise, and his boots and clothes 
were by his side. A letter from Queen Mary 
to her ambassador at the French Court states 
that God, not chance, had that night saved 
her from sleeping at the Kirk-of-Field, and 
intimates that it must have been done by gun- 
powder, but " by whom, or in what manner, 
it appears not as yet." 



Will the reader now compare the following 
statement from Nau's narrative, probably 
taken down from Mary's own lips ? — On the 
night of the murder, as she was about to 
leave the King, she met Paris, Bothwell's 
valet-de-chambre, and noticing that his face 
was all black with gunpowder, she exclaimed, 
just as she was mounting her horse, "Jesu, 
Paris, how begrimed you are ! " 

The body of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, 
was embalmed for ^42 6^-., and was buried in 
Holyrood Chapel by torchlight on the Satur- 
day following the murder. 

After the Murder ; Bothwell's Sham 
Acquittal; His Marriage and Fate. 

Queen Maryhasbeen credited with becoming 
melancholy and fastings after the death of her 
worthless husband ; but what is certain is that 
she did not spend the usual forty days in 
mourning according to the Scottish custom, 
by keeping her darkened rooms lit by 
candles in the day-time ; that on the very 
next day after the somewhat secret interment 
of her murdered husband she withdrew from 
Edinburgh, under medical advice it was 
alleged, to Seton House, with Bothwell, 
Argyle, Huntly, andLethington, as the lead- 
ing members of her Court. During the week 
of the assassination, although no one dared 
publicly to claim the reward of ^2,000 offered 
to any who should discover the author of the 
murder, voices were heard at night openly 
proclaiming Bothwell as the guilty person, 
and placards were affixed to the door of the 
Tolbooth accusing him and certain others as 
the authors of the crime ; and yet the widowed 
Queen, knowing of these tickets, could join 
with Bothwell in shooting with steady hand 
and excellent aim at the butts at Seton against 
two noble opponents, and then proceed to 
a dinner at the miserable village of Traneat ; 
the expense of the public-house festivities 
being paid by the losers of the contest. Mary 
showed her indecent and insane contempt 
for public opinion and public justice by 
granting a pension at Seton, only ten days 
after the murder, to Signer Francis, one of 
those whom the placards accused of being 
guilty of the King's blood. True it is also 
that, after repeated applications by the father 
of her murdered husband, she complied with 
his request that the persons accused by him— 
the same as those mentioned on the Tolbooth 
placards — should have an immediate trial 
before the Lords ; and the Privy Council fixed 
the 1 2th of April for the ceremony. But as 
the Earl of Bothwell had in his power the 
command of the castle, and had several 
thousand men behind him in the streets of 
the city, Lennox did not dare to make per- 
sonal appearance at the trial, and Bothwell 
was in consequence acquitted of " art and 



734 



I 



RIZZIO AND DARN LEY. 



part of the said slaughter of the King" by 
the jury of fifteen nobles, over whose pro- 
ceedings the Earl of Argyll, one of Both- 
well's cronies, acted as president. Both well 
made a public challenge to engage in single- 
handed contest with any one who continued 
after this verdict to 'charge him with the 
murder. 

It was patent to every one who moved 
about the Court that the relation between the 
Queen and Bothwell would end in marriage; 
and a letter written by Kirkcaldy of Grange, 
afterwards the most famous and chivalrous 
of her defenders, expresses her mad devotion 
to her husband's murderer by the remark 
that " she cared not to lose France, England, 
and her own country for him, and shall go 
with him to the world's end in a white petti- 
coat before she will leave him." The hand 
of the fascinating royal widow was finally 
secured to Bothwell by the parliament which 
met at Edinburgh in the middle of April. 
Fresh possessions vi'ere added to his already 
immense power and wealth, and, as far as 
any ordinary human eye could perceive, he 
had attained a height and strength not likely 
to be toppled down by any possible combi- 
nation of the other chiefs of the country. On 
the 19th of April, the parliament held its last 
sitting, and at a feast held in an Edinburgh 
tavern in the afternoon, the magnates of the 
country entered into a bond for the support 
of Bothwell, and recommended Mary to adopt 
him as a husband in the distressed state of 
the nation. The support of the nobles was 
hollow, and Bothwell was very far from being 
a favourite in Scotland. In the previous 
summer the English ambassador had reported 
his insolence, declaring that he was the most 
hated man among the noblemen ; and that 
Da.vid (that is, Rizzio) was never more ab- 
horred than the Earl. A device even then, 
it was said, " was working " for him, and he 
had woven around himself such intense 
hatred that he " could not long continue," 
After the farce of the proposed marriage was 
over, the nobles retired to their country seats 
to plot the ruin of Bothwell, and let the ugly 
events develop themselves. 

Mary, it would appear from the narrative 
of Monsieur Nau, reminded Lethington and 
the others who presented themselves as dele- 
gates on the matter of the reports that had 
been current about Bothwell's connection 
with her husband's murder, and more than 
once refused to accept his hand. It is of 
course denied by Nau and all her defenders 
that it was by collusion with him that she 
went to visit her infant son at Stirling two 
days after the closing of the Parliament, and 
on the way back three days later, when 
within a few miles of Edinburgh, was seized 
by him at the head of fifteen hundred horse- 
men, and carried off to the castle of Dunbar. 



Steps were immediately taken for the divorce 
of Bothwell and his wife, — a shameless 
mockery, for the dispensation we have already 
mentioned, discovered at Dunrobin Castle, 
in Sutherlandshire, some ten or eleven years 
ago, had been granted, annulling all possible 
obstacles to their marriage. Mary herself 
pardoned him, or pretended to do so, for the 
treasonable offence of carrying her off into 
captivity, on account of his good behaviour 
towards her and his thankful service done in 
time bygone; and so the wedding of the 
loving couple was celebrated on the 15th oi 
May, — although an unlucky month, and Mary 
was not without her superstitions. It belongs 
to another chapter of the Oueen's Vi^etched 
life to tell how a single month later the con- 
federate lords met the forces of Bothwell and 
Mary at Carberry Hill, near the fishing 
town of Musselburgh, and how on that 
bloodless field the husband and wife parted, 
never to meet again on earth. It has been 
asserted by Nau that just before escaping 
from the scene he handed to the Queen 
the bond he and others of the nobles had 
entered into for putting Darnley out of 
the way. 

The story of Mary's life after her surrender 
at Carberry Hill to the rebel forces is full of 
pathos, sadness, and romance. Sorrow fol- 
lowed her without a moment's pause from 
the day when, passing over into the ranks of 
the confederate lords, she took the grim Lord 
Lindsay by the hand, exclaiming, " By the 
hand which is now in yours, I'll have your 
head for this !" Her imprisonment in the 
castle of Lochleven, her romantic escape, — 
although her half-brother, Moray, saw no 
romance in it but merely the result of his 
own folly in giving the "unmerciful Jezebel" 
too much liberty, instead of giving her " to 
the dogs to devour her flesh and bones," 
according to the teaching of God's Word, — 
her final stand at Langside, her flight over 
the borders into England, there to spend 
years in grief and plots, until her head fell 
at Fotheringay Castle, form perhaps the 
best known narrative in the annals of our 
country. 

If we refrain from telling the story of the 
" casket letters," on the basis of which she 
was accused in England of complicity with 
Bothwell in the murder, we must for this once 
plead want of space and the general belief 
that they were nothing better than forgeries ; 
but the less known story of the latter days of 
the unscrupulous nobleman, which has been 
unearthed by careful investigation of Danish 
records during recent years, and has not yet 
become familiar to British readei^s, perhaps 
deserves, to be set forth in some little detail 
as one of those tragedies that are stranger 
than fiction, in which poetic justice is dealt 
out to the guilty. 



735 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



The Exile of Bothwell ; His Death 
IN Draxholm Castle. 

Partly through the Queen's entreaties and 
the advice of the astute Laird of Lethington, 
Bothwell leapt on horseback at Carberry 
Hill and rode away from the impending 
contest with his face set towards his strong 
castle of Dunbar, having, in his anxiety to 
" ease his conscience," left the bond of the 
conspirators in Mary's hands, implicating 
Morton, Lethington. and others. 

On the next day the lords bound them- 
selves to have the shameless marriage dis- 
solved, and not to rest until Bothwell was 
duly punished " as truly as we are noblemen 
and love the honour of our native country;" 
and a week later a proclamation at different 
market-crosses throughout Scotland set a 
reward of a thousand crowns upon his head, 
and forbade any person from providing the 
criminal with food or shelter. Bothwell 
seems to have made an effort to raise his 
partisans, but the sympathies of the country 
were dead against him. Twelve days after 
his flight from Carberry Hill, the former 
Admiral of Scotland set out from his castle of 
Dunbar towards the north with two vessels, 
and paid a visit to Strathbogie, the seat of 
Huntly, brother of his divorced wife, but 
without succeeding in the attempt to obtain 
the support of that nobleman. For a time 
he found a refuge at Spynie Castle with his 
aged uncle and namesake, the Bishop of 
Moray, under whose dissolute tutelage he had 
spent a portion of his early life ; but even 
there he was not safe from the threats of an 
assassin. For two months he had held 
the dignity of Duke of Orkney, and he now 
sought a refuge in those distant isles from 
which his ducal title was derived. The 
governor of Kirkwall Castle, formerly one of 
nis own minions at the time of the Darnley 
tragedy, had turned with the tide, and Both- 
well sailed still further northward, towards 
the bleak isles of Shetland. There he pur- 
chased two ships from the ports of Bremen 
and Hamburg, which traded, we imagine, in 
corn, beer, whisky, cloth, fish, and the nimble 
little ponies known as shelties. A small 
Scottish fleet was despatched against him, 
and his vessels were compelled to sail from 
the coast of Shetland. 

Shortly after this, the Earl found himself 
tossed by the storms of the North Sea on the 
rocky coast of Norway, and his two "pinkers" 
were captured as privateers by a war-ship of 
Frederick the Second. In vain did he ex- 
postulate against this seizure, declaring who he 
was, and that he had never taken a farthing's- 
worth without payment ; for the Norwegian 
captain could not well be expected to recog- 
nise the husband of the famous Scottish Queen, 
for whom his own royal master had been a 



suitor, in the ill-featured and shabby-looking 
man before him, who was attired in " old, torn, 
coarse boatswain's clothes." While he was at 
Bergen, an ugly memory of his earlier dissi- 
pated life turned up in the shape of his long- 
abandoned spouse, Anna Throndson, who 
had returned to her native Norway, where 
she was known as " The Scottish Lady." She 
summoned him before a legal court on the 
ground of his desertion of her ; but the wrath 
of the fair dame was appeased when her 
faithless lover handed over to her the smallest 
of his ships, and promised her an annuity 
from Scotland. He was carried over to 
Copenhagen, where he proceeded to lay his 
case before King Frederick, tempting that 
sovereign to assist him against the Scottish 
rebels by offering the old Norse possessions 
of Orkney and Shetland that had been 
pledged to Scotland several centuries before 
as the dowry of a Norwegian princess. In 
December of the same year (1567), a mes- 
senger arrived from Scotland, demanding the 
extradition of Bothwell as a murderer ; but 
the Danish King did not accede to the request, 
and instead ordered his removal to Malmoe 
Castle, across the Sound. The Scottish par- 
liament had already condemned him to the 
forfeiture of his rank, honours, life, andfortune. 
Although Frederick did not hand him over to 
the Scots, two of the other conspirators, 
Murray and Paris, who had accompanied 
Bothwell, were given over to justice in 1568; 
and the latter, after making a confession that 
implicated the Queen, was executed on the 
i6th of August in the following year. 

Till 1573 the " Scottish Earl " enjoyed con- 
siderable liberty in Malmoe, enjoying the 
King's munificence, feasting and carousing 
with his friends, and dressing himself in silk 
and velvet. In this retreat he was even per- 
mitted to correspond with Mary after her 
escape from Lochleven and while she was a 
prisoner in England. But from the year 
mentioned till his death in April 1578, he was 
practically buried from the world in a solitary 
and loathsome cell in the castle of Dragsholm, 
or Dragon's Island. Two iron bars in the 
wall are still pointed out by tradition as those 
to which his fetters were attached; and in 
those terrible years of divine vengeance no 
one had access to him except the persons 
who brought to a little window such " scurvy 
meat and drink as was allowed." The 
wretched end of him is thus told by Professor 
Schiern : " The Earl's coffin was brought from 
Dragsholm to the nearest church at Faareveile. 
This church, which stands away from the 
village, on the west of Isefjord, in a lonely 
and quiet spot, the haunt of gulls and sea-fowl, 
is said to be the last resting-place of him who 
once was the husband of Scotland's Queen." 

M. M. 



736 




Magellan's Vessels in a Storm. 



MAGELLAN'S GREAT VOYAGE 

THE FIRST JOURNEY ROUND THE WORLD. 

" Thus hast thou all the regions of the East, 
Which by thee given unto the World is now ; 
Opening the way with an undaunted breast, 
Through that vast sea which none before did plough." 



The Sea of Pitchy Darkness — Former Discoveries— Fernando Magalhaens — His Services declined at Lisbon— Arrival at 
the Spanish Court — Agreement with the King— The Expedition Sets Sail — The Brazils—The Patagonians — Mutiny 
at San Julian — The Straits Discovered — The Pacific Entered — The Ladrone Islands — Disputes with the Islanders — 
Continuation of the Voyage — Manners and Customs of the Natives — Baptism and Conversion of the People — The 
Dispute at Malan — Death of Magellan — The Expedition Continued — Arrivaland Reception at Borneo — The Voyage 
Home — Run into Danger at Cape Verde Islands — Escape and Arrival in Spain — Conclusion. 




"The Sea of Pitchy Darkness." 

O Marco Polo is due the credit of 
removing the veil from the Asiatic 
shore of the South Seas, which had 
previously been regarded with such terror. 
The Arabic geographers portrayed the South 
Sea as a terrible waste of waters, which 
no voyager had been able to explore in 
consequence of its difficult navigation and 
great obscurity. The "Sea of Darkness" 
was supposed to be impenetrable, with its 
mountainous waves, "haughty winds," and 
"mighty fishes ;" no mariner dared to enter 
its waters. 

But when Marco Polo penetrated to China, 
and reached its eastern boundary, he calrried 
back to Europe a very different picture of 
the Sea of Darkness. He certainly con- 
firmed public opinion as to its extent and 
majesty ; but he also removed the unfavour- 



able impressions concerning it. "There were-, 
hundreds of islands," he said, "and all the 
trees were perfumed ;" and he concluded by 
saying that "it was impossible to estimate 
the value of the gold or other articles found 
in the islands." 

Christopher Colum.bus fancied that by 
sailing westward he would reach the Easterly 
continents, and arrive in Asia and Japan. The 
result of his voyages is known to every reader, 
and contemporary and later voyagers suc- 
ceeded in rounding the Cape of Storms, and 
made many other important discoveries. 
But Nunez de Balboa and the Spaniards 
were the first people to reach the coveted 
Southern Ocean in 15 13. 

Nunez, following the directions given him 
by a chief in Darien, near Santa Maria,, 
ascended to the summit of a mountain, and 
thence beheld the long-wished-for ocean.. 

737 8 B B 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



He fell on his knees and thanked God. 
The Spaniards then descended to the shore, 
and named the bay San Miguel, for the 
ocean was reached (exactly to this day of 
writing 369 years ago) on the 29th of Sep- 
tember, 1 5 13. 

Tidings of the discovery were at once sent 
to Spain. The ocean was called the South 
Sea. Yet Nunez got no reward. His re- 
compense was the sword of the public execu- 
tioner. But, his successor could find no 
passage across the continent for vessels. 
The Isthmus of Darien was the easiest line 
of communication, and attempts were made 
to utilize it ; but they failed, and the un- 
dertaking was abandoned. 

Thus the " Sea of Pitchy Darkness " was 
brought to light ; but prior to 15 19, no ad- 
venturer had been sufficiently bold to explore 
it. Ships had indeed sailed upon it, coasting 
along the continent ; but no one had launched 
out to explore it in its length, and find a 
strait from ocean to ocean. This success 
was reserved for Fernando Magalhaens, 
or Magellan as the French called him. 

Fernando Magalhaens. 

The birthplace of the first circumnavigator 
of the world is doubtful. It may, however, 
be accepted that he was born at Villa de 
Sabroza, in the district of Villa Real, in Por- 
tugal.* He was of good family ; and a man 
of considerable aftainments, who had seen 
service in the East. Pope Alexander had 
assigned all the newly-discovered territories 
to the west of Ferro, in the Canaries, to the 
Spaniards ; and all to the eastward to the 
Portuguese ; and Spain continued to extend 
her conquests and cruelties ; while Da Gama 
doubled the Cape, nnd the Portuguese sailed 
up the eastern coast, reaching Calicut and 
the Moluccas. 

The Duke of Albuquerque was then Viceroy 
of the Indian possessions of the Portuguese ; 
and in his suite was Magellan, who had 
studied geography and navigation. From 
the Indies he returned to Lisbon ; and while 
endeavouring to obtain preferment he still 
studied geography and the maps of the 
world. He was permitted to see all the 
charts.; and it is stated by Pigafetta, that 
while thus occupied he came across a chart 
made by Martin Boheim, a celebrated geo- 
grapher, in which the strait which now bears 
the name of Magellan is marked. But this 
statement is unsupported by more recent 
investigations ; and if he did see the strait 
indicated, he placed no reliance upon the 
fact, because at the time of Boheim the 
Pacific Ocean had not been discovered. 

Magellan sought advancement at the hands 
of the King of Portugal ; but he did not 

* So stated in his will executed at Lisbon in 1504. 
— See " Hakluyt Society's Publications." 



"choose to hear him," nor would he coun- 
tenance the projected plan of exploration of 
the geographer. The Court of Portugal thus 
declined to accept the offer of the services of 
Magellan ; and lost the honour of the cir- 
cumnavigation of the globe as they had lost 
the honour of the discoveries of Columbus. 

Magellan therefore threw off his allegiance 
to the King of Portugal, and proceeded to 
Spain to offer his services to the Emperor 
Charles V. He was accompanied in his 
expedition by the astrologer Ruy Falero ; 
and they sought the Emperor at Valladolid. 
Charles V, listened to the proposals Magellan 
and his friend submitted to him, and became 
convinced of his sincerity. Cardinal Ximines, 
the Prime Minister, paid particular attention 
to Magellan when the latter demonstrated 
that the country he desired to explore was 
really within the line of demarcation per- 
mitted by the Pope. 

But the agents of the King of Portugal 
did all they could to thwart the designs 
of Magellan. Discussions arose as to the 
legality of the Spanish attempts ; nevertheless 
Charles V. was satisfied that he was within 
his rights, and he acquiesced in Magellan's 
proposals. 

The Agreement with Spain. 

Articles of agreement were accordingly 
drawn up with the Emperor, who was 
strongly supported by his nobles. These 
articles are dated 1518, quite a twelvemonth 
previous to the actual sailing of the expedition, 
which was probably delayed by Portuguese 
intrigues, that at one time threatened the 
life of Magellan himself 

It was agreed that the navigators (Magel- 
lan and Falero) should sail to the Moluccas 
Avestward, and enjoy a ten years' monopoly 
of the track they explored. They were to 
receive one-twentieth part of the revenue 
and profits arising from their discoveries 
after paying necessary expenses. Magellan 
was also to be deemed Adelantado, and he 
and his heirs were to retain the possessorship 
of any islands he discovered. Five vessels 
were arranged for — viz., two ships, or " cara- 
vels," of 130 tons, two of 90 tons, and one 
of 60. The vessels were to be victualled for 
two years, and to carry crews amounting to 
- 234 men. 

This agreement was concluded at Sara- 
gossa, and the final orders were given at 
Barcelona on the 19th of April, 1519. (The 
first document is dated Valladolid, 22nd 
March, 15 18.) These five vessels were 
named the Trinidad, San Antonio, Vittoria, 
Concepcion, and Santiago. Magellan com- 
manded the expedition in the Trinidad, Luis 
de Mendoza was captain of the Vittoria. 
The San Antotiio was captained by Don 
Juan de Carthagena ; the Santiago by Don 



738 



MAGELLAN'S GREAT VOYAGE. 



Serrano ; and the Concepcion by Caspar de 
Ouixhada. The commander took several of 
his own countrymen in his vessel, for they 
were experienced navigators. 

Even while the arrangements were being 
completed, the King of Portugal did all in 
his power to induce Magellan to return to 
him, and abandon the rival country, but in 
vain. After the treatment he had received, 
Fernando was not inclined to put himself 
into his sovereign's power, and he remained 
firm. 

The course decided upon was laid down 
as follows : — "Straight from Cape Frio, Brazil 
remaining on their right hand until they 
reached the line of demarcation ; from thence 
theyare to navigate west and west-north-west, 
straight to Maluca. . . . From this Cape Frio 
until the islands of Maluca, there are no lands 
laid down in the maps they carry with them. 
Please God the Almighty that they may 
make such a voyage as did the Cortereals ; 
and that Your Highness may be at rest and 
for ever be envied, as you are, by all 
princes." * 

The Departure of the Expedition. 

M agellan reached Seville upon the 20th of 
October, 15 18; and on Wednesday, August 
loth, 1 5 19, he sailed thence upon his ever 
memorable voyage round the world. The 
ships remained outside, however, until the 
2 1 St of September, and then steering south, 
they reached the Cape de Verd Islands on 
the 3rd of October. They then fell into the 
" Doldrums," a zone of calms, and remained 
for a long time (two months) drifting upon 
the glassy sea, experiencing " dead calms with 
rain," says the narrator. Sharks came 
alongside, and many were captured in calm 
weather. During the squalls subsequently 
encountered, St. Elmo's Fire frequently 
appeared upon the ships, and this was wel- 
comed as a prosperous omen. 

The vessels crossed the line, and steering 
south-south-west, made for the coast of 
Brazil, and obtained abundant supplies from 
the natives of the neighbourhood. The value 
of the playing cards was immense ; for a King 
of Spades the Spaniards obtained half-a-dozen 
fowls, and the native flattered himself he had 
gained the best of the bargain after all, by 
which a knave might have largely benefited. 

Rio Janeiro was reached upon St. Lucy's 
Day, 13th of December, and the heat caused 
much inconvenience. Many amusing details 
are given of the costume and manners of the 
natives. After a stay of thirteen days, the 
Admiral coasted farther, and reached a "large 
river of fresh water," which is probably the 
Rio de la Plata. 

The inhabitants of that district appeared 
to be cannibals, and one native is described 



" First Voyage round the World," Hakluyt Society. 



as of gigantic size, and bellowing like a bull. 
He came down to instil confidence into his 
friends, and to alarm the Spaniards. They 
landed, however, and endeavoured to capture 
this Goliath of Brazil ; but the speed at which 
he and his friends ran away, rendered pursuit 
vain. 

Magellan stopped at two islands, the Isle 
of Penguins and the Isle of Lions, where a 
number of black geese were captured, as well 
as some seals, which the navigators called 
" sea- wolves. They are minutely described, 
and are what we term sea-bears. On Easter 
Eve the fleet reached St. Julian; and as winter 
was approaching, Magellan determined to 
remain there. He accordingly cast anchor, 
and stayed five months in that port. 

For two months the fleet remained at San 
Julian without any incident occurring at all 
worthy of mention. But one day a man of 
gigantic stature appeared. The heads of the 
explorers only reached to his waist. His 
clothing was made of the skin of the guanaco, 
which is described as having the " head and 
ears of a mule, the body of a camel, the legs 
of a stag, and the tail of a horse." The giant 
wore a kind of short shoe, and this gave 
his feet the appearance of the bear's paw. 
For this reason Magellan named the people 
"Patagonians," or clumsy-footed (Patagones). 

Here the first convert was made, the in- 
dividual also being of enormous stature. He 
was taught the Lord's Prayer, and subse- 
quently was baptized by the name of John, 
but very little was afterwards seen of him. 
The medical practice of these natives was 
very simple, yet apparently effective. If 
they suffered from what we may now term a 
bilious attack, they simply thrust an arrow 
down the throat of the afflicted one, to serve 
as an emetic ; or gashed their foreheads 
when they had an headache, which we hope 
was seldom. They cut themselves wherever 
they felt pain, and let blood. These and other 
interesting particulars are given in the chro- 
nicles of the voyage, but it is not necessary 
to reproduce them all here. 

Mutiny at San Julian. 
A very untoward incident occurred during 
the stay of the vessels at this port. Three 
of the captains mutinied against Magellan. 
They were Spanish officers, and jealous of 
the authority invested in the Commander-in- 
Chief. A Portuguese, Luis de Mendoza, was 
the ringleader of this mutiny ; the other three 
malcontents were Juan of Carthagena, 
Antonia Cocea, and Caspar de Casada, or 
Ouixhada. The ringleader was stabbed while 
he was reading a letter on his own quarter- 
deck. Magellan sent him this note, and^, 
while reading the communication, the Admi- 
ral's orders were carried out, and Mendoia 
was assassinated, or executed. 



739 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Juan is reported to have suffered terribly, 
being flayed alive ; and Caspar, Pigafetta 
says, was put ashore destitute, and left to 
the mercy of the natives ; * but from other 
evidence it would appear that Caspar, the 
Captain of the Concepcion, was decapitated 
and quartered. The prompt and severe 
measures taken by the Admiral had a good 
effect, and the mutiny was quelled. 

Another misfortune, and one not so easily 
remedied, here befell the expedition. The 
Santiago, commanded by Juan Serrano, was 
sent upon a surveying cruise, and while en- 
gaged in their very necessary duty was cast 
upon the rocks. All the men, however, were 
saved, and two even travelled overland to 
acquaint the Captain-Ceneralwith the disaster 
that had occurred. 

A great deal of energy and determination 
were displayed by the men under the cir- 
cumstances. The wreck occurred nearly 
a hundred miles from St. Julian ; and though 
the men and officers of the wrecked ship 
remained two months on the spot, collecting 
the timbers and merchandize that was con- 
tinually being washed ashore, Magellan kept 
them supplied, at that distance from his base, 
by land along a very bad road, and one 
infested with thickets and briars, in a hostile 
country, with no other beverage for the bearer 
of the provisions but the ice he could break 
and melt. There was some solid stuff 
amongst these explorers. 

Some attempts had been previously made 
by the Spaniards to capture two or three 
Patagonians in order to carry them to Spain; 
but though treachery was employed, and craft 
opposed to native confidence, this attempt 
failed even on land, for the men and women 
ran away so speedily that they escaped even 
the bullets sent after them. But they were 
afterwards successful in keeping two natives. 
One of the Spaniards was hit by a poisoned 
arrow and died, on the first expedition. 

On the 24th of August, tlie expedition 
sailed from San Julian; and after sailing along 
the coast for some distance, a "river of fresh 
water " was found, which was called Santa 
Cruz. It was so named because it was 
entered upon the 14th of September, the day 
of the exaltation of the Cross. There, owing 
to a strong wind and rough water, the whole 
squadron very nearly came to grief. But 
" owing to God and to the Corpora Sancta, 
the fire which burned upon the mast," says 
the chronicler, they all arrived safely. 

In this place they passed nearly two 
months, laying in wood and water and pro- 
visions; and on the 21st of October, Magellan 
again sailed away, and discovered a strait 

* Pigafetta says, that when Gomez, commander of 
the Sa7i Aiiio?iio, deserted Magellan in the Straits, he 
returned and picked up Caspar and the priest his 
accomphce, and carried them home to Spain. 



called the " Strait of the Eleven Thousand 
Virgins," which proved to be the great object 
of the expedition. 

The Straits of Magellan. 

The Cape of the Virgins had been first 
sighted, and just beyond it Magellan found 
, the bay, as he termed it. The Vittoria was the 
first vessel to perceive it ; and sailing along the 
coast for a time, the Admiral determined to 
anchor within the entrance of the bay. 

The crews were all firmly persuaded that 
the Strait had no western entrance, and there 
was little disposition amongst the majority 
to explore it. But Magellan and the bolder 
spirits were firm. Two ships were sent in 
to see whether any opening existed beyond ; 
the Trinidad and Vittoria remained at 
anchor at the mouth of the bay. 

Pigafetta, in his narrative of the voyage, — 
he was onboard the Trinidad, — mentions that 
Magellan was quite aware of the existence of 
the Channel from an inspection of Boheim's 
maps. He was determined to make the 
attempt, though the forbidding nature of the 
surroundings, the lofty mountains which en- 
close it being covered withsnow,and thewater 
very deep, with frequent storms, did not tend 
to raise the spirits of any of the crews. The 
Strait of Magellan quickly gave the explorers 
a test of its quality. Scarcely had the vessels 
proceeded upon their expedition when a 
tremendous hurricane arose, and compelled 
the Trinidad and Vittoria to run before it,, 
" at the mercy of the winds and waves in the 
gulph.'' The hurricane continued for thirty- 
six hours, and although in imminent danger, 
no damage was caused to the vessels. Indeed 
the tempest in one sense was advantageous. 

The storm which had forced Magellan to 
leave his anchorage had been equally un- 
sparing with the vessels farther in. They 
had to run before the gale, and every 
moment the crews fancied they would be 
dashed against the rocks at the sides, or, 
at any rate, wrecked at the end, for they 
fancied the bay was a cut de sac. But as 
the hurricane drove them onward to the 
threatening coast ahead, the pilots began 
to discover that openings existed in these 
' terrible precipices. 

A small inlet into which they ran, carried 
them, with the roughly-following wind, into 
a second channel, and then into another bay, 
and by a channel to a third bay, larger than 
the preceding. Nearly two days had already 
passed, and the commanders of the surveying 
ships, finding the tempest was blowing itself 
out, determined to return and report progress 
to the Admiral at the entrance of the channel. 

Meantime, Magellan had been somewhat 
anxious concerning the safety of his vessels. 
The shore was closely scanned, and the bay 
searched for traces of the missing ships, but 



740 



MAGELLAN'S GREAT VOYAGE. 



in vain. They were almost given up, when 
some smoke was observed, and the Admiral, 
believing it arose from a fire made by his 
distressed men, immediately advanced. 
While thus making for the smoke, to the 
great joy of all on board the Admiral's ships, 
the two missing vessels were seen approach- 
ing, with bunting displayed. So soon as 
they came near, guns were fired and replied 
to, with every demonstration of joy. The 
meeting was a very joyful one, and Magellan 
heard with much satisfaction, the report of 
his cruising captains. They named the 
smoking land Tierra del Fitego. 

The ships thus united, made the best 
of their way into the channels already dis- 
covered. When the third bay, from which 
the two pioneer ships had turned back, had 
been reached and traversed, two more open- 
ings, or channels, were discovered, — one run- 
ning south-east, the other south-west. 
Magellan then sent the Antonio and Con- 
cepcion forward again, to ascertain whether 
the channel penetrated to the ocean. 

Estevan Gomez, or Emmanuel Gomez as 
Pigafetta calls him, was the pilot of the San 
Anfo7no, and cherished a deep hatred against 
Magellan.* When ordered to advance, he 
clapped on all sail and made off, intending 
to return to Spain. The captain, Alvaro de 
Mosquita, a relative of Magellan, who had 
been appointed to the command after the 
mutiny at San Julian, was seized and put in 
irons. Gomez incited the crew. One of the 
Patagonian giants already captured was on 
board, and no doubt Gomez anticipated a 
hearty welcome on his arrival to announce 
new discoveries. 

The Passage Completed. 

The captain of the Concepcion could not 
conceive what had become of the Antonio, 
and he waited vainly for his consort. But 
not finding her, he returned to Magellan and 
reported progress. Then the Admiral set 
sail, and with three ships entered the south- 
westerly channel, and reached the Sardine 
River, which abounded with those fish. 

In this (Sardine) river the vessels re- 
mained four days; and while thus awaiting 
the return of the Antonio, which had by this 
time reached the Atlantic again, Magellan 
despatched a boat to examine a cape, or 
headland, in front, where he fancied the 
strait ought to end. 

The boat, fully equipped, left, and, after a 
rapid survey, returned with the intelligence 
that they had examined the cape, and there 
the channel ended, and beyond it the ocean. 
"We wept for joy," says the simple chronicler, 

*" Magellan's appearance at Seville with his plans 
had thwarted Gomez, who had also proposed to 
command an expedition. Hence his hatred of 
Magellan. 



" and the cape was denominated II Capo 
Diseado (Wished-for Cape), for in truth we 
had long wished to see it." 

Magellan now made every possible effort 
to find the inissing Antonio. He sent back 
the Vittofia to the entrance of the channel 
to erect a signal, and left letters in Hkely 
places for the lost ship. But no tidings came 
of it. Other posts and signals were hoisted 
in prominent places as the three vessels pro- 
ceeded through the straits, and the islands 
were likewise visited, but all in vain. There 
was scarcely any darkness at this time, the 
nights only lasting three hours while the 
Spaniards were in the strait, which they 
called the Strait of the Patagonians. 

The description of the channel, now so 
well-known as the Strait of Magellan, is given 
by the narrator : — " At every half league it 
contains a safe port, with excellent water, 
cedar wood, sardines, and a great abundance 
of shell-fish. . . . Indeed, I do not think 
the world contains a better strait than this." 

Thirty-seven .days had been expended in 
the passage, and Magellan estimated the 
length to be no leagues. The narrator of 
the voyage relates that during the passage 
he learned many words from the captive 
Patagonian on board, whose god was called 
Setebos, and mentioned by Shakespeare in 
the "Tempest," a revengeful deity apparently. 
The Patagonian was subsequently baptised 
by the name of Paul. 

The diary of the voyage gives us the princi- 
pal dates as follows : — 

Sailed from Seville August lo, 1519. 

Arrived at Teneriffe October 3, „ 

Arrived at Rio Janerio Dec. 13, „ 

Sailed from R'o Dec. 26, „ 

Sailed from Rio dela Plata February 2, 1520 
Arrived at San Julian March 31, „ 

Sailed from Port San Julian August 24, „ 
Sailed from Santa Cruz October 18, „ 
Arrived at the entrance of 

the Patagonian Strait October 21, „ 
San Antonio missing November „ 

Arrival at the Cape of Desire Nov. 28. „ 

We now enter upon another portion of this 
famous voyage, and one no less interesting 
than that already related. 

Discoveries in the Pacific. 

On Wednesday, 28th of November, 1520, 
the squadron entered the calm waters of the 
great sea to the westward of the strait. This 
apparently boundless expanse of ocean the 
Spaniards named the Pacific, a name it has 
always since retained, notwithstanding that 
travellers will find it occasionally little de- 
serving of the title. 

As soon as the Straits had been cleared 
the admiral made sail in a northerly direction 
in order to reach a milder climate for the 



741 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



approaching winter ; and in the Pacific the 
expedition sailed for three months and twenty 
days without tasting any fresh provisions. 
The sufferings of the Spaniards at this time 
were very great. Worms had consumed 
nearly all the biscuit, nothing but dust re- 
mained. The water was " putrid and 
offensive," and so reduced were these brave 
navigators that to keep body and soul together 
they were obliged to gnaw the leather with 
which the mainyard was covered. This, after 
being soaked in water for days, was eaten 
with avidity, while meantime saw-dust, varied 
with a dinner of mice, was the only food the 
explorers could command. Mice were actually 
caught and put up to auction, and such was 
the demand for even this food that a mouse 
sold for half a ducat. 

In addition to the pangs of hunger and 
thirst, the terrible scurvy made its appearance. 
The disease is minutely described by the 
chronicler ; and he reports that nineteen of 
the Trinidad's men succumbed to it. The 
Patagonian also died from it, and nearly forty 
men beside were attacked, but recovered 
eventually. Pigafetta himself had not one 
day's illness. 

Fortunately the weather continued fine, and 
the ocean deserved its baptismal name. 
During the period the ships sailed nearly 
four thousand leagues, passing from the 
Straits north westward, outside Queen Ade- 
laide's archipelago, as now laid down on 
our maps. Thence towards Juan Fernandez, 
immortalized by Selkirk and De Foe, to the 
tropic of Cancer. Then the voyage was con- 
tinued in a more westerly direction, until the 
24th of January, 1521, when they saw distant 
land, which soon proved to be an island. 
Here they buried the Patagonian, and called 
the islet St. Pablo. 

On the 4th of February the vessels sighted 
the Tibourones (or Shark) Islands, and called 
the " Unfortunate Isles" also. From calcu- 
lations with the log, it was found that the ships 
ran about seventy leagues a day ; and the 
writer says, " I do not think any one will in 
future venture upon a similar voyage."* The 
Southern Cross was discovered on this expe- 
dition, and mentioned by the explorers. 

The Ladrone Islands. 

After crossing the line, Magellan steered 
west by north, and changed afterwards, still 
keeping westerly until, on the 6th of March, 
(Wednesday) three islands were disco-vered. 
The first seen was the " most lotty and the 
largest, as may be expected, considering it was 
perceived soonest. 

Here the Captain-General wished to re- 
victual, and endeavoured to obtain fresh 
provisions; but any long stay was impossible, 

* Fifty years later Sir Francis Drake ventured. He 
was the first after Magellan to make the circuit. 



because the natives came on board and stole 
everything they could carry away, including 
the " dingy," which was fastened astern. The 
natives came off in canoes, and are described 
as handsome and of olive-brown complexion. 
The Spaniards called the islands the Ladrones, 
or Thieves, out of compliment to the inherent 
propensities of the inhabitants. 

But when the dingy or skiff disappeared, 
Magellan determined to take revenge. He 
landed with a force of ninety men, and burnt 
a number of the native huts, plundering them 
first. The natives were perfectly astonished 
at this cruel retaliation. They had no idea of 
fire, and fancied it was a strange animal which 
devoured the wood.* However, they suffered 
greatly; and when the Spaniards shot arrows 
at them, they excited pity even in the Spanish 
heart by their futile and painful attempts to 
draw the barbs from their bodies. But the 
unwounded men attacked the explorers with 
stones vigorously. 

The natives are described as ignorant o; 
any laws, and are all guided merely by their 
own inclinations. They had no king nor any 
chief, and worship no gods. They wore small 
hats but no other clothing; but the people 
" generally are of good size and well built." 
The women are described as pretty and less 
dark than the men. They wore clothing of a 
primitive kind, and their hair also afforded 
them a certain protection, for it is described as 
being very long and trailing on the ground. 
A lengthened description is given in the 
original narratives of the voyage of the inhabi- 
tants of these islands. Their curiosity was 
excessive, and their pilfering propensities have 
already been mentioned. The islanders were 
apparently under the impression up to the 
time of Magellan's arrival that there were'no 
other people in the world besides themselves. 

Sailing from the Ladrones, the ships came 
in sight of a " high island," some three 
hundred leagues distant from the " Thieves' 
Isles." This island they called Zamal ; it is 
now included under the name of Samar 
amongst the Philippines. Next day they 
arrived at an uninhabited isle, which they 
called Humunu, where abundant supplies of 
water were found, and the sick were accom- 
modated in tents, and fresh meat, probably 
brought from the Ladrones, was supplied to 
them. 

The Spaniards and the Natives. 

While thus resting ashore, a native boat 
was one day observed approaching. It con- 
tained a crew of nine men, and very strict 
orders were given by Magellan respecting 
the conduct and movements of his men. 
The strangers seemed very pleased to see 
the new-comers, and friendly relations were 
immediately established between the natives 
* Le Goben, " History of the Ladrones." 



742 



MAGELLAN'S GREAT VOYAGE. 



and Europeans. Magellan gave them many- 
presents, and food and drink were also 
supplied. Such gifts as looking-glasses, 
bells, and small red caps, were highly- 
appreciated by the natives. 

The islanders on their side were not to 
be outdone in politeness. They presented 
the Spaniards with fish and other simple 
food, with a kind of wine made from the 
palm (cocoa-.nut) called Uraca. There were 
also fruits in abundance, bananas and 
" cochos," or cocoa-nuts. 

The cocoa-nut palm seemed sufficient for 
nearly all the requirements of the natives. 
It supplied them with bread, oil, wine, 
vinegar, and medicine. Two of these trees, 
says the narrator of the incident, can 
maintain a family of ten persons ; but they 
do not draw wine always from one tree. 
They draw one for eight or ten days, and 
then go to another. i3y this treatment the 
palms " last one hundred years." 

• The natives of the neighbouring island 
who had come over got very friendly, and 
were so agreeable that the Captain-General 
took them on board his ships and showed 
them his stores and weapons of offence. 
He treated them to a salvo of artillery, and 
thereby scared them nearly into the sea. 
But all continued in harmony, and good-will 
was everywhere apparent. The natives who 
had gone away promising to return with sup- 
plies, now came back with boats laden with 
fruit, and the Spaniards purchased all they 
brought. The expedition remained at these 
islands eight days for the benefit of the sick. 

It was here that the historian of the voyage, 
Pigafetta, fell overboard; and had he not 
fortunately seized the main-sheet he would 
have been drowned. " I was assisted," he 
writes, " not by my merits, but by the mercy 
and grace of the Fountain of Pity." The 
island was called the Watering-place of Good 
Signs, and the ships did not leiwe it until the 
25th of March. 

The Voyage Continued. 

On the following Thursday evening, the 
crews descried a fire upon an island ; and 
next morning they came to an anchor near 
the land. No sooner had the ships brought 
up, than a native boat put out from shore 
and paddled towards the Trinidad; but when 
the crew of the canoe caught sight of the 
Spaniards they withdrew again, and were 
afraid to come on board. However, the 
Captain hung out a red cap, which had the 
contrary effect to that it has upon the 
bovine species. The natives came alongside 
again, and then went ashore to tell their 
prince what they had seen and received. 

A few hours afterwards two large boats 
came out, each full of men. In one of these 
sat the King under an awning, and a conver- 



sation was commenced with His Majesty 
through the interpretation of a Sumatran 
slave, who happened to be on board the 
Spanish flag-ship. The European comman- 
der made presents to all who came on board 
his vessel; but the King would not come. He 
wished Magellan to accept some handsoine 
gifts, but the Admiral would not do so. 
Next day, however, an interchange of 
courtesies took place. 

Magellan next morning (Good Friday) 
sent his Sumatran slave to the King as an 
interpreter, requesting provisions, for which 
he stated himself as ready and willing to 
pay, and expressing a wish to become his 
friend, for he had no hostile intentions. 
This message pleased the King very much, 
and he immediately ordered his boat and 
came out to the ships. Without showing 
any signs of fear he boarded the Trinidad, 
and embraced Magellan, giving him at the 
same time some fresh provisions and fish. 

The Spanish Admiral then determined to 
show the native potentate what he could do, 
and by way of striking a wholesome terror 
into him, he caused a soldier to be clad in 
armour, and putting him on deck, told his 
comrades to strike at him with their swords 
and daggers. The effect on the King and 
his men was very great. When the big guns 
were fired also, the astonishment of the simple 
people knew no bounds. 

The Spanish com.mander took care to 
inform the King that his own single soldier 
in armour was worth quite a hundred of the 
natives. To this assertion the King assented ; 
and Magellan then showed him two hundred 
in each ship also clad in similar armour. 
The swords, helmets, and cuirasses were 
then exhibited; and a small "assault of 
arms" arranged for the royal visitor, who 
■was greatly impressed with all he saw and 
heard. 

It was then agreed that two of the Spaniards 
should accompany the King ashore ; and 
Pigafetta, the historian, was one of the two 
selected. After signs of amity had passed 
between them by raising hands to the sky, 
the King took the Europeans by the hand, 
and led them into his boat, which was 
moored in a place " covered with canes." 
In this canoe, or " ballanghai," the strangers 
sat conversing by signs, and by means of the 
interpreter, until refreshments in the shape 
of " pig's flesh and wine " appeared. The 
fashion of eating is curious, and may be 
described. 

When they drink, the people raise their 
hands to heaven, and take the drinking 
vessel in the right hand, and extend the left 
hand closed before the people. " This the 
King did," says Pigafetta, "and presented to 
me his fist, so that I. thought he wanted to 
strike me." 



743 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



But the savage inhabitants had no ill-inten- 
tions towards their white visitors. Magellan 
appears to have endeavoured to treat the 
people fairly, and by gentle means to have 
gained their confidence. The Spaniards 
appeared pleased with their reception, and 
they supped with the King. Afterwards 
they went to the palace, which is described 
as a hay-loft, covered with fig and plantain 
leaves, built high off the ground, so that 
" steps and ladders " were found convenient, 
and by means of these the party entered. 

The Manners and Customs of the 
Natives. 

It is worthy of remark that though these 
islanders had never heard of Christianity, 
they made the sign of the cross at their 
meals ; and it is also curious that their god 
to whom they prayed should have been 
known as Abba, which is the term used 
for " Father " in our Bibles. Magellan en- 
deavoured to develop their religious feel- 
ings, for he caused a cross to be erected, 
and made all his men bow down before it 
in the presence of the King. The monarch 
looked upon the banner of the cross as a 
charm against thunder and lightning, and 
willingly consented to have it erected at the 
top of a hill as a greater security. 

The entertainment at the "palace" was 
of an extremely hospitable, but nevertheless 
limited, nature. Fish, with sauce and rice, 
appear to have been the chief constituents 
of the banquet ; and when the King retired 
for the night, he left his son to entertain the 
visitors, who were next morning sent for by 
the Admiral. The King's brother, the ruler 
of another island close by, also came on 
board, and the Spaniards made him presents 
too, and had the honour of his company at 
dinner. 

The simple-minded natives were very much 
impressed by seeing the Spaniards write ; 
and still more when they perceived that they 
could read what they had written ; but even 
in later times it is not given to everybody to 
read their own writing. This latter attribute 
of the strange beings who had reached the 
island seems to have puzzled the natives 
very much. 

The King of the neighbouring island ap- 
pears to have been of a very liberal turn of 
mind. He possessed much gold, some nug- 
gets being as large as hens' eggs ; and these 
munificent gifts he pressed upon the voya- 
gers. He was a very good-looking man, of 
olive complexion, and perfumed with native 
oils and fat, which no doubt rendered him 
a most agreeable personage. He wore gold 
rings in his ears, and metal rings upon his 
fingers ; a sword was girt about him ; and 
so rich was he that "a crown of massy 
gold was offered in exchange for six strings 



of glass beads ; " but we are informed that 
Magellan would not permit such one-sided 
transactions. 

These kings of the islands were lords of 
the district. One governed the island of 
Butuan, the other Calaghan or Caragua. The 
names of these kind-hearted natives were 
Raia Calambu and Raia Siani ; the former 
was the perfumed monarch, the latter the 
first friend of the explorers. It was on 
Easter Day that the religious observances 
were practised ; and after dinner on that 
anniversary the Admiral inquired of the 
kings concerning his future course and 
means of soon obtaining supplies. 

He was informed that there were three 
places or ports where he could find supplies ; 
and these were Ceylon (or Leyte), Zzubu (or 
Sebu), and Calaghan, which last sounds 
Hibernian. The King willingly lent the 
Spanish commander his pilots to see them 
safely on the way ; and his brother monarch 
volunteered to accompany the expedition if 
the Admiral would wait until he had got 
in his rice crop. This Magellan consented 
to do. 

After the expiration of the time necessary 
to gather the rice, the vessels weighed 
anchor ; and, conducted by the royal pilots, 
the Spaniards passed Ceylon, Calaghan, etc. 
in safety. In one place they found dogs, 
cats, hogs, and poultry, and many kinds of 
grain, with abundance of gold. Some un- 
known fowls were killed and eaten ; and 
" there are certain large birds as large as a 
fowl with a long tail." 

Arrival at Zebu. 

It was on Sunday, the 7th of April, that the 
vessels cast anchor off Zebu, where houses 
built upon trees seemed the commonest 
objects of the shore. The sails were dropped, 
and the loud-voiced artillery fired as a salute ; 
but it had a great effect upon the barbarians, 
who were however assured that this custom 
was always observed by civilized nations as 
a token of friendship and respect. This ex- 
planation satisfied the King, who, with all his 
court, had been greatly frightened at the 
discharge of the guns. 

A conversation then ensued, and the inter- 
preter assured the monarch that the Spaniards 
only desired peace and trade. The King 
replied that they were very welcome, but at 
the same time gave the interpreter to under- 
stand that it was customary to pay tribute ; 
and instanced a ship of Siam which had paid 
it, and left a merchant to trade. So he hoped 
the Spaniards would be equally complaisant. 

Magellan, through his man, replied that it 
was quite impossible that he as the repre- 
sentative of the greatest king in the world 
should even think of paying any tribute. If the 
King of Zebu wanted peace he could have it. 



744 



MAGELLAN'S GREAT VOYAGE. 




745 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



If war, they were equally at his disposal ; but 
payment of tribute was entirely out of the ques- 
tion. The Siamese merchant hereupon warned 
the King to be careful ; for, said he, " these 
people are one of those who have conquered 
Calicut, Malacca, and all Greater India; and if 
you entertain them well, and treat them well, 
you will find yourself the better for it ; but if 
ill, it will be all the worse for you." 

These considerations, added to the judicious 
advice of the interpreter, had a considerable 
effect upon the King. But his dignity would 
not permit him to give way all at once. He 
would consult with his council, he said, and 
upon their advice he would act in the morning. 
Meantime he sent some food and a conside- 
rable quantity of wine, which was accepted by 
the visitors. 

Next morning the clerk went with the 
interpreter to hear the decision at which the 
monarch had arrived. In the open space or 
" square " the King appeared, and seemed 
anxious to know whether he should have to 
pay tribute. But the Spaniards re-assured 
him upon that point — that trade only was 
required by the visitors; whereat the King was 
content, and hinted that presents were custo- 
mary both on his side and on that of strangers. 
Whereupon the clerk very judiciously replied 
that the King, knowing the customs, had better 
set the example in this matter, and no doubt 
the Admiral would immediately reciprocate. 

Progress of the Negotiations. 

Thus the palavers went on ; and on the 
following day the King of Mazzagua and a 
Moor who had came to the King of Sebu, 
arrived onboard, and announced thepresents 
from the King. The gift would be accom- 
panied by a number of the people, so the 
Admiral judged it advisable to make a little 
display of force, and armed a few of his men. 
Even the merchant — the Moor aforesaid — 
was astonished at the display ; and when he 
was reassured, he returned to the King to 
tell him all the facts. 

After dinner the prince, — nephew of the King, 
— the Moor, the governor, and "chief of the 
police, " with several of the principal inhabi- 
tants, came out to the" ship, where the Admiral 
was sitting in great state, surrounded by his 
officers, and altogether making an imposing ap- 
pearance. The embassy came, and was much 
impressed. Magellan then spoke to them of 
peace, and the advantages that would accrue 
to them if it were continued. From the 
lesser questions he proceeded to the greater, 
and enlarged upon the Christian virtue of 
peace and the benefits of Christianity gene- 
rally. The natives listened with much 
pleasure, and were almost induced to become 
converts to the Spanish tenets. Magellan, 
finding that his arguments influenced the 
people, continued his address; and so willingly 



did the people accept his instruction, that 
they requested Magellan to leave some men 
behind him on the island to teach them his 
religion. 

Now the Admiral was scarcely prepared to 
do this, though the people assured him 
the men would be well treated ; but he offered 
to permit the priest to baptize them, and to 
send his teachers to instruct them while he 
remained at the island. The men only 
demanded permission to inform the king; and 
all those present shed tears to think of the 
great success which had attended the exhor- 
tations of the Admiral. He then continued to 
address them, showing them that they were 
not to become Christians through fear or 
favour, but because they were willing to 
embrace the laws of the Supreme Being 
whom the Spaniards worshipped. The gentle 
natives replied that they were the Admiral's 
servants, and he might do with them as he 
pleased. 

A definite treaty of peace was then entered 
into. Magellan embraced the prince and the 
King, assuring them of his friendship and 
affection. He swore to them a perpetual 
peace, and then, this very satisfactory ar- 
rangement made, refreshments were served up, 
large presents were made by the prince and 
the King of Mazzara, who apologized for 
the insufficiency of the gifts, Magellan re- 
sponded, and gave them fine cloth red caps, 
and a quantity of glass, which was very 
highly prized, with numbers of beads, and 
gilt glass cups. 

The same kind of present was sent into 
the town to the King, who was seated in his 
palace in the costume of the country. The 
arrangements which had been made were 
then explained to him, and after a repast 
with the prince, the Spaniards who had come 
on shore took leave of the royal family and 
returned to the ship. 

Thus trade was established, and merchan- 
dise was soon carried on shore. For many 
days the vessels remained at the island, and 
finding there was still a disposition on the 
part of the islanders to become Christians, 
Magellan determined to have a regular 
service and baptise those who would leave 
their idols and worship the rehgion of the 
Cross. The King had promised to become a 
Christian on Sunday, and the preparations 
were quickly made. 

Conversion of the Natives. 

On that Sunday morning, the 14th of 
April, the Admiral went ashore, accompanied 
by his guard, with colours flying, and saluted 
with salvos of artillery. The Commander 
and the King embraced, and then seated 
themselves on chairs under the canopy, 
while the principal personages squatted upon 
the ground or upon mats. Then Magellan 



MAGELLAN'S GREAT VOYAGE. 



carefully explained the simplest rites of the 
Church, enjoining prayer, and showing the 
King how he was to pray and make the sign 
of the Cross. The King and his people soon 
learnt all the necessary forms, and then the 
ceremony of baptism was commenced. The 
Captain took the King by the hand, and 
named him Don Carlos; and equally noble 
names were given to the other royal and less 
noble people, including the Moorish mer- 
chant, who was called Christopher. All the 
people — quite fifty — were baptised in a very 
short time, each receiving the name he most 
fancied. The mass was celebrated; then the 
King returned to his palace, refusing 
Magellan's invitation to dinner. 

Subsequently the Queen of the island and 
her ladies were also baptised. There were 
forty attendants. She was named Jehanne, 
after the Emperor's mother ; the Prince's 
wife was called Catherine, and so on; the 
rest as they pleased were named in turn. 
In all that day were baptised eight hundred 
people; and the Queen Isegged an image of 
the Infant Jesus to put in the place of the 
idol she had. The town was afterwards 
called the " City of Jesus " from this figure. 

Entire unanimity reigned amongst the 
people and their European visitors, and in 
the course of the eight days following, the 
natives of that island, and of that adjacent, 
were baptised Christians. It is stated that 
in one of the neighbouring islands Magellan 
burned a village because the inhabitants 
would not become Christians. This seems 
an unnecessary, cruel, and certainly an un- 
Christian-like measure for a man professing 
peace to adopt. But according to the nar- 
ratives of the time, the village was certainly 
destroyed, 

A Miracle Performed. 

Magellan had performed what is termed a 
" miracle ; " and however the manner in 
which it is regarded, it certainly appears 
extraordinary, if the truth of the narrative be 
accepted. The Spaniards had enjoined the 
people to burn all their idols, and many did 
so, but still many others clung to them, and 
made offerings to them. A very influential 
man in the island being ill, Magellan said 
that if he would believe he would be cured ; 
and so full of faith was the SpanishCommander, 
that he declared he would be content to 
stake his head upon the result ; and the 
attempt was made. 

The man was certainly very ill. He had 
not spoken for several days, and every one 
believed he was on the point of death. He 
consented to be baptised, "with two of his 
wives and ten girls. The Commander then 
inquired how he felt, and, to the astonish- 
ment of all, he at once replied, " By the grace 
of our Lord he was well enough." This 



utterance was regarded as a miracle; and 
when some medicines had been administere^l, 
he speedily recovered. 

We give the narrative as it appears ; but 
there is rather a suspicious flavour about it : 
Magellan may have used his influence to 
enact a "pious fraud" to bring the remainder 
of the inhabitants under the Christian dis- 
pensation. The very "pat" reply of the 
sick man may have been that of the inter- 
preter; but the result of the "miracle" was 
immediate, and many natives more were 
baptised. The idols were thrown down and 
burned; the natives themselves joining in the 
demolition, shouting " Castile ! Castile ! " 

The people of the island appear to have 
been honest in their dealings, using weights 
and measures. There are many curious 
customs related of them, and many supersti- 
tions, but these need not be here set down. 
The Spaniards made a " very good thing " of 
their trade here, exchanging iron for gold in 
considerable quantities, and obtaining abun- 
dance of provisions for mere trifles. But a 
sad ending of these happy arrangements was 
at hand. 

The Dispute at Mat an. 

The Rajahs, or rulers, had become quite 
pleasant, and even submissive. Mazzagua 
and Zebu were willing to pay tribute through 
their kings ; and everything was made plea- 
sant for the Spaniards, who were plentifully 
supplied with provisions, and treated with 
great hospitality when they first came on 
shore. News also came to Magellan that 
the Moluccas, which he had a great wish to 
find, and in which he really had come in 
search, were not very far to the south. So 
under all the circumstances his prospects 
were good, and a reward was opening to him 
in the future. 

The island of Matan is close to Zebu, and 
its capital is the same name as the island. 
Close by was the village burnt by Magellan ; 
and, trilDute having been extorted, Zula, one 
of the chiefs, sent his son with some goats 
to the commander of the expedition, saying, 
that if there were any failure in the tribute 
from the island it was not his (Zula's) fault, 
but that of the other chief, who declined to 
acknowledge the authority of the King of 
Spain. He added that if Magellan would 
send him assistance to subdue his rival, the 
whole island would thenceforth be tributary 
to the Spaniards. 

Under these circumstances Magellan de- 
termined to send three boats' crews to the 
rescue of the loyal chief; and, moreover, 
made up his mind to lead the expedition 
himself. His followers endeavoured to dis- 
suade him ; but he replied that a good 
pastor ought not to be away from his flock, 



747 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



and the arrangements were proceeded with 
accordingly. 

At midnight the boats quitted the ships 
with an armed crew of sixty men. The King 
of the island, with the Prince his nephew, 
several chiefs, and a number of warriors, 
accompanied the Europeans to the wished- 
for conquest of Matan. Three hours before 
daylight the boats reached the island ; and 
then Magellan would not begin the engage- 
tnent, but sent the Moorish merchant ashore 
with a message to inform the rebellious chief 
that if he would consent thenceforward to 
acknowledge the King of Spain, and obey 
the Christian King of Zebu, and pay tribute, 
all would be well. If not, he would be at- 
tacked, and experience the strength of the 
Spanish lances. 

This message was delivered with all solem- 
nity ; but did not have the deterrent effect 
the Spanish Admiral anticipated. The de- 
fiant answer came back to the effect that the 
islanders had lances as well as the strangers. 
The natives with some craft added a request 
that the enemy would not attack them during 
the night as they expected reinforcements ; 
and if the Spaniards would wait until day- 
light the engagement would take place upon 
a more equal footing. 

This suggestion was thrown out to induce 
the Spanish commander to attack at once ; 
for pits had been dug, and the islanders 
hoped that in the darkness the attacking 
force would be caught in these dykes and 
pitfalls. But the chivalrous Magellan ac- 
cepted the message in good faith, and 
awaited daylight. The landing was then 
commenced ; but the water being very shal- 
low, the invaders hnd to leave their boats at 
some little distance from the shore, and wade 
to land. 

The Attack on the Island. 

Forty-nine Spaniards landed, the remainder 
staying with the boats, and found the 
islanders, fifteen hundred in number, drawn 
up in three lines or battalions to resist the 
landing. Immediately the Spaniards came 
within range, the natives set up a horrible 
shouting ; and opening their ranks, two of 
the battalions attacked the small Spanish 
force in flank, and the third in front. Ma- 
gellan divided his men into two platoons, 
and the engagement became general. All 
this time the Zebu islanders had not come 
up; and it seems that Mngellan requested 
the King and his men to remain in their 
canoes in crJer to witness the engagement, 
and the anticipated triumph of the Spanish 
soldiers. 

The European troops kept up a continuous 
fire for quite half an hour without making 
any impression upon the thick ranks of the 
natives. The bullets and arrows indeed 



penetrated their wooden shields, but being 
fired from a distance, they did not do much 
harm. The natives quite expected to be killed 
outright by the strange weapons, and when 
they found that they were only slightly 
wounded, began to despise the great enemy, 
and became more and more determined and 
courageous. 

Besides, the numbers were so irnmensely 
disproportionate that they believed they could 
easily overcome the small Spanish contingent, 
and so they continued to shower darts and 
spears at the soldiers to such an extent that 
the Spaniards with great difficulty protected 
themselves and were unable to continue the 
attack. The larger guns in the boats could 
not be brought to bear, and the result of the 
engagement began to look very doubtful. 

Magellan, however, was quite cool ; and in 
order to distract the attention of the islanders, 
he sent some of his men to burn the village, 
which was done. This act only served to 
increase the animosity of the savages, who 
detached a party to the village and succeeded 
in killing two of the Spaniards, while the 
main body pushed on with more vigour and 
determination than ever. 

The fight now was going all against the 
Spaniards, and Magellan being wounded in 
the leg by a poisoned arrow, gave orders for 
a retreat to the boats. He retired slowly, with 
his men in hand for a time ; but the savages, 
finding they could not penetrate the Spanish 
armour, discharged their lances and arrows 
incessantly at their enemy's legs. This 
attack proved successful, and the retreat was 
ordered. 

Death of Magellan. 

For more than an hour this unequal contest 
continued — the Spaniards fighting bravely in 
the water ; and it seems curious that under 
the circumstances little or no assistance was 
rendered by the Zebu warriors. A tremendous 
rush was made at last, and the natives came 
on vigorously, picking up their lances as they 
kept advancing, and throwing them again 
with great force and accuracy. They knew 
Magellan, and aimed at him chiefly. Twice 
was his helmet knocked off, but still, with the 
small number of men who had not retreated, 
he remained bravely resistmg the enemy. 

At length a native succeeded in thrusting 
his cane lance through the visor of the 
Commander's helmet, and thus wounded him 
in the forehead. Magellan lost patience, and 
with a vigorous spenr-thrust an his assailant 
through the body. This blow was fatal both 
to the islander and the Spanish Admiral, for 
the latter, weakened by wounds, was then 
unable to withdraw his weapon immediately; 
and the islanders, or " Indians " as they are 
termed in the narrative, at once perceiving 



748 



MAGELLAN'S GREAT VOYAGE. 



his helpless condition, came down upon him 
in a crowd. 

A violent blow upon the leg caused the 
unfortunate admiral to fall prone upon his 
face, and that sealed his fate. The natives 
rushed in, and dealing him blow after blow, 
quickly despatched the brave Commander, 
who had been caring for the safety of his men 
to the last. Indeed, it was really owing to his 
fall that the few men remaining with him 
managed to escape, for they were all grievously 
wounded. The moment Magellan succumbed, 
the islanders all rushed to the spot, and left 
the coast clear for the retreat of the remainder 
of the Spaniards. 

" Thus perished our guide, our light, and 
our support," writes the chronicler. The 
King of Zebu bewailed the fate of his friend 
bitterly, and no doubt would have rendered 
him assistance but for the positive orders of 
the unfortunate Magellan. " But his glory 
will survive him ! " 

"He died. He was adorned with every 
virtue, and in the midst of the greatest adver- 
sity he constantly possessed an immovable 
firmness. At sea he subjected himself to the 
same privations as his men. Better skilled 
than any one in the knowledge of nautical 
charts he was a perfect master of navigation, 
as he proved in making a tour of the world, — 
an attempt that none before had ventured." 

This fatal engagement took place upon the 
27th of April, 152 1, a day particularly selected 
by the Admiral as a lucky one for himself. 
Eight Spaniards and four converted Indians 
are said to have perished ; and by this it would 
seem that the Zebus did offer some assis- 
tance to their allies. Very few escaped 
without being wounded. The enemy lost 
only fifteen men. 

After the Battle ; Treachery. 

In the course of the day the King of Zebu 
sent to the rebellious chieftain a request that 
he would restore the body of the Spanish 
commander and soldiers. If so, the natives 
might have any merchandize they required. 
But the islanders would not consent to part 
with their trophies, and the bodies of the 
admiral and the two men killed in the village 
remained in the hands of the savages as a 
"monumenc of victory." 

The Spaniards then decided to elect a 
commander in the place of the deceased 
Admiral, and two men were appointed, viz., 
Duarte Barbosa, a Portuguese, a relative of 
Magellan, and Juan Serrano, a Spaniard. The 
first-named had already voyaged in Indian 
seas, and was quite competent to command. 

A difficulty arose almost immediately. The 
slave Henry, who acted as interpreter, had 
been slightly wounded in the battle, and was 
then " nursing himself," considering as he had 
belonged personally to Magellan, he need not 



serve any longer, his master's death having 
freed him. But Barbosa, who commanded 
Magellan's ship, was of a different opinion, 
and reminded the man that he was still a 
slave, so if he refused to perform his duties 
for the advantage of the fleet he would have 
him well beaten, and would also carry him 
home and deliver him to Donna Beatrix 
(Magellan's widow). 

Acting upon these gentle hints, the slave 
consented to go ashore ; but without any 
apparent resentment he was nursing his 
vengeance carefully. He sought an audience 
with the King of Zebu, "the Christian king" 
as he is called, and proposed to him to revolt 
and make a bold stroke for all the Spanish 
merchandize, etc., which he might then seize. 
The King at once swallowed the glittering 
bait, a plot was formed, and then the slave 
returned on board. 

On the 1st of May, in accordance with the 
agreement made with the slavish interpreter, 
the Christian King sent to the commanders 
of the Spanish ships a message saying that 
the jewels were ready as promised for tribute, 
and would they come and fetch them. The 
commanders with twenty-four men went,, 
suspecting nothing; but Juan Carvalho turned 
back again, for something excited his sus- 
picions. The prince who had been cured 
took the almoner or priest aside, and put him 
away in his house from the rest of the party. 
This incident confirmed or aroused the fears 
of Carvalho, and he went back at once. 

But the others proceeded; and the men had 
hardly returned to the ships when cries and 
lamentations were heard. The vessels were 
warped in, and shots discharged at the houses. 
Then Juan Serrano was perceived being led 
wounded and bleeding to the beach, and tied 
hand and foot by the natives. He implored 
the Spaniards to cease firing or he would be 
murdered; and when questioned as to what 
had become of his companions he said that 
they had all been massacred, and the interpre- 
ter had sided with the enemy. He implored 
the commander to ransom him; but this 
Carvalho refused to do, and would not permit 
a boat to go ashore. The petition of the 
unhappy Serrano was disregarded, and the 
squadron immediately set sail without him, 
abandoning him cruelly to his fate. But 
what became of him or how he was treated 
the narratives of the voyage give no account. 

Continuation of the Expedition. 

After quitting Zebu, the Spaniards mustered 
their men, and found that they had sustained 
serious losses. In fact, there were not suffi- 
cient to navigate the three vessels, and so it 
was determined to burn the Concepcion, and 
to divide her crew amongst the other two 
ships, the Trinidad s.nd Vittoria. This was 
accordingly done. All the merchandize and 



749 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



stores were removed from the doomed ship, 
and then she was destroyed. The squadron 
proceeded S.S.W., and anchored in a port of 
Mindanao. 

Here the Spaniards were well received by 
the King, and Pigafetta was permitted to see 
the Queen, who lived by herself in a house on 
the top of a hill. The palace was handsomely 
furnished " with vases of porcelain, which 
were suspended from the sides of the apart- 
ments." Abundance of gold was seen in the 
island, and valleys were indicated in which 
quantities of the precious metal existed, which 
could not be obtained for want of iron tools, 
the labour of mining being otherwise too 
severe. 

From Mindanao the ships sailed for Borneo 
(Burnd); and while pursuing the voyage, 
reached another island called Palaloan, where 
the crews were furnished with fresh victuals, 
and became intoxicated with arrack. 

The people and their king were very friendly, 
and developed a wonderful taste for brass 
wire, with which they bind fish-hooks. They 
kept fighting-cocks, and betted freely upon 
the birds in their contests ; but whether 
this custom can be said to be an attribute of 
savagery may now be regarded as an open 
question. Some Western nations have since 
imitated the savages in this respect. 

Proceeding south west, Borneo wasi-eached, 
and there an interview with the King was 
sought and granted. The narrator gives a 
long description of the reception. The monarch 
sent his "prahus " for the visitors, and was very 
friendly toward them. They took him pre- 
sents of cloth and velvet, glass, and cups. 
The Queen also received handsome gifts as 
well as the chiefs. 

The visitors had to wait some time until 
the arrival of the elephants which had been 
sent to convey them to the palace. The- 
conductors of the elephants carried vases to 
hold the expected presents; and, preceded by 
twelve men, the Spaniards roJe on the 
elephants to the house of the Prune Minister. 
Then they rested until the next clay, and ap- 
pear to have been made very comfortable 
and generally well treated. 

The Reception at Borneo. 

Next day the visit was paid to ti e King, but 
the visitors were not allowed to address them- 
selves to His Majesty. The opt ration, as we 
may call it, of gaining the King's ear was very 
curious, and strongly suggestive of "red tape" 
and the Circumlocution Office. 

For instance, the petitiortr must not 
address the King directly, bul he may in- 
form a courtier of the stib.^iance of his 
petition in a general way. The courtier 
would then communicate with another of 
higher rank, who would repeat tlie petition 
to a brother of the Governor. A minister. 



who was seated in a private apartment, having 
communicated with the King's officer by 
means of a sarbacane, in lieu of telephone, 
the officer in waiting would then inform the 
King. 

The " reverence" was performed by making 
a certain number of inclinations and raising 
hands above the head, lifting first one leg 
and then the other. If the petitioner tumbled 
down we suppose he would be punished, but 
the Spaniards managed to perform these 
antics successfully, and were graciously re- 
ceived ; and during their stay in Borneo they 
appear to have been royally entertained. 
The King was a Moor named Raja Surpada, 
and very corpulent. He never went out of 
doors except to hunt. 

On Monday the 29th of July the Spaniards 
were rather alarmed at perceiving more than 
a hundred boats in battle array approaching 
them. Fearing treachery, orders were given 
to " up anchor;" and the ships set sail, leaving 
an anchor in their hurry. A number of war- 
junks also came out, and the Spaniards at 
once opened fire upon them, taking four and 
killing a number of men. The rest ran away: 
some got aground, and the victors found a 
prince amongst the captives, and much mer- 
chandize. The junks had been upon an 
expedition, and had conquered a place in 
Java, commanded by the King's Captain- 
General. 

The monarch professed much regret that 
his vessels had menaced the Spanish ships, 
but assured the Commander that they had 
meant no harm. The pilot, Juan Carvalho, 
thereupon released the Captain-General with- 
out consulting his colleagues in consequence 
of receiving a heavy bribe. The pilot was 
however punished indirectly, for the King had 
retained his son as a hostage ; and had he not 
accepted the bribe and permitted the Captain- 
General to go free he might have exchanged 
him for his own son and two other Spaniards. 

So the pilot lost his son, but retained 
sixteen of the chief men, and three women, 
who had been sent on board for the Queen of 
Spain. 

The Voyage Continued. 

When the ships quitted Borneo, the pilots 
retraced their course, looking for a con- 
venient place to refit. The voyage was not 
without its dangers, for the vessels ran upon 
a sandbank, and with difficulty were got off. 
A sailor also in snuffing a candle accidentally 
threw the burning wick into a cask of gun- 
powder. But, we read, " he was so quick in 
putting it out, the powder did not catch fire." 

At length a convenient port was discovered, 
and at it (Cimboubou) the ships anchored 
for forty-two days, every one working hard 
and according to his taste for the benefit of 
the community, and for the fitting of the 



750 



MAGELLAN'S GREAT VOYAGE. 



ships. The babyrussa was found here, and 
one specimen was killed. Crocodiles and 
turtles were also encountered. The " ani- 
mated leaves " of certain trees very much 
surprised the voyagers, and they put some in 
a box to watch them walking round. * 
Insects were probably enclosed in those 
leaves, for the trees are described as a { 
species of mulberry, and perhaps silk-worms ! 
and other insects had rolled themselves j 
within. j 

A junk was captured when the voyage was j 
resumed, and the Governor of Pulavan was 
found on board with his son and brother. 
He was commanded to pay tribute and 
ransom himself. He complied in a very 
generous way, and received presents in ac- 
knowledgment of his good faith. The captives 
and the captors parted excellent friends. 

Discovery of the Moluccas. 

It would be tiresome to recapitulate all the 
places visited by the ships in the search for 
the Moluccas. We will therefore pass by 
the numerous islands visited, and come j 
direct to Tadore (or Tidore), where the ex- i 
pedition was welcomed by the ruler. This i 
island, and those near it, the Spaniards to 
their great joy heard were the long sought 
Moluccas, and a demonstration was made. 
" Nor will it excite astonishment that we 
should be elated, when it is considered that 
we had been at sea now twenty-seven 
months all but two days, and had visited an 
infinity of islands in search of those we had 
now attained." 

The King assured the Spaniards that he had 
been warned in a dream of their arrival, and 
he had then consulted the moon, which con- 
firmed him in his belief He also professed 
friendship for the King of Spain, and would 
be content to be his vassal. In proof of his 
honesty of purpose, he decided to change the 
name of the island from Tadore to Castiile, 
out of compliment to the Spaniards. Nume- 
rous and handsome presents were exchanged, 
and peace reigned in the islands. Friendly 
relations were thus immediately set up, and 
the narrative of the voyage written by 
Pigafetta gives minute descriptions of the 
manners and customs of the natives, and of 
the Spice Islands, Tarnate, Tadore, Mutir, 
Marchian, and Bachian. The 'first-men- 
tioned is the chief, he says, and generally 
governs the other four, excepting Tadore, 
which has its own king. The Europeans 
here heard of a Portuguese, who had been 
living in the island, and had married the 
daughter of the King of Tarnate. He had 
died only a few months previously, and his 
name was curiously enough Francisco 
Serrano. 

Here the Spaniards received presents of 
* The leaf insect — mantis. 



some curious birds, now known as Birds of 
Paradise. The sailors were informed that 
these birds never fly, but were blown from 
place to place by the wind. 

Departure of the Spaniards for 
Home. 

At length the time came when the ships 
had to leave, and orders were given for the 
passage home. But the Trmidad was found 
to be so leaky they were obliged to abandon 
her, and the Vittoria sailed alone to Spain 
with a crew of forty-seven Europeans, 
thirteen " Indians," and the pilots of the 
district. Various ships were attacked en 
route, and from the Portuguese traders the 
Spanish Commander took all that he re- 
quired without asking leave. So the expe- 
dition proceeded by Java and Sumatra, and 
steered direct for the Cape. 

But as Madagascar was reached, a serious 
mutiny broke out amongst the crew. The 
men wished to put in and refit, as the con- 
dition of the Vittoria after so long a voyage 
was not calculated to resist the weather 
anticipated in the neighbourhood of the 
Cape of Storms. But the Commander, hear- 
ing that the Portuguese were there, did not 
wish to run any risk with his old rivals, as 
awkward questions might be asked as to 
where they had been, and it would never do 
to permit the Portuguese to know that the 
once despised Magellan had found the strait 
by which the world might be sailed around. 
The officers, therefore, determined to steer 
for the Cape of Good Hope ; and they suc- 
ceeded in passing it on the 6th of May, 1522. 
The men were all suffering terribly. Want 
of food, and scurvy, despair, and mutinous 
feelings were rampant in the single ship 
which carried the decimated survivors of 
the great expedition. The Cape de Verde 
Islands were at length reached. And here 
exhausted nature gave way. The Spaniards 
put into the Portuguese harbour, trusting to 
the generosity of their foes, and preferring to 
risk the sentence of death rather than die of 
hunger. 

To what a pitch was the expedition re- 
duced ! Nearly all the Europeans had died. 
The gallant leaders had nearly all suc- 
cumbed, and Sebastian del Cano was in 
command. The almanac being consulted, 
informed them that they had lost a day 
during the voyage round the world. They 
fancied the date was the 9th of July, when 
they put into Santiago harbour ; it was really 
the loth of the month. Sailing west with 
the sun they naturally lost. We remember 
in M. Jules Verne's tale, the trip "Around 
the World in Eighty Days," was made against 
the sun, and a day was gained. 

Food was supplied to the starving crew ; 
and no hint of the result of the voyage would 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



have transpired had not some of the men 
offered spices in exchange for food. Sus- 
picion was immediately aroused. They must 
have visited the Spice Islands, the Mo- 
luccas, the great end and aim of navigators 
at home. The Vittoria must be detained. 
The Commander, however, suspected the 
Portuguese designs, and cut his cable. The 
ship cleared out in safety, and all sail was 
made northward. 

The Return to Spain. 

The remainder of the voyage lasted nearly 
two months ; and Sebastian del Cano, the 
surviving chief of the expedition, brought 
the Vittoria, the type of Victory, into the 
harbour of St. Lucar, on the 6th of Sep- 
tember, 1522. The voyage round the world 
had lasted nearly three years. During that 
period — a long time in any men's lives, but 
in those days when ships were "cockle-shells" 
compared with the magnificent vessels now 
afloat, astonishingly short — they had per- 
formed wonders. Considering the necessary 
delays, and the adverse winds on which the 
vessels were dependent, the voyage of four- 
teen thousand six hundred leagues of sea 
was astonishing. 

Of the crew who had left the Moluccas, 
but eighteen remained to enter Spain. They 
landed amid the acclamations of the popu- 



lace, and walked barefooted to church, bear- 
ing tapers in their hands, a thanksgiving 
procession for their safe return after so many 
dangers. 

Sebastian del Cano was amply rewarded. 
Many equally brave Spanish servants had 
been treated with scorn and derision, remain- 
ing unrewarded after all. But he received a 
patent of nobility, with the globe for his 
crest ; and round the globe was the proud 
motto — 

Primus me circumdedisti.* 

One word respecting the Vittoria, the 
surviving ship — a name almost sacred to 
Englishmen in connection with our own 
Victory, and her peerless Admiral. The 
Vittoria, which had been all round the 
world, and which had stood all the strains 
of climate and of sea, was lost on a sub- 
sequent voyage from St. Domingo in a very 
commonplace manner. 

And this is the end of Magellan's voyage 
round the world. He lived not to see his 
hopes reahzed ; but he pioneered the way to 
posterity, and has left behind him a death- 
less name as the first voyager who found the 
open sea-way round the globe. 

H. F. 

* You first encompassed me. 




752 




Cowling Castle, Stormed by Wyatt's Followei s. 



WYATT'S INSURRECTION 

THE STORY OF MARY TUDOR'S MARRIAGE. 



The National Dislike to the Spanish Marrlage^An Insurrection proposed — Arrival of the Spanish Embassy — The 
Insurrectionists' Final Meeting — The Leaders Depart to Arou«e the Country — Courtenay Fails to Meet the Carews — 
Their Discomfiture — Wyatt Raises his Standard of Rebellion and seizes the Ships in the Medway — Suffolk seeks 
refuge in a Hollow Tree ; is Finally Captured — Wyatt's Fatal Delay — Marches to Deptford — Mary Addresses the 
Citizens of London in the Guildhall — Wyatt finds the Gates of London Bridge closed against him — Four Days of 
Armed Suspense — Marches to Kingston — Enters London — Is Defeated and Imprisoned — Mary's Vengeance — 
Wyatt is Executed — Philip comes at last, and the Marriage is Solemnized. 



The Discontent of the People 
Aroused. 
HEN, in the autumn of 1553, it began 
to be noised abroad throughout the 
length and breadth of merrie England 
that the Queen — Mary Tudor, who had only 
recently succeeded to the throne — was bent 
on marriage with Philip of Spain, the discon- 
tent of the people began to be greatly stirred. 
Persons of all parties were agreed that no 




foreign prince should rule in England, and 
least of all a Spanish prince ; for Spain at 
that time was the greatest aggressive power in 
the world, and seemed bent on subjecting every 
other state to its sway. That the England 
of the Plantagenets and Tudors should sink 
to the despicable position of a mere province 
of haughty Spain was not to be borne ; and 
the sturdy English yeomen (whose plain 
common-sense and love of justice saw through 
753 ccc 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



all the juggleries of Henry the Eighth's 
divorces, and were quite content that Mary, 
his elder daughter, should succeed to the 
throne at her brother's death) were yet deter- 
mined that their Queen's husband ought not 
to hail from foreign parts, and that they would 
not submit to foreign rule. Still further, it 
» was greatly feared that the Queen was bent 
on re-establishing the Papacy in England, 
and that Philip, her husband-elect, a Roman 
Catholic to the heart's core, would urge her 
on to this objectionable course. He would 
establish the iniquitous Inquisition, suppress 
the Parliament, bring over a large army of 
ruthless Spaniards to oppress the people and 
drain the resources of the country, while 
last, but not least, the land would be purged 
of Protestantism with fire and sword. To 
Protestants the expected marriage seemed a 
national calamity, and even those who were 
not Protestants were as bitterly opposed to 
the coming of the Spanish Prince, for they 
feared foreign entanglements. 

Discontent grew to such a degree that a 
large and influential party, including even 
members of the Queen's Privy Council, seeing 
that Mary was so bent on having her own way 
in this matter, began to consider the advisa- 
bility of an insurrection to depose the Queen, 
proclaim the complete independence of Eng- 
land from all foreign interference, and to raise 
her half-sister Elizabeth to the throne in her 
stead. 

Pamphlets setting forth these and similar 
schemes, and pointing out the irremediable 
disasters that would undoubtedly spring from 
the Spanish marriage, were scattered broad- 
cast throughout the land, some even finding 
their way to the palace itself. 

But nothing could turn Mary from her 
design, and when, on the 8th of November, 
Renard, the Spanish ambassador, presented 
the formal proposal, and requested the favour 
of a distinct reply, she wrung a reluctant 
consent from her Council, and joyfully an- 
swered, "Yes." 

A week later, however, on the i6th, the 
Speaker of the House of Commons presented 
a petition, in which Her Highness was en- 
treated to marry an Englishman, as a foreign 
prince might lead the country into disastrous 
wars, and betray the true interests of the 
nation. 

To thispetition Mary returned a veryhaughty 
and indignant answer, in which she seems to 
have ignored the fact that her marriage was 
fraught with the most important political 
issues, and declared her determination to 
marry whom she pleased, no matter the 
effect on the country. The Speaker Was 
commanded to leave her presence at once ; 
and in this summary manner she rebuffed 
Parhament, and declared her still unaltered 
determination to marry the Prince of Spain. 



Still further, it was rumoured abroad, — and 
rumour in this instance seems to have spoken 
truth, — that on the evening ofth is eventful day, 
the Queen eijtered her private oratory, accom- 
panied by Lady Clarence and Renard, and 
the three, kneeling before the altar, with eyes 
fixed on the Host, chanted the " Vent Creator; " 
and then, as the solemn notes died away into 
silence, she rose from her knees like one in- 
spired, and announced that she had implored 
the direction of the Almighty in the matter 
of her marriage, and that He had vouchsafed 
her an answer, that it was His will she should 
marry Philip. Thereupon she called Him to 
witness that she solemnly plighted her troth 
to that Prince. 

It being now clear beyond all doubt that 
Mary was determined upon the Spanish 
marriage, several lords and influential gentle- 
men began to hold private meetings in Lon- 
don to discuss the details of a rebellion. 
Noailles, the French ambassador, took a 
large share in the plot, and promised the 
help of France, for it was clearly to the in- 
terests of that country to thwart the plans of 
the Spanish sovereign ; there were also several 
noblemen, representing various parts of the 
country, who all promised their aid. The 
rebellion, therefore, appeared to have great 
chances of success. 

The chief difficulty was with Elizabeth 
herself. She warily refused to give direct 
answers to any proposition made to her ; 
while Lord Courtenay, the last representa- 
tive of the White Rose, whose influence was 
great in Devonshire and Cornwall, and who 
was looked upon as the titular leader at least 
of the enterprise, was weak, incapable, and 
cowardly, and men were afraid to trust them- 
selves too far with him. Much talking, there- 
fore, took place, but little was done ; and 
meantime the year drew nearer its close, and 
the preparations forthe hated marriage were 
hastily forced forward. 

Arrival of the Spanish Embassy. 

Early in December, the draft of the marriage 
treaty was sent over from Spain, and the very 
liberality of the articles were suspicious, inas- 
much as men thought that the Emperor did 
not intend to fulfil them. Mary's Council 
sullenly accepted them; and there is little 
doubt but that many thousands of gold pieces 
crossed the seas with the treaty, and surrepti- 
tiously found their way into the pockets of 
various Lords and Commoners to expedite 
the passing of the treaty and to soften their 
hostility. Five new clauses, however, were 
added, — to the effect that, though Phihp was 
to have the title King of England, the govern- 
inent should rest solely with the Queen, and 
that no foreigner should be admitted to any 
office in the Queen's household or in the state; 
that the Oueen should not be taken abroad 



754 



W YA TT'S INS [/J? /SECTION. 



against her will ; that England should not be 
involved in the Spanish wars; that the Prince's 
connection with the realm should cease at 
the Queen's death if no children were born r 
and that all the Crown jewels and the Trea- 
sury should remain entirely under Snglish 
control. 

These provisions being agreed to, the 
treaty was approved, although it was abun- 
dantly clear that the Parliament and Council 
were as much opposed as ever to the match. 
Immediately after this was accomplished an 
embassy was sent over, consisting of Counts 
Egmont and Lalaing, and M.M. de Courieres 
and De Nigry, with a numerous retinue, their 
duty being to publicly solicit Mary's hand in 
marriage for Philip, and settle the details of the 
marriage. The French threatened to oppose 
their passage over the Channel ; but the ship 
conveying them slipped across in the dark- 
ness of the December night, and the ambas- 
sadors pressing on with all speed, arrived in 
London about Christmas time. 

It was what is now called " old-fashioned 
Christmas weather." The snow lay deep on 
the ground, and the merry English boys 
pelted the shivering sons of the south with 
showers of snow-balls. 

But when the ambassadors reached the 
court,Count Egmont was so courteous that he 
charmed all with whom he came into contact, 
and the Emperor's emissaries received no 
personal slight. Meantime messengers were 
sent to Rome to procure the consent and 
blessing of the Pope ; and it was fully ex- 
pected that Mary and Philip would be wed 
before the weeks of Lent arrived. 

But though the opposition to the marriage 
was somewhat smoothed over among the 
Queen's courtiers and councillors, the dis- 
content of the people grew every day. The 
Emperor Charles, Philip's father, had gained 
his object at last, they said. He had obtained 
a footing in England ; and with his son as 
its king, and at the head of a large foreign 
army, he could easily disregard the terms of 
the marriage-treaty, and rule England with a 
rod of iron, even as he was ruling the Nether- 
lands and Naples and other European states. 

This was the opportunity of the insurrec- 
tionists. A final meeting of the conspirators 
was called in London, and certain gentlemen 
undertook to raise levies in different parts of 
the countrj'. ac d march onthe metropolis, which 
was then to rise for itself. Lord Courtenay, 
Sir Peter Carew and his brother Sir Thomas 
Carew, with Sir Nicholas Throgmorton and 
others to assist, were to arouse the men of 
Devonshire and Cornwall, where Courtenay's 
name was powerful ; Sir James Crofts was 
to lead an expedition from the borders of the 
Severn ; the Duke of Suffolk and his brothers. 
Lords Leonard, Thomas, and John Grey, were 
to marshal their tenantry in Leicester and 



Warwickshire ; while last but not least. Sir 
Thomas Wyatt, the younger son of Sir 
Thomas Wyatt, the poet who had been a 
great favourite of Henry VIII., was to raise 
the men of Kent ; Noailles, on behalf of the 
French king, promised to put a fleet to sea, 
and hold some of the southern ports on behalt 
of the conspirators ; and already, it was said, 
Plymouth had agreed to receive a French 
garrison until all fears of a Spanish marriage 
had passed away. 

At this lapse of time it is impossible to 
estimate with accuracy the real motives of 
the revolutionary leaders, but it seems more 
than probable that Wyatt at least was actuated 
solely by what he believed to be patriotic 
impulses. Undoubtedly he was strongly of 
opinion that the Spanish marriage was likely 
to prove a grave national disaster. He appears 
to have been a Papist, but having been at 
the Spanish Court, he had obtained a strong 
idea of its aggressive character and of the 
cruelty and bigotry of the Spaniards; and he 
was determined that his beloved land, should 
not become the scene of their exploits. 

The First Fatal Mishap. 

In the second week in January, the various 
leaders all departed on their several ways. 
The Carews went offto the west ; Wyatt betook 
himself to Kent ; and Lord Suffolk to his house 
at Sheen, until he should hear from Wyatt ; 
and his brothers to the Midland Counties. 
And now occurred the first fatal mishap of 
the rebellion, though it was so early that it 
had hardly begun : Courtenay proved false 
or cowardly, as had been feared. It had been 
arranged that he was to follow the Carews to 
Devonshire ; but they waited for him in 
vain. After the others had gone, his natural 
timidity overcame him, and he delayed his 
departure. His vanity led him to believe 
that after all the Queen would marry him, as 
so many of the English people desired. He 
was young, handsome, and of as royal descent 
as herself — s'ky then should she not yield to 
their wishes ? and if so, the rebellion would 
! not only be useless but a fatal mistake. He 
decided for the present therefore not to throw 
in his lot with the rebels, but to wait ; and 
meantime he hung about the palace hoping 
for a summons to appear before the Queen. 

Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, one of 
Mary's principal advisers, saw him frequently 
at this time, and by degrees drew from him 
certain remarks which led the astute prelate to 
suspect the plot. His suspicions once roused, 
he was not long 'n discovering the little that 
Courtenay knew. The Carews were forth- 
with summoned to reappear at Court ; but 
they, not knowing how much Gardiner had 
learned of their plans, excused themselves 
from obeying the order. 

It forced their hand, however, and caused 



755 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



them to manifest their designs, which was 
what Gardiner desired. They immediately 
raised the standard of revolt, whereas it had 
been arranged with Wyatt and Suffolk that 
each should wait until all preparations were 
complete, and the hated Philip had actually 
appeared in England, when the popular dis- 
content would be at fever-heat ; then all the 
leaders were to simultaneously proclaim the 
deposition of the Queen, and march to London. 
As it was, the Carews avowed their designs 
before their accomplices were ready, or they 
themselves had completed theii" preparations. 
Their endeavours to rouse the men of Devon- 
shire met with but little success ; and mean- 
time an order was sent express from London 
to the sheriff of the county for their arrest. 
Being warned of their danger, however, they 
fled to Weymouth, and escaped to France. 
Thus one part of the plot was stifled in its 
birth, and the efforts of the other leaders 
greatly discouraged. 

Nevertheless, in spite of Courtenay's 
vacillation and the Carews' failure, the others 
resolved to persevere. Chief among these 
was Sir Thomas Wyatt , and on the 22nd of 
January, he called a meeting of his friends 
and supporters at his castle of Allingham, on 
the Medway. The resolve come to at this 
meeting was that the gentlemen then present 
should at once prepare thfir tenantry for 
the rising, and three days later, they should 
lead them to the ancient city of Rochester, 
where Wyatt would unfurl the flag of 
revolt and at once commence his march on 
London. 

This agreed upon, Wyatt at once sent 
messengers to the Duke of Suffolk, who de- 
parted instantly for Warwickshire ; where 
he caused proclamations to be made, stating 
that Phihp was close at hand, and urging upon 
all men to rise in defence of their liberties. It 
is said that on the very morning he left, 
Gardiner — who had been following up the 
tracesof the conspiracy, and who hated Suffolk 
as a zealous Protestant — had caused the Queen 
to send for Suffolk to court, meaning to 
arrest him. 

Suffolk grimly replied that he was on his 
way to the Queen, and would certainly see 
her ere long. And being booted and spurred, 
the messenger was satisfied, and departed ; 
but Suffolk, meaning not to see the Queen 
till he could dictate terms to her, mounted 
his horse and rode as fast as he could to- 
wards his estates. 

Wyatt Raises the Standard of 
Rebellion. 

While these events were transpiring in 
London, Wyatt had raised his standard at 
Rochester, and had caused copies of a stirring 
proclamation to be widely disseminated, 



declaring that Philip of Spain was about to 
land in England, accompanied by a band of 
aggressive foreigners, and that all true-hearted 
and loyal Englishmen should rise to resist 
them. His colleagues had not been idle ; and 
it was not long before numbers of sturdy 
yeomen and lusty labourers, armed for battle, 
gathered round the revolutionary flag. 

Wyatt's first enterprise was to seize the 
Queen's ships in the Medway nearest to 
Rochester, and appropriate their guns and am- 
munition. This he did without much diffi- 
culty ; and being accomplished, he set himself 
to organize the force that the patriotic enthusi- 
asm of the people had brought him. 

From the first, Isowever, he met with much 
disappointment, for certain gentlemen upon 
whose support he had relied, failed to help 
him at the critical moment. Such an one 
was Sir R. Southwell, the sheriff of the 
county, who had protested loudly against 
the marriage in the House of Commons, 
but at the last minute determined to restrict 
his opposition within the bounds of loyalty. 
Lord Cobham also, Wyatt's uncle, had been 
expected to arrive with suppoi'ts, but he did 
not come ; and a party of his servants who 
had been trusted by messengers from France, 
sent the despatches intended for Wyatt to 
Gardiner. 

In the meantime the news of the rising 
had reached the startled Court, and Mary at 
once despatched a herald to Rochester, to 
proclaim pardon to the rebels, if they would 
immediately disperse. Then she applied to 
the corporation of the City of London for a 
company of men to send against the insur- 
gents. Five hundred soldiers being forth- 
coming in answer to her appeal, she placed 
them under the command of the Duke of 
Norfolk, upon whose devotion to her cause 
she had good reason for believing that she 
could rely, and directed him to proceed against 
the rebels without further delay. Mary also 
wrote to Elizabeth, who was at Ashridge, 
suggesting that she should, because of the 
disturbance, take shelter with her in the 
royal palace. This suggestion seemed more 
of a command than a recommendation, and 
no doubt the shrewd Elizabeth regarded it as 
such, and kept out of the snare accordingly ; 
for she would assuredly have been imprisoned, 
had she placed herself in the Queen's power. 
She replied that she was too ill to leave her 
house, and hoped the country would soon be 
quieted. 

The herald Mary had sent rode as fast as he 
could through the snow-laden lanes of Kent, 
and arrived at Rochester early on Saturday 
morning, the 27th of January. But the insur- 
gents, who now held the town, would not per- 
mit him to enter ; and he therefore read the 
Queen's message aloud to them on the bridge. 
For answer, Wyatt's followers merrily shouted 



756 



IV YA TT 'S INSURRECTION. 



that they had done no wrong, and therefore 
they needed no pardon. 

There was no longer any doubt but that 
they meant to fight, and, having assured 
himself of this, the herald returned to his 
royal mistress. Thereupon the Duke of 
Norfolk, with the five hundred men be- 
longing to the city train-bands, instantly 
set out to Rochester, hoping to crush the 
insurrection in the bud, and prevent the 
insurgents from reaching London. Rein- 
forcements were also expected from Dover ; 
Lords William Howard and Abergavenny 
had exerted themselves and collected troops, 
which, uniting together, would prove, it was 
hoped, a formidable force. 

" Wyatt for Ever ! We are all 
Englishmen ! " 
Through the bitter wind and srtow of that 
terrible January weather, Norfolk marched 
his men towards Rochester; and as the short 
winter afternoon was waning into night, he 
drew them up before the bridge, and placed 

the cannon he had ^ 

brought in readi- =^-:- - :£^' ^^"'^^t^- 

ness to attack the " ->-;-^v5S^;;j:g:-^-r 

town. But just at 
the critical mo- 
ment when he 
was about to give 
the order to fire, 
and the matches 
to discharge the 
guns were already 
glowing in the dull 
twilight, one of his 
captains galloped 
to him through the 
dusk, and ex- 
claimed, in the greatest excitement, that the 
men refused to fight, in fact, they were 
changing their sides ! In haste the Duke 
spurred his horse towards the troop, — 
for he had been superintending the placing 
of the guns, and could see the men but 
indistinctly in the gloom, — and, to his indig- 
nation and alarm, he saw the London 
train-band, headed by their captain, march- 
ing over the bridge, shouting, " Wyatt 
for ever ! Wyatt for ever ! We are all 
Englishmen ! " In the first impulse of his 
wrath, Norfolk shouted to turn the guns 
upon these new insurgents ; but on second 
thoughts, he decided that discretion in this 
case was certainly much the better part of 
valour, and he therefore turned his horse, 
and, followed by about a dozen of his more 
immediate attendants, galloped as hard as 
he could back to town. 

Wyatt then came forward to meet his new 
supporters, and, addressing them, said : "All 
those who choose to tarry with us and oppose 
the coming of these cruel Spaniards shall be 

757 




RoCilliSTER. 



welcome ; but for those who do not care to 
cast in their lot with us, let them go." It is 
reported that very few acted upon this latter 
alternative, and that the great majority joined 
the revolutionary troops. 

This success was of the greatest value to 
Wyatt. Many men who had hitherto wavered, 
now elected to join him, for the sympathy 
with his cause was genuine and widespread. 
Although Lord Cobham still held back, yet 
his sons joined on the same evening after the 
Duke of Norfolk's discomfiture; and several 
thousand more men came in on the following 
day, until W}'att's total force reached nearly 
fifteen thousand men. 

Mary sends Messengers to treat 
WITH Wyatt. 
Norfolk's appearance in London as a fugi- 
tive, and with the news of the defection of his 
troop, was the signal for widespread panic. 
It was quite clear that the city was greatly 
disaffected, and Mary knew not whom to 
trust. Her immediate councillors, and even 
the wily Renard, 
advised that the 
marriage should 
be relinquished, 
or, at all events, 
postponed ; and 
the Spanish am- 
bassador offered 
:neantime to bring 
over an army from 
the Low Countries 
CO put down the 
insurrection. But 
Gardiner wisely 
refused to counte- 
nance this pro- 
posal, for the appearance of foreign troops 
would only increase opposition ; and it was 
finally decided to send two gentlemen to con- 
fer with Wyatt, and endeavour to come to 
terms. This plan, which was almost entirely 
Mary's own idea, was scarcely honest, for she 
knew full well that the chief reason of the 
people for rising was the Spanish marriage ; 
and she was also determined to make no 
peace with the insurgents that would post- 
pone or stop the marriage. This attempt to 
negotiate was simply a trick to gain time 
until more definite measures for resistance 
could be decided upon. 

It had the desired effect ; for Wyatt, flushed 
with his success, and thinking Mary was 
about to give way, named outrageous con- 
ditions, which enabled her to place herself in 
a better position with the citizens of London. 
She had directed her messengers to tell 
Wyatt that she believed he thought himself 
acting for the best interests of the country, but 
nevertheless he was mistaken ; that she would 
appoint suitable persons to confer with him 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



on the subject of the marriage ; and if it could 
be proved that the marriage was inimical 
to the good of the commonwealth, she would 
not allow it to proceed. In reply, Wyatt 
said that he would willingly talk over the 
subject of the marriage ; that he was con- 
vinced it would be harmful to the country ; 
but that — and here was his mistake in using 
words which could be so misconstrued against 
him — he must have hostages for the due ful- 
filment of the Queen's promise ; he must have 
custody of the Queen, the Tower of London, 
and four members of the Queen's Council. 

But while he waited to hear what answer 
was returned to these demands, Mary, seeing 
her opportunity, prepared for her grand 
stroke of defence. She received his answer 
with flushed cheeks and frowning brow, and 
when Count Egmont, the chief of Philip's 
embassy, came to her and offered to deiend 
her with his life, she bade him hastily 
begone, for she feared the presence of 
foreigners only served to irritate the people. 
That afternoon, therefore, when the dusk 
drew on, they quietly betook themselves 
below bridge, where, in the Pool, some mer- 
chant brigs from Antwerp were waiting to 
go out with the tide, and when the next 
morning dawned, behold the Spanish em- 
bassy was gone ! 

Mary addresses the Citizens of 
London. 

A few hours after Mary's interview with 
Egmont, when the Antwerp ships were 
quickly slipping down the Thames, the 
Queen, composing her face to an aspect of 
great grief and deep dejection, ordered out 
the royal carriage ; and, attended by Bishop 
Gardiner and a troop of soldiers, drove rapidly 
through the streets to the Guildhall to speak 
to the citizens. 

The hall of the city fathers was densely 
crowded ; many had come from motives of 
curiosity, and a few from feelings of pity. But 
boldly she entered the historic edifice, relying 
on her womanly weakness as her strength ; for 
she knew that none would then openly insult 
a woman or take advantage of her. Standing 
on the raised dais at the end of the hall, she 
spoke to them in her rough masculine voice 
that had in it a strange ring of her father's. 

" Certain of our subjects have risen against 
us," said she, "and we are told that the 
cause thereof is our intended marriage with 
ihe Prince of Spain. We have now come to 
confer on the subject, and to hear the ob- 
jections. But we cannot believe that these 
are the only reasons for the rising ; for the 
rebel leader, in answer to our message, has 
demanded the custody of our person, and of 
our Tower of London. We appeal to the 
loyalty of the citizens of our great city to 
preserve us from this insolent rebel who. 



under pretence of opposing our marriage, 
means to subdue the laws to his will, and 
to give scope to rascals to make havoc and 
spoil of your great city. As for our mar- 
riage, we thought that so splendid an alliance 
could not fail to be agreeable to our loyal 
subjects. To us and to our Council it seemed 
to promise great advantage to the common- 
wealth. We only desire to marry for the 
good of the country, for marriage in itself is 
indifferent to us. We will call a parliament, 
and the subject shall be duly considered in 
all its aspects ; and if, after grave delibera- 
tion, it should appear that the Prince of 
Spain is not a fitting consort for us, we 
promise, on our royal word, that we will 
think of him no more." 

This speech was clever, but cunning and 
dishonest. Mary intended to mary Philip of 
Spain at all hazards ; and shortly afterwards 
she told his ambassador that she would sacri- 
fice even her life rather than give him up. 
Her sole object now was to gain time, and 
prevent the junction of the London citizens 
with Wyatt's forces. For this purpose she 
cleverly twisted Wyatt's words, and used 
them against him. News travelled but 
slowly in those days, and the vaguest ac- 
counts of Wyatt's movements had reached 
the citizens. If his only object was to oppose 
the Spanish marriage, well and good ; but 
if, indeed, he was bent on sacking the city, 
and letting loose a number of ruffians to 
plunder and pillage, under pretence of oppos- 
ing the marriage, that was quite another 
thmg, and it would be necessary to keep the 
rebels outside the city gates until such time 
as their exact object was rendered quite 
clear — especially as the Queen now promised 
not to marry except in accordance with her 
subjects' wishes and had sent the Spaniards 
away. Further, there was the spectacle oi 
womanly distress which Mary cleverly ex- 
hibited, and which won the hearts of the 
sympathetic British householders even then 
as it has done many a time since in the jury- 
box ! And this settled the matter. The 
men shouted for the Queen ; and Mary left 
the city feeling more secure than she had 
done for many a day. On the morrow the 
Lord Mayor enrolled twenty-five thousand 
men for the express purpose of defending 
the Queen and capital ; and orders were given 
for the gate on London Bridge to be closed. 
Thus Wyatt's great opportunity was lost, ' 
Had he quickly followed up his first success, 
and arrived close on the heels of the flying 
Duke of Norfolk, he would have found the 
bridge-gate open and all the citizens ready 
to help him. But Mary had gained her first 
important point by winning London to her 
side ; and she accomplished this mainly by 
duplicity and lies. 

Had she but acted honestly in this matter, 



758 



IVYATTS INSURRECTION. 



and refused the Spanish match; had she 
not misrepresented Wyatt's words ; had she 
continued to consult the wishes of her 
subjects, and throw herself on their love ; 
had she but proved herself more of a 
" good Englishwoman " and less of an intol- 
erant bigot, her reign would have been 
peaceful and prosperous, if not briUiant; and 
her name, instead of being branded by the 
dreadful epithet by which she is always 
known, would have passed down to posterity 
as a cherished if not as a proud memory, 
like that of her half-sister, Elizabeth. But it 
was not so ; and pity her as we may, there 
can be no excuse for her deliberate deceit 
and unpatriotic lying in this matter. 

Doubtless many of her hearers thought so 
when, not so very long after they applauded 
her in the Guildhall, they saw the haughty 
Spaniards throng the streets, and marked 
the smoke of fearful martyr fires rise from 
Smithfield Green. 

The Rebels march to London. 

But meantime Wyatt, not finding an an- 
swer foi'thcoming to his demands, marched 
on London. On his way some of his men 
stormed Cowling Castle, the residence of 
Lord Cobham. This appears to have been 
an act of revenge ; for Cobham seems to 
have played fast and loose with them, now 
promising to assi:^t them, and anon turning 
back. About two thousand of the rebels 
blew up the castle gates, pillaged his house, 
and carried him off prisoner to Wyatt. 
This was on the last day of January ; and 
next morning they marched on to Dartford. 
The next day they reached Greenwich, their 
march being entirely unopposed; and, indeed, 
the country people appear to have welcomed 
them everywhere, and bade them " God speed." 

Rendered too confident by his success, 
"Wyatt again waited at Greenwich, uncertain 
whether to cross the river in boats at this 
point and march to the metropolis by way of 
Aldgate and Whitechapel, or to abide by his 
former plan, and advance through Deptford. 
Finally he decided to adopt this course, and 
arrived at Southwark on Saturday afternoon, 
the 3rd of February, to find his farther pro- 
gress across London Bridge barred by the 
closed gates. But more disheartening than 
this was the news which reached him of 
Suffolk's failure. 

How Wyatt's Colleague, the Duke of 
Suffolk, fared. 
As agreed upon with Wyatt, the Duke 
had proceeded to Leicester ; and on the 
morning of Monday the 29th of January, he 
had read a duphcate of Wyatt's proclamation 
in the market-place of that town. He said 
that the leaders of this movement were ready 
to die in the defence of the Queen, and they 



intended her no harm, but that they were 
determined England should not fall under 
foreign dominion. 

The proclamation met with no success. 
The people heard it with complete indif- 
ference, and Suffolk was only able to collect 
a hundred of his own retainers. 
I Undeterred by this failure, however, he 
I marshalled his men, and, clad in full armour, 
I rode out of the town next morning at their 
[ head. His plan was to proceed first to 
! Coventry, where he had friends. These 
i gentlemen had undertaken to open the 
I gates, and promote a rising; and on the 
I previous day he had sent a servant to com- 
i municate with his supporters, and stir up the 
I people. But this servant made a mistake as 
to the person whom he should first address, 
and consequently news of the intended in- 
surrection soon spread, until it reached the 
ears of the Town Councillors. Their action 
was prompt and decisive. The city gates 
wei'e quickly shut, and the city watch was 
placed in complete possession of the streets. 
When therefore Suffolk arrived without the 
walls in the dusk of the next afternoon, it 
was to find the gates fast closed against him, 
and all hope of help from the great War- 
wickshire city completely gone. 

News also now reached him that an 
attempted rising of the garrison at Warwick 
Castle had also failed ; his messengers said 
the whole of the Midlands seemed opposed 
to the insurrection. The popular feeling 
seemed to be that, although the Spanish 
marriage was a national disaster, yetrebellion 
was not the proper plan to pursue in order 
to oppose it. It was clear, therefore, that the 
rising in the Midlands had failed. 

With a heavy heart, Suffolk, ill in body 
and anxious in mind, gave order to his men 
to wheel round, and retreated with his party 
to Astley Park, a small estate belonging to 
him, and distant only a few miles from 
Coventry. There he disbanded his men ; 
and giving them such supplies of money and 
food as he was able, he bade each one shift 
for himself. One of his brothers rode at 
once to the west, meaning to join Sir James 
Crofts ; while Suffolk betook himself first to 
the hovel of one of his retainers, where 
he hid for a while, and then, fancying that 
this was not sufficiently secure refuge, he 
sought shelter in the hollow of a decaying 
tree in the park. Here he remained for two 
terrible days and nights without food. Bitter 
indeed must have been his thoughts as the 
hours dragged slowly by. His schemes had 
all failed miserably. His daughter, Lady 
Jane Grey, was a close prisoner in the Tower, 
and he himself was compelled to hide like a 
common felon. Faint, famishing, and almost 
frozen with the severe cold, he watched the 
I winter sun twice decline to the west, and 

759 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



then, unable to bear his exposure longer, he 
crawled forth to warm his numbed limbs at 
the nearest cottage fire. Here he was dis- 
covered by a party of the royal troops, who 
had been despatched to scour the country 
in search of him, and it is generally believed 
that the man in whose cottage he first took 
shelter betrayed him, and put the troopers 
on his track. 

He was at once conveyed to London ; and 
thus it came about, that while Wyatt was 
waiting outside London Bridge, his colleague, 
upon whose efforts he had counted so much, 
was taken to the Tower. A very different 
journey thither from that he had intended to 
take. He had hoped to go there it is true, 
but as a conqueror, not as a prisoner. 

And the hard features of Mary Tudor 
doubtless lost for a while their grave look of 
deep anxiety, as she learned that her enemies 
were thus one by one putting themselves 
into her power. But Wyatt yet remained 
unconquered, and the hopes of the anti-papal 
party were now centred in him. 

Wyatt's Adventure on London 
Bridge. 

The news of Suffolk's failure seemed only 
to give Wyatt fresh courage, and nerve him 
to still greater efforts. His position was one 
of great peril, and the support he had counted 
upon receiving from the citizens of London 
seemed likely to fail him. Yet no thought of 
turning back appears to have entered his 
mind. Possibly he thought it was as dan- 
gerous to retreat as to go forward. 

His difficulty was to cross the Thames. 
In those days, no other archways spanned the 
river between London Bridge and Kingston. 
And London Bridge was a narrow lane of 
houses, viith a strong gate near the South- 
wafk side, while in the centre was a draw- 
bridge. Wyatt at once saw the difficulty of 
his situation. Having halted his men, he 
gave strict instructions that no plundering 
would be permitted, and then allowed them 
to disperse for a while among the inhabitants 
of the Borough, who received them with great 
cordiality. 

Across the grey water of the river he could 
hear the hum of the excited populace on the 
other side ; and as the dusk drew on, a boat 
stole across, and he learned that a price was 
set on his head. The Queen had proclaimed 
him a traitor, and offere'd a substantial reward 
for his capture. To show how much he 
despised this, he caused his name to be graven 
in large letters, and set them on his helmet. 
Then as dusk deepened into night, he crept 
out alone from his quarters and went down 
to the gate. Peeping in the lodge window he 
saw that the porter and his wife were cosy 
beside their winter fire. He then cHmbed 



over the gate, and crept along till he came 
to the drawbridge. Below flowed the black 
water; across the narrow chasm, standing out 
clearly in the torchlight, he could see the 
muzzles of several cannon; and behind them 
crowds of armed men kept watch and ward. 

It was quite clear that there was no chance 
of obtaining a passage over London Bridge, 
and Wyatt returned the way he came, un- 
decided whether to march to Kingston, or 
return to Deptford and cross by boats. 

The next day occurred the only case of 
pillage. Some of the men being near 
Winchester House, the residence of Bishop 
Gardiner, their dislike to him overcame their 
feehngs of obedience, and, shouting aloud^ 
they burst open the doors and overran the 
house like an overwhelming flood. They not 
only carried off his victuals, of which there 
was plenty, but with unpardonable vandal- 
ism they left not a book in his library 
untorn, so that, says Stow, " men might have 
gone up to their knees in leaves of books, 
cut out and thrown underfoot." But their 
leader was quickly on the spot, and with stern 
voice bade them desist. They were in arms 
against foreign oppression he said, and not 
against their brethren, no matter what might 
be their religious opinions. No harm was 
intended even to Mary herself Let them 
take heed therefore to do no one injury. 

These words produced their effect, and 
there were many citizens across the water 
who began to doubt Mary's plausible words 
at the Guildhall. They found that Wyatt's 
troops were not bent on pillage, as she had 
said they were ; they were behaving them- 
selves quietly, and their leader was not acting 
as the presumptuous rebel she had described 
him. The prisons were not tampered with^^ 
and no undue efforts to obtain soldiers were 
resorted to. Beyond fortifying his position 
by placing a battery of two guns at the 
Southwark end of the bridge, and digging a 
deep trench in front of the guns, and keeping 
his other cannon in readiness, Wyatt did 
nothing. His rebellion seemed indeed more 
like an armed protest against the Spanish 
marriage than an attempt to seize the crown 
and produce lawless anarchy. Therefore 
no attempts were made to engage Wyatt's 
troops, and thus the second night closed in. 

The situation was now becoming most 
alarming; so much sympathy existed for the 
rebels, that none ot Mary's generals could 
trust their troops. Moreover, the attack 
could only be made at considerable dis- 
advantage, and they hesitated before preci- 
pitating the quarrel, and deluging the streets 
with their brothers' blood. Mary was alter- 
nately furious and fearful; but in the main 
her Tudor spirit kept her up, and her 
obstinate resolve to marry Philip never fal- 
tered. " Crown, country, even life itself;, 



760 




iY iO iLXtCUTION, DELLAI ES T H -^ f THE LaDY ElIZ \LL1 H HAD MO Jr'AKT KOR LoT 

IN HIS Insurrection. 
761 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



shall go before I give up the Prince of Spain," 
she said. 

An Ominous Pause. 
For four days did this anomalous state of 
things continue. The capital was in a 
situation of armed suspense. The Council 
were divided, the people were suspicious, and 
Wyatt's cause was slowly gaining ground. 
To this ominous state of things had Mary's 
perversity brought the country, which only six 
months before, had resounded with joy bells 
for her accession. At last, events decided 
themselves, and a slight incident altered the 
whole course of action. Late on Monday 
afternoon, the 5th of February, one of 
Wyatt's sentries seeing a boat belonging to. 
the Tower pass up the river near the South- 
wark side, challenged it, and receiving no 
ansv/er, he fired, and killed one of the water- 
men. Next morning Sir John Brydges, the 
governor of the Tower, gave notice, that 
in return he should open fire upon the 
rebels. In alarm the people of South wark 
crowded round Wyatt, beseeching him either 
to protect them from the bombardment or to 
flee. Wyatt, half beside himself with agita- 
tion and indecision, resolved to march to ] 
Kingston Biidge, and endeavour to force his 
way across. Had he been able to have 
remained quietly at Southwark, most likely 
be would have been ultimately successful, for 
the popular feeling was steadily rising in Ins 
favour. But he was obliged to take decided 
action, and, unfortunately for himself, he took 
that which ended in his ruin. 

His army seems to have sadly dwindled 
down, and chronicles of the period stale that 
only fifteen hundred men followed him out 
of Southwark. His feelings of keen dis- 
appointment may well be imagined from a 
conversation he is reported to have held 
with one, Master Dorell, a merchant from 
London, whom he met on his way to the 
west. "Ah ! good Master Dorell," said he, 
" I pray you commend me unto your citizens; 
and say unto them from me, that when liberty 
was offered them they would not receive it; 
neither would they admit me within their gates, 
who for their freedom and for rescuing them 
from the oppression offoreigners would frankly 
spend my blood in this cause and quarrel." 

The rebels reached Kingston at dusk, and 
found half the bridge broken down, and a 
strong guard posted on the opposite side. 
Without any delay Wyatt loaded his cannon 
and sent shot after shot through the twi- 
light among his opponents. These doughty 
warriors, not liking this state of things, 
speedily decamped, and Wyatt set to work 
to repair the broken bridge. This was 
quickly done by means of barges, and before 
midnight the little army had crossed and 
were marching back towards the town. 

76 



As they tramped along, we imagine that 
every one of those men must have, to an 
extent, regretted their adventure. The 
weather was very cold, the keen winter 
blast cut their faces like whip-cord, and the 
roads were ankle-deep in thick mud ; weary 
and footsore, with sadly diminished numbers, 
their project of taking London with scarce 
more than a thousand men seemed the 
wildest scheme that ever entered the mind of 
man. Had it not been that they expected 
support from the citizens within the gates, 
they would surely never have inarched on. 

Through the thick night the rebels struggled 
slowly onwards to London. Most of the Kentish 
men had returned home, and ihose who now 
composed the troops were disalTected persons 
from various parts of the country, including 
the city-band who had gone over to Wyatt 
at Rochester. They had cannon with them ; 
and the heavy pieces of ordnance proved a 
terrible hindrance to the celerity of their 
movements ; once, near Brentford, one of the 
guns was fixed firmly in the mud, and much 
precious time — nearly two hours — was lost in 
extricating it. 

Preparations to resist the Rebels. 

The news of Wyatt's coming preceded him, 
and shortly after midnight the alarm was 
given at the Oucen's I-'-i'ace that Wyatt was 
near. Instantly drummrs were sent down 
the dark and silent streets of the slumbering 
city, and by four o'clock in the morning the 
alarum had been beaten all round the town, 
the train-bands had been aroused, and Pem- 
broke, with ten thousand men, was posted at 
Charing Cross ; and near Hyde Park Corner, 
which had then recently become the property 
of the Crown, was placed a strong body of 
cavalry, upon whose loyalty Mary could rely. 

These preparations being complete, the 
troops waited quietly through the stormy 
dawn for Wyatt's appearance. The morning 
gradually grew lighter, but still he did not 
come ; when at last, towards ten o'clock, the 
v/eary watchers on the top of the hill above 
Kniyhtsbiidge saw the advance guard of 
the rebel forces straggling feebly along by the 
open fields. It was clear that they were greatly 
exhausted by their tiring night march, and 
faint for want of food. The royal troops 
waited until about half had passed, then 
dashing down the lane by Hyde Park, they 
cut the rebels completely in two, and those 
who were lagging behind were either scattered 
or slain. Wyatt, believing that his friends in 
the city would welcome him at Temple Bar, 
pressed forward along what is now Piccadilly. 
A small battery had been placed at the point 
which is now the top of St. James's Street ; 
and as Wyatt appeared, the guns opened fire, 
and a few of his men fell ; but undaunted, he 



WVATTS INSURRECTION. 



pressed forward, and swerving to the right so 
that the great mass of his opponents were on 
his left, he made a short cut toward Charing 
Cross. 

Part of his band, led by Knyvett and the 
sons of Lord Cobham, struck across the 
Green Park, which had then been but re- 
cently enclosed, meaning to attack the 
Queen's palace from the west, while Wyatt 
engaged the guards on the opposite side. 

Until the rebel leader drew near Charing 
Cross, not a blow was struck against him. 
The citizens marshalled along the way let him 
pass, and it was not until he reached what is 
now Trafalgar Square, when he met Sir John 
Gage and part of the Queen's Guard, that a 
sword was drawn to oppose his progress. 
But here the vain and weak-minded Cour- 
tenay, — who was a source of weakness on 
whichever side he elected to stand,— annoyed 
at being put under Pembroke, and perhaps 
ashamed to actually appear in arms against 
the very party he had possibly helped to 
raise, or perhaps acting from a definite plan 
of treachery, turned his horse and hastened 
to Whitehall, crying, " Lost ! lost ! all is over ! 
Wyatt has conquered ! " 

Some of the soldiers followed him, believing 
what he said to be true ; and others, not 
liking Wyatt's determined attitude, broke 
their ranks also. They hurried to the Palace, 
and meeting the men led by Knyvett and 
the Cobhams at the entrance, were some of 
them slain and others knocked over. Their 
leader himself was rolled in the mud, so great 
v/as the onslaught of the rebels. Others 
rushed through the palace galleries crying 
aloud that Pembroke and their other leaders 
had betrayed them. 

Shouts of " Treason ! Treason ! " and 
" Lost ! lost ! all is lost ! " rang alarmingly 
through the Palace. Mary, who had watched 
the whole proceedings from her palace win- 
dows, cried aloud, " I myself will fight and 
die with those who die for me ! " It was the 
crucial moment of the insurrection, and she 
knew it. If the Londoners sympathised with 
the rebels, as they seemed inclined to do, 
Mary would indeed have lost both crown 
and husband. But at this moment a strong 
company of archers, who had been sent by 
Pembroke to protect the Palace, made their 
appearance, and their clouds of arrows did 
great damage in the rebel ranks. A sharp 
fight followed, in which Knyvett's party were 
dispersed, though he himself, with the sons 
of Lord Cobham, managed to cut their way 
through and joined Wyatt. 

Meanwhile the rebel leader was riding along 
the Strand ; he had heard the noise of the 
battle, and hurried on still faster to enter 
Ludgate before it should be closed, and join 
those within the city who had promised their 
help. The men still divided their ranks to 



let him pass, and hope rose high in his 
heart as from along Fleet Street he could see 
the gate open on Ludgate Hill ; his progress 
was still unopposed, and, spurring their tired 
horses, the rebels hastened forward. But 
when within a few yards of it, to their keen 
disappointment and indignation, they saw 
the gate shut in their faces ! Lord Howard of 
Effingham and a party of men had just arrived, 
and, amid the murmurs of the bystanders, 
they just closed the gate in time, and, in 
spite of all opposition, they meant to keep 
it fast. Wyatt still rode on, and knocked 
for admittance ; but Lord William's angry 
voice replied, " Begone traitor ! thou shalt 
not enter here ! " 

Wyatt's reply was the sad and melancholy 
answer of a brave man who felt keenly the 
faithlessness of those upon whom he had 
relied, — " I have kept touch," he said, which 
in the English of to-day we may suppose to 
mean, " I have done my part, and fulfilled my 
share of the bargain ; I can do no more." 
And then, wearied and exhausted, he sank 
on a seat near the Belle Sauvage Inn, and 
waited the course of events. 

Wyatt's Last Fight. 

Along the Strand sounded the shouts of 
Pembroke's victorious troops. " Down with 
the draggle-tails ! " they cried, alluding in 
derision to the clothes of Wyatt's wearied 
troopers, which had been soiled by the mud 
and dirt of their midnight tramp. The men 
who had followed him thus far, seeing now 
how hopeless the struggle had become, betook 
themselves to the narrow lanes and streets 
on either side, and in a few moments Wyatt's 
force had vanished like the morning mist 
before the sun, scarce a score or so remaining 
round their leader. 

In a minute more, up came Knyvett with 
the poor remnant of his men, and, seeing 
that to remain outside Ludgate would be 
instant death, the little band resolved to turn 
back by the path they had come, hoping to 
cut their way through any opposition, and 
that the city train-bands would let them pass 
as before. They were successful until th^iy 
reached the Temple, for the men were des- 
perate, and they quickly disposed of such 
opposition as they met with. But Pembroke's 
cavalry, having dispersed the half of the 
rebels they had cut off at Hyde Park, were 
now riding up, and although Wyatt and his 
friends charged them with a dauntless cou- 
rage which deserved success, they were soon 
overpowered. 

Clarenceux, one of the Queen's heralds, 
rode up to Wyatt and persuaded him to 
yield, saying, " Sir, the day has gone against 
you ; it were best to yield, and not surcharge 
yourself with the blood of your brave followers. 

763 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



Sir Maurice Berkeley was near, and to him 
Wyatt surrendered his broken sword. Berke- 
ley took him up on his own horse and 
galloped rapidly to Westminster. Knyvett, 
Brett, and the Cobhams, were also taken 
back to Westminster. At Whittehall stairs 
they were placed in a barge and conveyed to 
the Tower, Mary, still at her window in the 
palace, seeing them go. 

Brave Wyatt ! we pity him as we see him 
pass along the silent highway to his prison 
and his doom. He had "kept touch;" he 
had done what he could ; he had done all a 
brave man dared do to preserve England 
from that 
which he held 
tobe a national 
disgrace and a 
national dis- 
aster, and this 
was the end ! 
Perchance as 
he stepped into 
the .boat, he 
caught a 
gli mps e of 
Mary's exul- 
tant, spiteful, 
and hard-fea- 
tured face as 
she saw her 
captives within 
her grip. For 
himself, he 
knew what he 
might expect 
— a short shrift 
and the heads- 
man's block ; 
but for his 
loved England 
to be at the 
mercy of a 
bigoted Span- 
iard, — this was 
the bitter 
thought that 
burned within 
the patriot's 
soul ; forWyatt was a patriot, though possibly 
a mistaken one. He acted as he thought for 
the best. His purpose was honest, and his 
designs were sincere. Had his confederates 
resembled him in his bravery and disin- 
terested earnestness, — had they supported 
him as they led him to expect they would, — 
had he not hastened when he should have 
waited, and waited when he should have 
hastened, — had he even retrieved his errors 
by leaving his dismounted gun at Brentford, 
and thus arrived in town two hours earlier, 
before Pembroke had had time to make 
his preparations, — had he been even a few 
minutes before Ludgate was closed, though 




his friends in the city should have seen that 
it was not closed, he might have been suc- 
cessful, and Philip of Spain would revjr have 
come to England, and possibly the Protestant 
martyrs would never have been burned. 

But Wyatt's attempt had failed, and the 
Queen's party was triumphant all along the 
line. Shortly afterwards Sir James Crofts was 
captured in Wales, and thus all the insurgent 
leaders were either in prison or in exile. 

Queen Mary's Bitter Revenge. 
And now Mary, having obtained a signal 
victory, began to show her vengeance. Her 

temper was 
aroused and 
she meant 
to make short 
work of her 
opponents. 

The next day 
a proclamation 
was circulated 
thro ughout 
London, to the 
effect that all 
persons who 
sheltered any 
of the insur- 
gents would at 
once be put to 
death. The 
rebels were 
given up in 
scores, and all 
theprisonsand 
churches were 
speedily filled. 
Every one who 
had taken part 
in the rebellion 
against the 
Prince of 
Spain was to 
be hung; every 
one, indeed, 
who could by 
any chance be 
thought to op- 
pose the Queen's wishes was to suffer. 
Courtenay, Elizabeth, and even the gentle 
Lady Jane Grey, who had taken no part 
whatever in this rebellion, — all were to die ! 
Renard and h is Spanish master had triumphed, 
England nowwould beunder their thumb,and 
joyously the wily ambassador wrote home the 
news. All along he had been urging Mary to 
deeds of cruelty, and now she listened to him. 
A few months previously. Lady Jane Grey 
and her husband, Lord Guildford Dudley, had 
been convicted of high treason, and although 
they had nothing whatever to do with this 
last trouble, yet she was a descendant of 
Henry VH., and her father, with others, had 



764 



WYATT'S INSUREECTION. 



called her queen for nine days, so the sooner 
she and her husband suffered death the better 
now. On the very day after her victory, Mary 
signed the warrant for their execution, and 
they were beheaded on the I2th of February. 

The same gloomy day saw Courtenay con- 
veyed to the Tower ; and Commissioners 
having been appointed to try by martial law 
the wretched prisoners with which the jails 
were crowded, the terrible slaughter com- 
menced. Gibbets were erected all over the 
city, and in nearly every street a ghastly 
corpse swayed horribly to and fro in the dull 
February twilight. 

According to 
the old his- 
torian Stow, 
no less than 
eighty men 
were thus gib- 
beted on the 
first day, while 
twe n t y- two 
were sent into 
Kent to suffer. 
Others fol- 
lowed on suc- 
ceeding days, 
sothatbetween 
the 7th of Feb- 
ruary and the 
12th of March 
four hundred 
" common 
men " were ex- 
ecuted and 
many others 
afterwards. By 
these severe 
measures Mary 
hoped to strike 
terror into the 
hearts of her 
people. 

The leaders 
were — most of 
them — pre- 
sumably re- I 

servedformore 

important trials by jury, but in fact, to extort 
confessions from them which should incrimi- 
nate Elizabeth, Renard — or the Emperor, 
Philip's father, through him — seemed bent 
on procuring her death, and also Courtenay's. 
Until they were decapitated, Mary could never 
rest secure on her throne, they urged. But the 
Lords forming the Queen's Council insisted 
most pertinaciously upon the due observance 
of all forms of law, and, indeed, were most 
bitterly opposed to even the imprisonment of 
Elizabeth in the Tower. She was the next heir 
to the throne, and was not to be thus hghtly 
accused to gratify the present sovereign's 
ill-feeling. For a few months Elizabeth had 



resided at her home at Ashridge in Bucking- 
hamshire; and although it was surmised that 
suggestions had been made that she should 
allow the insurgents to act in her name, yet 
her acceptance of such suggestions could 
not be in the slightest degree proved. 

Nevertheless, immediately upon the dis- 
comfiture of the insurrectionists, Mary sent 
a troop of horse to conduct her half-sister to 
Loiidon. The instructions were to bring her 
alive or dead. She was reported to be ill, and 
Mary sent the Court physicians to see if her 
illness were real or feigned ; and if real to 
tend her, and cause her to be comfortably 

moved when 




^5= I SO 



Philip of Spain (^ from a painting ly Tiliaii). 



out of danger. 
The soldiers 
reached Ash- 
ridge at night, 
after the Prin- 
cess had re- 
tired to rest ; 
and being de- 
nied an inter- 
v i e w, they 
forced their 
way into her 
bed chamber. 
" Is the haste 
great that 
you could not 
have waited 
until morn- 
ing?" she said 
leebly, as they 
ranged them- 
selves in her 
room. 

She was un- 
mistakably so 
ill . that the 
rough troopers 
seemed asham- 
ed of their 
orders, and an- 
swered that 
" they were 
sorry to see her 
in so bad a 
case ; " to which she replied with a quiet 
touch of humour, " And I am not glad to 
see you here at this time of night." 

Elizabeth became worse, and she was un- 
able to bear the journey until the i8th, when 
they set out in obedience to the Queen's 
commands, and proceeded by easy stages to 
London. The first day she travelled_ no 
farther than Redbourne ; on the second night 
she rested at Sir Ralph Roulett's house at 
St. Albans ; the third night she slept at the 
house of a Mr. Dodd at Mimms ; and on the 
fourth she stayed at Highgate, proceeding to 
Westminster by way of Smithfield and Fleet 
Street. Meantime the trials and gibbetings 



76s 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HISTORY. 



hcd been continued, but of the more illustrious 
prisoners, only Suffolk had at present sufifered. 
He was sentenced on the 17th of the month, 
and executed on the 23rd, — repentant, it is 
said, for his share in the insurrection, but as 
firm in his Protestant faith as his unfortu- 
nate daughter, Lady Jane Grey, had been 
before him. 

Elizabeth enters London. 

1 1 was on the day of Suffolk's death Eliza- 
beth reached London. Well might she look 
around with horror and dismay. The 
streets were ghastly with gibbets, and every 
public building was covered with the heads 
of England's bravest sons. The people, sub- 
dued, sullen, and silent, moved about with 
stealthy tread and suspicious aspect, as if 
dreading what might next occur ; and though 
crowds followed Elizabeth to the Palace at 
Westminster, few, if any, dared to cheer her. 

To give the lie to all lying reports about 
her, the haughty Princess ordered her litter 
to be opened that all could see her as she 
passed. 

She was dressed in white, and her pale, 
proud features, worn by sickness, bespoke 
the pity of the bystanders. When she 
arrived at Westminster, she desired to see 
the Queen; but Mary refused her request, 
and commanded her to be confined in a 
small suite of rooms in a remote corner of 
the Palace, where, strictly guarded, she re- 
mained until a confession — true or false 
it mattered little — implicating her could be 
wrung from Wyatt or his colleagues. 

But the confession never came; for in all 
probabiHty Elizabeth was far too shrewd to 
have done anything which could be proved 
against her. It is not too much to assume 
that a Princess, who in after years exhibited 
such powers oi finesse, would, in the difficult 
position in which she was now placed, have 
managed to take care of herself. 

Wyatt made a few vague admissions, 
which, however, could only be twisted into 
definite charges by the most bloodthirsty 
partisans. No doubt Mary would have 
sacrificed her on the slightest pretext, if for 
no other reason than that she was "Boleyn's 
daughter ; "but the Lords of Mary's Council 
would have none of this. They insisted on 
the plainest proof, and would not allow 
her even to be committed to the Tower for 
"safety." 

Affairs were in this critical condition 
when, the rebellion being over, the Emperor's 
ambassadors, Counts Egmont and Horn, ar- 
rived to hasten forward the marriage, and to 
press for the execution of Elizabeth. While 
her head remained on her shoulders, they 
said, Mary was never safe. They also 
brought over large supplies of Spanish gold, 
which were judiciously distributed among 



influential gentlemen of the Court and 
Council, and all outward opposition to the 
Spanish marriage by the Council was with- 
drawn. On the 6th of March, Mary was 
formally betrothed, Egmont acting as Philip's 
representative. But the country was far 
from being satisfied, and every day fresh 
indications came that the people were still 
opposed to Philip as the Queen's husband ; 
in London especially the insurrectionary 
spirit continued vigorous. The people, how- 
ever, made no further attempt at organized 
insurrection, for the chief opponents of Philip 
sided too much with France, and they feared 
a French occupation even more than the 
Spanish marriage. 

As the time drew near for Philip to land, 
it was said that French cruisers swept the 
seas wherever his vessels would be likely to 
sail; and many sympathisers with Wyatt 
having passed over to Paris, it was rumoured 
that another insurrection was hatching there: 
whether this was the case or not, it came to 
nothing, and Mary and her evil counsellors 
were left free to pursue their course. 

Wyatt was pressed to confess that 
Elizabeth was deeply implicated in the 
rebellion, and flattered with hopes of pardon 
if he would make such a statement. Lady 
Wyatt was also urged to entreat her husband 
to make such confession, but all to no 
purpose. The brave man said nothing 
which could clear the way for the Court to 
proceed against the Princess. It appears 
that he did give evidence against Elizabeth 
to some extent, but not nearly sufficieo for 
the Crown to demand her execution. 

Wyatt proving obdurate, his trial was 
fixed for the 15th of March. It was brief, 
and to the point. The evidence against him 
was clear and decisive, and he pleaded 
guilty to the indictment. But he said that 
Courtenay had instigated the plot, and that 
Elizabeth had thanked him for his efforts. 
He was speedily condemned to death ; and 
was privately given to understand, that he 
might still be pardoned, if he would 
incriminate Elizabeth. 

On the day after his trial, the Princess was 
brought belore the Council, and severely 
cross-questioned. The result was, that 
Bishop Gardiner demanded her imprisonment 
in the Tower. Several of the Lords de- 
murred to this ; whereuDon the wily Bishop 
cunningly asked which of them would be 
responsible for her safe keeping and safe 
conduct. No one being prepared to accept 
so great a responsibility, a reluctant consent 
was at last wrung from them ; and next 
morning — the 17th of March — Lord Sussex 
and the Marquis of Winchester waited upon 
her to take her to the Tower in a barge. They 
could not trust the people to convey her by 
land. 



766 



/ F VA TTS INSURRECTl ON. 



The summons came upon the Princess quite 
suddenly, and at the dreadful news, Elizabeth 
stood aghast, as if turned to stone. For the 
moment she lost her self-command. It was at 
the Tower that her mother had been beheaded, 
and that Lady Jane Grey had recently fallen. 
Those who entered its terrible walls rarely 
came out again, except to take that journey 
from whence no traveller returns ; and to her 
the words sounded like a knell. At last that 
which she had feared so long had suddenly 
come. The inveterate hatred of her half- 
sister was to have its way at last. 

Then the Princess begged for a little delay 
while she wrote to the Queen. Her im- 
prisonment was Gardiner's and Renard's 
doing, it could not be Mary's alone. So she 
sat down and wrote her letter, pleading that 
she should not be condemned unheard and 
without clear proof, and stating and restating 
her complete innocence. As for the letter 
the " traitor Wyatt " was reported to have 
sent to her she denied receiving it, or having 
sent any letter to the French King. 

The letter was taken to Mary, but had no 
effect upon her stony heart. It only irritated 
her the more ; and Lord Sussex was sharply 
rated for presuming to allow Elizabeth to 
write it. " Boleyn's daughter" was therefore 
taken to the Tower ; and at last Mary began 
to hope that her troubles were over. Philip 
would come soon now, and then a heaven 
upon earth would begin for her. 

Execution of Wyatt. 

Every effort having failed to cause Wyatt 
to make a confession seriously implicating 
Elizabeth, it was determined to execute him. 
Day after day executions of prisoners con- 
nected with the rebellion had taken place, until 
the country was sickened with the slaughter , 
and even Mary's earnest supporters began 
to counsel moderation, and to urge that 
her policy of vengeance should be stopped. 
Parliament had met on the 2nd of April, and 
had passed the Marriage Bill. Philip was 
certainly coming, and the match was now as 
certain as anything mortal could be. Why 
then should the gibbeting of poor peasants 
continue, whose only crime had been that 
they had done as their lords required them? 
The representation of the Council had some 
effect ; and it was decided to execute the 
leaders, and to leave the rest. 

On the nth of April, therefore, Wyatt was 
brought from his cell, and confronted with 
Courtenay ; but the words which passed at 
the interview are so differently reported by 
conflicting accounts, that it is literally im- 
possible to tell what really was said. But 
when he came upon the platform he ad- 
dressed the people in loud tones, and said 
distinctly that the Lady Elizabeth had no 
part nor lot in his rebellion. 



767 



" I assure you, good people," said he, 
" that neither the Lady Elizabeth nor my 
Lord Courtenay were privy to my rising or 
commotion before I began." To which, 
one who was attending him on the scaffold 
replied in loud voice, — "Beheve him not, 
good people, he has confessed otherwise 
before the Council !" 

And Wyatt again cried, — " That which I 
say now is true." 

Then commending his spirit to Him who 
gave it, the brave man laid his head on the 
block, and in a few moments was no more. 
Whether his last words, completely excul- 
pating Elizabeth and Courtenay were ab- 
solutely true or not, they had the desired 
effect ; for no sooner was Wyatt beheaded 
than his confession was the talk of the town. 
The tribunals declared that there was ab- 
.solutely no evidence against Elizabeth; and 
the feeling of the people was such that it was 
simply impossible for Mary to procure a 
death-sentence against her sister. 

It is very likely that Wyatt's words were 
true in spirit if not in literal fact ; for although 
Elizabeth would no doubt have been quite 
content to profit by the insurrection had it 
been successful, yet it is very probable she 
neither instigated nor aided it. As for 
Courtenay, he was but a weak fool, who was 
only told as much as was thought absolutely 
necessary, and very likely knew but little of 
the plot, otherwise the wily Gardiner would 
have drawn from him more than he did. 

But it is of little moment now to discuss 
the actual guilt of these persons, except 
to point out the fact that by his confession 
Wyatt probably preserved to the nation the 
Princess, who afterwards became "Good 
Queen Bess." Perhaps as he mounted the 
scaffold, and the affairs of earth began to 
fade from his view, he had a glimpse of 
what might be the effect of his words ; and 
rather than purchase life at the cost of im- 
plicating Elizabeth he would die at once, 
and preserve her to the nation. Even the 
sight of the dreadful block and the heads- 
man's axe could not alter his resolve. 

It being impossible to commit Elizabeth, 
she was removed from the Tower on the 19th 
of May, and conveyed to Woodstock, where 
she was kept in confinement for a long period. 
This was the utmost that the feeling of the 
people would permit. Courtenay was first 
sent to Fotheringay Castle, and finally sent to 
Germany, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, who 
had been associated with the Carews, was 
tried on the 17th of April, and by reason of 
the boldness with which he defended himself, 
the jury found him " Not Guilty," — for which 
they were imprisoned and heavily fined ! The 
jury no doubt intended this verdict as a 
rebuke against the cruelty with which the 
insurrectionists were punished. As such Mary 



EPOCHS AND EPISODES OF HlSlORY. 



felt it. She kept her room for three days, 
being ill with inortitication or ill-temper, — 
perhaps both. 

Philip comes at last ! 

All obstacles being now removed, the final 
arrangements were made for the reception of 
the royal bridegroom. He came reluctantly, 
for he was not in love either with the lady 
cr the land over which she ruled. Never- 
theless he came at the bidding of his father, 
and because he believed in the political 
advantages to be derived from the marriage. 
Early in July he set sail, accompanied by a 
fleet of a hundred and fifty vessels, which 
brought over a force of six thousand soldiers 
as escort. At Mary's own request, he also 
brought over his own cook, for fear of being 
poisoned — so great was the dislike even now 
entertained to the marriage ; and under his 
doublet he wore a shirt of mail. Truly these 
were merry arrangements for a joyful bride- 
groom to make ! The marriage must have 
been very delightful to him ! 

The voyage was long and bad, and the 
Prince suffered horribly from sea-sickness. 
But at length, on the 19th of July, he arrived 
at Southampton, and learned that the Queen 
was waiting for him at Winchester. As soon 
as the vessel dropped anchor within sight of 
the town, a royal barge, in which were many 
of the English nobility, approached ; and 
Philip was rowed to land. The weather 
was still bad, and, completely exhausted 
by the voyage, he waited for three days at 
Southampton before proceeding to Winches- 
ter. Each morning as his lattice was opened, 
his eyes met the cheerful view of the steady 
downpour with which we are still familiar on 
some of the days of our English July. This 
did not tend to raise his royal spirits ; and 
used as he was to sunny Spain, he must have 
thought he had indeed come to an unpleasant 
country. Nevertheless, he conducted himself 
with the most scrupulous politeness. The 
rain continued for some days ; and it was 
in the midst of a storm of wind and wet 
that, on the 23rd, he rode to Winchester. 
Arrived there, he proceeded at once to the 
cathedral, to pray at the altar and bow 
before the holy wafer, no doubt asking 
blessings upon his marriage. Then, when 
the watery twilight had sunk into the 
darkness of a wet summer night, he was 
conducted into the presence of his elderly 



bride, who was- staying close by at the 
Bishop's palace, and doubtless awaiting his 
coming with anxious delight. And so at 
length the so-called lovers met 1 

Two days afterwards, en the 25 h, the 
marriage was solemnized with great splen- 
dour in the cathedral, by Garduier, Bishop 
of Winchester. And thus th^ Spanish mar- 
riage, upon which Mary had fi ced her heart 
with such pertinacity, and for which she had 
poured out the blood of her subjects like 
water, became an accomplished fact. 

Unhappy queen ! She soon found that 
this marriage, which she hoped would open 
to her the gates of an earthly paradise, only 
brought her more unhappiness, even as many 
of her warmest supporters had feared that it 
would. The people at Court seemed pene- 
trated with a gloomy distrust, and the people 
in the country were sullen and suspicious. 
Philip's cold and reserved manners were 
repugnant to the English nobles, and their 
dislike to the marriage grew. Moreover it 
was soon shown that, notwithstanding his 
influence in the coming of Cardinal Po'e 
and the reconciliation of England with 
Rome, Philip was to have little or no real 
power in the govei-nment of the country. 
The Parliament, slavish though it was, would 
not consent to his being crowned King of 
England ; and though he scattered his gold 
withalavish hand, he still remained obnoxious 
to the people. After a few short but eventful 
months, he returned to Spain, and but seldom 
visited England again. 

So ends the story of Wyatt's insurrection 
and Mary Tudor's marriage, and it throws a 
strong light upon subsequent events in 
English history. Disappointed at her wedded 
unhappiness, Mary doubtless regarded her 
misery as a punishment of heaven for the 
heresy within her realm, and she burned all 
the more martyrs to appease the wrath of an 
offended God. But her first fault, and, per- 
haps, in some respects one of her greatest, was 
when she deliberately broke faith with her 
people in this matter of the Spanish mar- 
riage. She then commenced that course of 
alienation from her subjects which, in a few 
months, changed her from one of the most 
popular to one of the most execrated, if not 
the most execrated, of English sovereigns ; 
and her name now comes down to us cursed 
with a terrible epithet, which will cling to it 
for all time. •. F. M. H. 



Tee End. 



Lt Mr '08 



^' Written on mt original, but attractive plan . . . extractijtg and present- 
ing to the reader in a condensed though telling for7n, the gems of history^ 

Chicago Tribune. 

EPOCHS AND EPiis OF HISTORY: 

A BOOK OF 

Memorable Days and Notable Events. 

FULLY ILLUSTRATED. 

nPHIS Work will consist of a number of Narrative Sketches, each complete in itself, setting forth in a 
' popular form those important events in the History of Nations by which the various periods are 
defined and characterized, or which are important links connecting one period with another. While 
Battles, Sieges, and warlike operations generally will be duly recorded, just prominence will be "-iven 
to those peaceful triumphs of Invention and Discovery, of Statesmanship and organizing genius, that 
have contributed, equally with the noisiei events of Military and Naval Warfare, to influence the destin\' 
of nations and define the character of various periods. The range of subjects necessarily extends to all 
ages and countries. Each separate event will be treated completely in connection with its causes and 
consequences ; the object being to present a number of pictures and striking scenes, which, interesting 
and instructive when viewed apart from each other, will, wlien grouped together, give a general idea of 
the nature and character of the different aspects exhibited by the nations at various'periods, as the 
course of the \iorld's history rolls onward " down the ringing grooves of change." 




A FEW OF THE SUBJECTS TREATED WILL BE: 

FREE TRADE AND PROTECTION: The Story of the Anti-Corn Law League ; UNIONISTS AND C:ON- 
FEDERATES : The Story of the American Civil War ; THE KNIGHTS TEMPLARS : or, The Times of the Crusaders- 
INDIA S AGONY : The Story of the Mutiny of 1857 ; THE REFORMATION IN ENGLAND ■ The Story of Kn.rlisl,' 
Protestantism; WILKES AND LIBERTY: The Story of a Popular Victory ; THROUGH SLAUGHTER TO ' \ 
•IHRONE: The Story of the Co:tp d' Etat : METHODISM: The Story of a Great Revival; FROM ALMA TO 
SKISASTOPOL: The Story of the Crimean War ; THE SOUTH SEA BUBBLE : The Story of a Speculative Mania • 
WHAT CAME OF A " NO POPERY CRY " : The Story of the Gordon Riots of 1780 • THE ELIZABETHAN -VGE •' 
•J-he Story of a Great Time ; C/ES ARISM IN ROME : The Story of the Fall of the Republic 



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